Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China who unified the country during the Warring States period, devoted himself to the quest for the elixir of immortality. In the end, however, his dream remained unfulfilled, and upon his death, the Qin Empire collapsed in an instant.
— What if Qin Shi Huang had obtained the secret to immortality, and been able to establish eternal and absolute rule?
This series takes the hypothesis as its starting point to depict a cyberpunk world where humans, androids, and cyborgs coexist. In this world, people connect to the “Immortality Project” system in exchange for immortality, subjecting their body and consciousness to strict surveillance and control, while at the same time there exist “pure humans” who resist this regime.
The protagonist of this work, Joe, is a discarded mass-produced android found by Catherine, a pure-human woman who operates underground as part of the resistance. Joe carries fragmented memories of Qu Yuan, a priest of Chu with the charisma of a rock star. Moving back and forth between history and the present, reality and fiction, Joe pursues the fundamental question of what free will means for humanity.