In the fourth year of the Apocalypse, the cold wind was raging in the northern border of Shaanxi. Lu Zhaoyou, the supervisor of the ninth rank of Tianjian, measured the mountains and rivers with a "Longitude and Latitude Universe Plate" and determined to redraw the "Nine Side Map". Lu Zhaoyou thought that maps were a powerful tool for managing the world, but during the survey, he witnessed a violent outburst of refugees and the tragic death of frontier soldiers. He even discovered that the surveying and mapping data he had worked so hard on were just waste paper that the decadent dynasty turned a blind eye to. After returning to Beijing, the indifference of the officialdom, the shady secrets of water transportation, and the blood and tears of the refugees intertwined into a web, dragging him into deeper darkness - the reselling of grain at Tongzhou Wharf led to the minions of the superintendent of ceremonies, the encounter over a bowl of tea soup revealed the background of the White Lotus Sect of the mysterious woman Shisanniang, and the "bait" he cast with his own hands unexpectedly stirred up the secret game between Dongchang and the Jianghu forces.
When the compass of idealism collides with the world of cannibalism, Lu Zhaoyou takes off his scholar's robe and coat, uses the eye of surveying and mapping to gain insight into the latitude and longitude of power, and uses the wisdom of arithmetic to deduce the weirdness of the human heart. He wandered between the intrigues of the court and the grievances of the world, from drawing mountains and rivers to sketching the ghosts and ghosts of people's hearts, only to find that he had become a desperate chess piece outside the chessboard. The wind is filled with blood, and the map is stained with tears. This small official trying to measure the world will eventually use knowledge as a blade to split the dark night shrouding the dynasty in the chaotic chess game of the late Ming Dynasty.
