As Wu Zhao, Empress of the Great Zhou, reviews memorials, a line of eerie text suddenly appears in the bronze mirror on her desk: "Welcome to the Chat Group for Emperors Throughout History." The moment she touches it, she becomes the only female ruler in the group. Its members are none other than a host of great emperors, including Qin Shi Huang, Emperor Wu of Han, and Emperor Taizong of Tang.
At first, she assumes it's some sort of sorcerer's illusion. But one offhand remark, "None of you lords can review memorials as quickly as the minor clerks in my Palace Attendants Bureau," sends the group into an uproar. Then she shares details of her imperial examination reforms, points out flaws in the Zhenguan era's governance, and even "accidentally" uploads a recipe for gunpowder to the group files. The course of history begins to veer out of control: the First Emperor abandons his quest for immortality and turns to studying the "upgraded version of the commandery-and-county system" the empress mentioned; Emperor Taizong makes an exception to promote female officials, and Wei Zheng's remonstrance even includes the line, "Your Majesty should learn from the Zhou empress's open-mindedness in accepting advice"...
When Emperor Wu of Han asks the group, "What is women's liberation?" and Emperor Taizu of Song wonders, "Should I conquer Southern Tang first, or follow the Zhou empress's drama?" Wu Zhao gazes at the increasingly chaotic chat logs reflected in the bronze mirror and suddenly realizes that every message she casually types is reshaping centuries of rise and fall. The emperors destined to make their mark in the annals of history are one by one becoming her "online friends," and under her influence, they are forging new paths no one could have predicted. Where will this chat across time ultimately lead the history of China? No one knows.
Good-looking, super good-looking