As the Great Xie dynasty falls apart, Chen Xie, a streetwise fortune-teller, gains the golden finger known as the "Eye of Strategic Calculation." It lets him turn key information into counting rods and use them to work through deductions, predicting events with a probability-based simulation. He begins by helping ordinary people solve problems and improve their lot, gradually attracting the attention of the feudal lords' spies. Drawn into the game as a "deputy strategist," he first helps a weak prince turn the tables on a powerful neighbor, then uses a spy network to stir up the Seven Kingdoms. Finally, with the strategy that "those who seek to rule the realm must not cling to a single city," he lays out a twenty-year game plan amid the chaos, rising from a common-born strategist to the top chancellor of a new dynasty and achieving the ultimate thrill of "deciding the fate of the realm with counting rods."
