In 192 AD, outside Chang'an.
A 43-year-old advertising executive wakes up as the 22-year-old Jia Xu. The history books make it clear: in just a few days, he will present the poisonous stratagem that will push the Eastern Han dynasty over the edge: "Wen He Throws the Empire into Chaos."
Armed with 1,800 years of hindsight, he plans to get out early, take fewer lives, and settle down as a decent man.
But the times refuse to let him. He drafts an amnesty to spare someone's life, but the blade falls in his place, and the story spreads: "The kindness was Mr. Jia's, the sword was General Li's." He writes four characters to turn away the greatest warrior under heaven, and it becomes a tale of his supernatural foresight. He uses a ledger listing a hundred thousand names to quell a city on the verge of exploding without bloodshed, and word gets around that it's another devious ploy by the poison-tongued strategist Jia Wenhe.
The more people he tries to save, the more notorious he becomes, and he can't shake the reputation. Worse, his lifesaving foreknowledge is running out, volume by volume.
A wage slave who only wants to clock out on time gradually earns the title of "the most poisonous strategist in history."
All he wants is to be a decent man.
