The Greed Oracle

In the aftermath of the 1708 Taiyuan Chen Si frame-up case, a released famine refugee stumbles upon a mysterious Jesuit mechanism called the "Libido Algorithm"—a device that calculates the darkest desires of any man with horrifying precision. Using this forbidden knowledge, he and a master forger craft impossibly perfect counterfeit antiquities to ensnare the corrupt Shanxi merchant families who once betrayed them. As priceless fakes are dangled before thirteen-hong foreign traders, a cross-border deception unfolds, luring dynastic houses into a spiral of bankruptcy, parricide, and bloody ruin. Set against the twilight of Kangxi’s reign, the story reveals an ancient machine that knows human greed better than humans know themselves.