The Great Fool of Late Tang

Lu Chen, a stunt performer on a film crew, was on a wire when it snapped.

When he opened his eyes again, he had become an adopted son in late Tang Chengde Town, known as "Tian Han'er." An arrow was lodged in his leg, and in his arms he clutched Tian Hongzheng's final letter and the seal of the military governor. Torches were being thrown down from the city wall. Everyone in the household called him Foolish Tian. They had called him that for over a decade.

This body had killed people and rifled through corpses. Its muscles remembered how to run for its life. His mind was still that of a modern man, though, and after killing someone, he had to gag a couple of times. He pried a knife from a corpse's hand, tore a bronze token from a dead man's neck, then tumbled and crawled into the moat. The pursuers' torches lit up the blood trail he left behind, and the final letter in his arms: deliver it to Tian Bu. If he failed, his adoptive father would haunt him even from beyond the grave.

He had only one goal: reach Chang'an and stop Tian Bu from succeeding to the post of military governor of Weibo, so he could avoid his fatal end.

After surviving countless close calls, he made it to Chang'an, only to find he was too late. Tian Bu had already received the imperial decree, left the capital, and set out for Weibo to take up his post. The best solution was gone for good.

What began as "preventing his death in advance" had become "saving a hopeless endgame." By the time he caught up with Tian Bu in Weibo, Tian Bu had won two minor victories, the elite troops were weary of war, and Shi Xiancheng was secretly stirring up trouble. It was the eve of a mutiny, and there was nowhere left to retreat.

Everyone called him Foolish Tian. But this "Greatest Fool" had to dismantle an unwinnable situation on the eve of a mutiny.

He had not come to save one person. He had come to save a hopeless situation.