Chu Zhao, heir to the Duke of Zhenguo’s estate in Great Chu, is notorious in the capital for being a wastrel. He spends his days cockfighting, walking dogs, gambling, and betting on horse races, but beneath his foggy-headed exterior lies a hidden talent for mechanical arts. Then, after being punished with a kneeling vigil in the ancestral hall, he unexpectedly binds to the Wastrel Value System. If he fails to earn 1,000 Wastrel Points within ten days, a “obedience parasite” will be implanted in him, leaving him at someone else’s mercy.
To make matters worse, the emperor suddenly decrees that he must marry Princess Wen Tang of Southern Yue. Chu Zhao has no idea that this seemingly frail princess is not only a master of the southern frontier’s parasitic arts, but also bound to a National Destiny System. Her mission is to steal the Central Plains’ spirit-ore technology through the marriage and save her homeland, which is beset by the red miasma plague.
One must slack off to stay alive; the other must stir up trouble to save her country. Their System missions are natural enemies. From testing each other with parasites and sabotaging each other’s bets at their first meeting, they gradually go from using one another to trusting each other as they foil the chancellor’s scheme to seize the mines and resist the System’s compulsory kill orders.
When the spirit ore’s toxicity comes to light, a palace coup erupts, and the System strikes back, Chu Zhao finally sheds his wastrel disguise and uses his mechanical arts to defend his family and country. Wen Tang, too, breaks free of the System’s control and uses her parasitic arts to help the people. This “most unreliable” married couple must find a path to unity between their two nations amid political intrigues and System traps. But the lingering shadow of the System still lurks in the dark...
