Lu Renjia, an overworked office drone, drops dead one day and awakens in Great Ming as the lowest-ranking eunuch in the Eastern Depot. From the start, he's facing a hellish difficulty level: while on night duty, he witnesses the powerful and volatile Director Cao Zhengchun accidentally smash his beloved glass cup! The hall fills with killing intent. At the critical moment, Lu Renjia has a flash of inspiration and blurts out, “Please calm down, Director! This ‘shattering’ brings ‘peace year after year.’ It’s an auspicious sign from heaven, foretelling that our depot’s might will shake the world!” His flattery sounds impeccably classical, but beneath it lies a desperate pun born of sheer survival instinct.
The director gives him a sinister smile and throws him into a living hell: three days of “reflection” in the imperial prison. Little does Lu Renjia know that this is the beginning of his rise as the ultimate workaholic! In prison, he lectures condemned prisoners on the “blessings” of hitting rock bottom before rising again, and pitches management techniques like “performance reviews” and “clear rewards and punishments” to the jaded jailers. When his three days of “professional development” are over, he not only emerges alive, but with several brainwashed servants and a fanatical performance-metrics disciple, the jailer Zhang Yan, following him! His uncanny reputation for “silver-tongued eloquence” and “turning prisons into gold” soon spreads.
Back at the Eastern Depot, Lu Renjia wraps modern logic in a cloak of mysticism: he presents old files as “insights into Heaven’s secrets,” maps the patterns of criminal movements as a “cosmic diagram,” and turns analysis of political enemies into a “Four Symbols Heart-Reading Strategy.” His colleagues are worked to the bone, while his superiors are astonished by his unprecedented clarity and efficiency. He rises step by step until he is swept into the stormy struggle for the throne. On the night the Crown Prince is deposed, everyone holds their tongues, but Lu Renjia presents Director Cao with a meticulously reasoned, classical-reference-filled “secret strategy,” urging him to “keep the hidden dragon in check and wait for the right moment to ride the winds of fate.” His insight into human nature and unfailing calculations
