[History + System + Frail Strategist + Bond Between Two Male Leads + Political Intrigue and Wits]
After a lab explosion, Su Ling opens his eyes to find himself in a side courtyard of the Qin chancellor's residence in 247 BCE.
He's had a high fever for three days, and no one has come to check on him. The System coldly counts down: survive for seventy-two hours and earn a pinyin alphabet.
From the start, he has the body of a consumptive and the identity of a deceased acquaintance's son, living off scraps under Lü Buwei. His father once saved King Zhuangxiang of Qin, but that favor is worth little more than a straw mat now.
Lü Buwei wields power across the court and can't be bothered to look his way. The steward skims his food and medicine, and the kitchen gives him less porridge with every passing day. Lao Ai even has spies in the residence, watching every new face.
To survive, he first has to establish himself.
He recites Qin law to shut the steward up. He endures his fever by wiping himself down with cold water. He crouches in the rundown courtyard, eavesdropping, and learns the layout of the chancellor's residence inside and out.
Then he sees the boy.
Thirteen-year-old Ying Zheng, not yet ruling in his own right and not yet emperor. With cold, solitary eyes, he stands at the end of the palace corridor and asks, “Are you the sick man who submitted those punctuation marks?”
From that moment, Su Ling knows: this goddamn mess of a start is going to work out.
Punctuation, the curved-shaft plow, blast-furnace ironmaking, movable-type printing... Modern knowledge gives him an overwhelming advantage in this era. Li Si competes with him, Zhao Gao plots in secret, and the remnants of the Six States hate him to the core. Dragging his frail body, which coughs up blood at the slightest provocation, he forces the Qin chariot onto a different track.
“Your Majesty, unifying the Six States is only the beginning.”
He unfurls a map of the world and traces a path from Xianyang through the Western Regions, Central Asia, and Rome, all the way to the stars and the seas.
“Wherever the sun and moon shine, it shall all be Qin territory.”
