Your Majesty, Time to Get Up and Haul Bricks

On the night the underground palace runs out of food, Qin Shi Huang, Ying Zheng, kicks open the stone door and discovers that Xianyang, the city of two thousand years ago, has become a “forest of steel and concrete.”

Clutching a calling card bearing the name “Ying Zheng,” he tries to find a “local official” to offer his allegiance to, but a job broker laughs that he’s “so deep into playing emperor he’s lost his mind,” while his coworkers tease him: “Why not call yourself the First Emperor?” His dragon robe becomes an apron, his imperial jade seal buys him steamed buns, and the survival KPI of the emperor of the ages changes from “unify the realm” to “move 200 bricks today.” Even his name becomes a joke. After repeated setbacks, he finally gives in and lets people call him “Qin Zheng.”

Luckily, he meets Lin Xiaoman, a young migrant worker. When she teaches him how to pay by scanning a code, she laughs and says, “Qin Zheng is a pretty ordinary name. It’s not nearly as strange as you are.” As she takes him through the morning and evening rush hours, she tells him, “In modern society, it doesn’t matter who you used to be. You still have to clock in for work.”

Squatting at the construction site with a boxed lunch, Qin Zheng gazes blankly at the high-rises in the distance. “Back then, I conscripted the people to build the Great Wall. Now I finally understand: all the common people want is a hot meal. Call me Ying Zheng or Qin Zheng, what matters is that I can fill my stomach.”

This is a funny story about an emperor knocked off his pedestal, and an honest reflection of every wage earner’s life. Who isn’t worn down by life one day, only to show up the next and obediently move bricks?