Su Zhe, a PhD in materials science, was electrocuted while staying up late to write his dissertation. When he woke up, he found himself bound hand and foot, about to be thrown into the Wei River by Xu Fu.
After escaping death, he had to face an Emperor Qin Shi Huang who could not obtain immortality, Xu Fu watching him like a hawk, and a court full of civil and military officials waiting to see him make a fool of himself.
He could not make elixirs or perform mystical arts. But he knew the recipe for gunpowder, the principles behind the curved-shaft plow, the formula for cement, and how stirrups and gears worked.
“Your Majesty, I know nothing about immortality. But I know how to keep a few more common folk from starving to death, and a few more soldiers from dying in battle.”
From a sorcerer condemned to drown in the river to the founder of the Academy of Practical Studies; from the gunpowder blast that shook Xianyang Palace to the secret edict during the Dune Coup; from three years of torment in the imperial prison to more than two hundred people risking their lives to break him out...
This is a story about “useful things.”
Those things can save one person, or an entire group. They can change a battle, or an entire era.
Before his death, the First Emperor told him, “I trust you.”
That trust lasted a lifetime.
