Engineering My Way to the Throne

Episode 1

Isaac Litt has been stuck in a world where legitimate sons are noble and concubine's sons are dirt for three months — and everyone around him never lets him forget it. At the family's coming-of-age ceremony, the rules are laid bare: each young man gets one chance to pick a fief and prove himself. But there's a catch buried in the fine print. The women offered as wives are either criminals or criminals' daughters, and every one of them carries crushing debt. The ancestors designed it that way — to make sure concubine's sons drown in obligations before they can ever challenge for power.

Episode 2

While the other sons jostle for rich land, Isaac makes a choice that stuns the room: Bull's Back Mountain. It's a joke of a fief — rocky, remote, and pulling in less than two hundred taels a year. "Are you sure you want to choose this place?" someone asks. He is. Where everyone else sees barren slopes and a rotten-egg stench, Isaac sees something else entirely: red stone that's high-purity hematite, and sulfur mixed right into it. Gunpowder, he says, means wealth. The other heirs write him off as a fool. He doesn't bother correcting them.

Episode 3

Now come the wives — and the debts that ride with them. Ye Wanqiu is a court strategist, sharp enough to be dangerous, and owed a staggering twenty thousand taels. The tribal woman is wild and refuses to be tamed, warning she'll kill any man who claims her. Then there's the woman whispered to be cursed, rumored to carry a hidden illness that might kill her husband on the wedding night. Two are slated for execution if unclaimed. Isaac studies the three women everyone else has thrown away and makes his call — all three of them.

Episode 4

The hall erupts. Isaac is told he can't possibly take all three, but he refuses to budge. First he turns to the nameless girl and asks her name. She has none — she's called Wu Yue. He offers her a place as his wife, and she accepts, vowing to serve him with everything she has in return for saving her. The other two are ordered off to face punishment, and the crowd murmurs that it's a waste of two pretty women. Isaac stops it cold: in everyone else's eyes these three are trash, but in his, they're assets.

Episode 5

Isaac is warned plainly: taking these three means inheriting their crimes and their debts. What could he possibly repay them with — that worthless mountain? His answer is a public oath. Within three years he will clear every debt, or he surrenders his fief and is stripped to commoner. The family accepts the terms and sends him on his way. But the road to Bull's Back is not quiet. Bandits are moving on the village, and the Lin family carriages roll right past without stopping. Isaac heads straight into the trouble.

Episode 6

The bandits have come to squeeze Bull's Back Village dry before the new lord even arrives. An old man begs for mercy, saying the village simply has nothing left to give. The raiders shrug — they're just following orders, and if anyone's to blame, it's the lord about to take over. Then Isaac steps forward and names himself: the current lord of this place. He's outnumbered and unarmed, facing men who expected no resistance at all. The village watches to see whether this stranger is bluffing.

Episode 7

The bandits realize they've stumbled into Lin family territory and try to back out politely, claiming it was all a mistake. Isaac doesn't let them stroll away — his land isn't a place you enter and leave as you please. The raiders' leader warns him not to push too far, threatening that antagonizing them will cost both him and Bull's Back dearly. Isaac's response is a single order: the one on horseback stays. The rest don't. The fight is short, and the survivors scatter back toward their stronghold with a message.

Episode 8

Isaac sends the bandits running with a warning: come back, and he'll wipe out their whole camp. Then he turns to the villagers and tells them they don't have to be afraid anymore. Their relief curdles fast — the Village Chief warns he's made a terrible enemy. The Lin family's own escorts sneer at the peasants and demand they be punished for insulting a noble house. Isaac shuts them down: this is his fief now, these are his people, and the escorts' job is done. They leave. He promises the bandits will never terrorize the village again.

Episode 9

The villagers aren't convinced. Fine words are cheap — why should they trust a Lin? Isaac answers that he knows his family's cruelty better than they do, and asks for one chance: not to be another lord bleeding them dry, but to help them live like people. He even brings his wife to stand with him. The Village Chief cautiously grants him a foothold. But the welcome is petty — his residence has been used as a pigsty, and no one will clean it for a Lin. Isaac pulls out ten taels of silver and asks who wants the job.

Episode 10

The silver works. Villagers scramble to clean, and Isaac hands out more money for supplies and food. The Village Chief notes that coin is the first step toward trust. Isaac then asks to be taken up Bull's Back Mountain — he wants to see the stones. The chief warns him it's barren, jagged, and reeks of rotten eggs. That's exactly why Isaac is going: he's hunting hematite and sulfur, the makings of gunpowder and a fortune. Back home, his wife asks the question everyone's thinking — why this wasteland, and how will he ever repay their debts?

Isaac just picked a worthless mountain and three "cursed" wives — watch how far an engineer's gamble can take him.