A Century of Accumulation

The day he woke up, Qian Chang heard something new inside his head. It didn't speak. It only calculated.

Look at a roof beam, and it could name its price. Hear the price of rice, and it could tell whether the harvest would be good or bad. Glance at a dike on the verge of collapse, and it could calculate how many strings of cash had been embezzled from its construction.

His father thought him an idiot, his clan considered him useless, and his old nurse warned that he would either become a prodigy or be used as a tool.

He chose a third path: play dumb, keep the books, and calculate a clan on the verge of collapse into the most prestigious family in Jiangnan, one sum at a time.

Sixty-three years later, the Yellow River changed course, the Green Sprouts program went rotten, and the capital of Bianjing fell. His accounts still weren't finished.