A marriage that began with a "calculation", two seemingly "out of tune" souls, unexpectedly lit up the dark corners of the dynasty.
Shen Zhaoning, the daughter of a former machine master, whose family is in decline, clings to the dilapidated workshop left behind by her father, dreams of reviving the family business, but is regarded by the world as a freak who "doesn't do his job properly". Pei Yanzhi, an upstart in the Ministry of Household Affairs, was known as a "calculator" and a "stingy person". He calculated carefully just to make up for the shortfall in the national treasury. In the eyes of the powerful, he was a "smelly" official with no reputation.
An erroneous decree of marriage tied the pair of "laughing stocks in the capital" together. On their wedding night, his abacus beads were crackling, calculating the "cost of getting a wife"; she was immersed in studying the structure of the marriage bed, wondering whether it could be modified into a trap. There is no tenderness, only mutual dislike and a "detailed account of post-marriage expenses."
However, when a shocking case involving arms smuggling comes to light, the two are forced to join forces. He is good at calculations and can smell the smell of conspiracy from the cracks in the accounts; she is clever at changing circumstances and can use ingenious mechanisms to open the door to desperate situations. From the prosperous Kyoto to the crisis-ridden canal canal gangs, from the salt tax mystery in the misty Jiangnan to the windy and sandy northern border, they "unlocked new maps" along the way, using their abacus and ruler to fight corrupt officials, solve puzzles, and quell rebellions.
When laughing and cursing, it is the collision between the abacus beads and the mortise and tenon joints of the mechanism; when life and death are together, it is the sincerity that is born under the consideration of interests. They use the most "tacky" methods (settling accounts, doing handicrafts) and doing the most "unworldly" things (protecting the country and reassuring the people). Between the daily necessities of life, the family, the country, and the world, they have blazed a path to "everlasting light" that belongs to them.
