Xiao Jingyan transmigrates as the youngest son of the Duke of the State's household in the Great Yu Kingdom, born beneath auspicious snow and rosy clouds.
At three, he astonishes everyone with his poetry; at seven, he solves a locust plague with a brilliant proposal, making his name as a prodigy echo through Yujing.
At fourteen, he volunteers to head for the northern frontier, where his first fire-thunder weapons shatter the Western Rong cavalry.
At eighteen, he takes charge of the northwest and marries a valiant daughter of a military family and a business prodigy.
At twenty, he enters the heart of government: movable-type printing sparks a revolution in knowledge, while new spinning machines weave prosperity across Jiangnan.
Then, one day, he stands atop the city wall with a musket in hand as the Eight-Nation Alliance flees through the smoke.
The new emperor personally drapes a four-clawed python robe over his shoulders. “I repay your lifelong loyalty with this realm stretching ten thousand li.”
When the decree ennobling him as a prince despite his different surname spreads across the land, his three princess consorts are laughing in the experimental fields, where rice waves ripple, with their heirs and daughters by their side.
Sometimes he is a prince, and sometimes he is a prince. No wonder no one is watching.