With chaos looming, Xie Zhao, a ninth-rank clerk in Pingwu County in the seventh year of the Jinghe era under the Great Heng dynasty, fled south with a box of household registers. Bandits stabbed him to death on the road.
When he opened his eyes again, he was back on the morning the layoff list was posted. He had four dan of salary rice in his pocket, a household register in his arms, and his name was at the top of the first round of layoffs. In this life, he saw a golden river. Whenever he came to a crossroads in life, the river split, revealing the fate of the realm along every path for the next thirty years. But divination came at a price: each time he tapped into it, the realm's fortune dimmed a little; one wrong choice could wipe out his entire family. Others rose from humble beginnings, taking one step at a time.
He rose from humble beginnings, facing one crossroads after another. This lowly clerk on the layoff list had to calculate grain, people, soldiers, and the fate of the world. From a ninth-rank clerk, he calculated his way all the way to the dragon throne. You ask what gave him the right? He saw thirty years further ahead than anyone else.
