Shen Yanqing, a failed scholar, was sent to the border by Princess An to sort out documents, but in fact he was investigating the shocking conspiracy of the military town governor to collude with the East Palace and embezzle military pay. Unable to tie a chicken, he relies on his photographic memory to search for clues to break the game in the files and accounts, dealing with border generals, mysterious internal guards and foreign forces, and gradually grows from a chess piece to a chess player. In the face of assassinations, frame-ups, and border wars, he used pen and ink instead of swords, practiced his ideals as a scholar in the bloody battlefield, and uncovered the truth about power behind layers of fog.
