[Alternate history + low-powered wuxia + technological advancement + grand-scale global geopolitics]
My name is Chu Lang, the capital’s most notorious good-for-nothing playboy.
My greatest pleasure is visiting brothels to listen to music and, while I’m at it, flirting with respectable women.
Who would have thought that my father would hold a knife to my throat and force me, a man who can barely recognize a single character, to take the imperial examinations?
Fine, I’ll take them. As a modern literary scholar with a PhD, surely crushing the ancients with my superior knowledge won’t be hard?
At the examination hall, I recited “Bring in the Wine,” and the chief examiner fell to his knees, begging to become my disciple.
The whole city was stunned: “Young Master Chu must be the reincarnation of the Star of Literature!”
To support the seven stunning beauties at home, I was forced to become a man of all talents:
[Ding] Help the peerless courtesan build the world’s greatest intelligence network.
[Ding] Explain gravity to the martial arts-obsessed heroine and help her break through to Grandmaster.
[Ding] Use The Wealth of Nations to trick the former dynasty’s saintess into digging for the treasures in an underground palace.
I even end up locked in a battle of wits and romance with the brilliant eldest princess at court.
The eldest princess, sneering: “Chu Lang, I want not only your body, but your mind as well.”
I sigh. “Honestly, I just want to be a quiet playboy.”
Then one day, the old emperor dies, and the capital descends into chaos...
I silently pull out my flintlock: “Looks like it’s time for a new family to rule the realm.”
The beginning is okay