[For poor-born youths seeking a comeback, the imperial examinations aren’t the only path! See how a genius inventor and a level-headed young girl who manages the household build the strongest “slash” tradition through “unprofitable pursuits”!]
Childhood friends Chen Yan and Lin Mo have a home stripped bare. He’s an eccentric genius inventor, and she’s a calm girl with a photographic memory. To save his sick mother, the two are forced to leave home and make money along the way through cons and schemes (crossed out)... with courage and brains. On the road, they pick up a retired army cook who can only make food, a down-on-his-luck actor who’s a drama queen through and through, and a pedantic old scholar who speaks in nothing but classical quotations. This group of seemingly hopeless good-for-nothings comes up with an outlandish idea amid their chaotic daily lives: to found an unprecedented new tradition, the Way of Ten Thousand Forms! Investigate things and extend knowledge; let all things be your teachers. Mechanical ingenuity, commerce, agricultural improvements, control of public opinion... every skill in the world can be a “Way”! They win people over with delicious food, overturn expectations with magic tricks, and resolve crises with clever plans. In their seemingly ridiculous fashion, they challenge the authority of the great clans and stir the world into turmoil, step by step. But on the road to building their enterprise, childhood friends find themselves caught between love and torment as buried secrets and jealousy roil beneath the surface. Meanwhile, jealousy and suppression from talented scions of the great clans dog their every step, and old wounds buried deep within each of them still need healing. This is a tearful yet humorous tale of grassroots entrepreneurship, and a passionate story of a group of good-for-nothings warming one another’s hearts as they climb to the summit. Watch as they use wisdom as their brush and optimism as their ink to paint a red-and-black chronicle of the Way, one that belongs to poor-born youths!
