Doing Social Science in the Great Tang

Using modern social science approaches, such as communication studies, psychology, and management, to dissect Tang society, he takes on old-school masters with “scientific chaos,” creating sharp comedy and food for thought through intense cultural clashes and the blending of ideas.

The protagonist, Lin Zhibai, is 28, a young researcher at a modern social science institute, under pressure to publish or perish. Obsessed with data and models, he firmly believes that anything can be studied through “fieldwork.” He carries a tablet that never runs out of battery, loaded with an offline version of Wikipedia and a library of academic papers.

His transmigration happens by chance: while passionately lecturing a Tang-dynasty “grape-and-sea-beast mirror” at a museum on data modeling theory, he is sucked into a mysterious green light and transmigrates along with the bronze mirror.