During the Tiansheng era, starving Lin Shuo sells himself to pay for his father's burial and enters the household of the wealthy Pei clan in Luoyang.
Here, wealth flows along the Silk Road and through money shops, but lineage and contracts set the rules. As a lowborn bondservant, he is little more than a bead on an abacus, easy to wipe away. Then a business crisis strikes the Pei clan, and while everyone else is at a loss, Lin Shuo draws on his innate talent for mathematics and uncanny insight into human nature to offer a solution that turns the tide.
From then on, he claws a sliver of light out of the mud:
He uses the methods of The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art to straighten out the clan's chaotic accounts, catching the stewards' attention;
He applies streetwise ingenuity to break a deadlock in the business wars, earning the young master's trust;
And eventually, he establishes new rules for “flying cash,” gaining control over the flow of wealth across the region.
He turns stone into gold, single-handedly propelling the Pei clan to its height. But the longer his list of accomplishments grows, the heavier his deed of sale weighs. Reward money cannot buy his freedom, and his master's praise is no more than the appreciation one gives a prized possession.
With Luoyang's prosperity now resting largely in his hands, Lin Shuo finally faces the greatest dilemma of his life: he has created astonishing value, yet remains a slave dependent on that value.
This is a war fought among grand mansions and embroidered screens, with abacuses and human hearts as its weapons. He wants more than wealth and status. He wants to question this age at its roots: Is a person's worth determined by their status, or by everything they create?
