Chen Fan was a 21st-century office drone who was still fighting for a bowl of malatang yesterday. He woke up to find himself transmigrated to the Qin dynasty with a “history textbook brain” and an ancestral “prophetic jade pendant,” and nearly got beheaded as a spy because of his short hair.
To earn enough to eat in ancient times, he was forced to become Qin Shi Huang’s “spoiler consultant.” He explained the strategy for conquering the six states using “pushing towers in a video game,” helped Li Si sort out his accounts with “spreadsheets,” set a trap for Li Mu by “fabricating evidence,” and even dared to talk to Ying Zheng about “managing his mindset.”
From the bronze cauldrons of Xianyang Palace to the sesame-cake stalls on Chang’an’s streets, from Su Shi’s kitchen making Dongpo pork to Qianlong’s antique appraisal gatherings, he crops up in every dynasty, cracking jokes and stirring up trouble. Afraid of triggering “historical correction penalties,” he dares not change events too much, yet keeps having to improvise whenever he can’t remember the textbook details. Though immortal, he is forever teetering on the brink of losing his head, and somehow manages to pass down the secret signal “Fan” for two thousand years.
When Chen Fan, a 21st-century history teacher, meets a student in class with an ancestral notebook marked with the character “Fan,” he finally realizes that all his meddling over two thousand years has made him the greatest “living history textbook” of all time!
