Transmigrated as Wang Mang's useless illegitimate son, Wang Xiao wants only to survive aboard the sinking ship that is the Xin dynasty.
Unfortunately, his father keeps courting disaster, his brothers stab him in the back, and it looks like he won't survive three episodes.
With no other choice, he decides to go crazy. At the state sacrifice ceremony, he shouts “Fashion!” In front of the assembled officials, he lectures them on the “sharing economy,” turning the solemn court into a live “Western Han Roast Session.”
Everyone thinks he's lost his mind. Even Liu Xiu, history's chosen one, is on guard against him as a “professional fun-seeker.”
Wang Xiao can only shrug and say, “I don't want to be absurd, but they're the ones who take everything I say at face value.”
Many years later, when the Xin dynasty sweeps across the realm in an unprecedentedly bizarre fashion, historians pore over The Great Compendium of Xin Dynasty Humor and ponder: How can every one of the founding emperor's “ravings” turn out, on closer examination, to be a profound lesson in statecraft?
