Li Yun, a modern police academy student, transmigrates to the third year of Yuanfu in the Northern Song and finds himself in the body of a scholar who was murdered. He thinks his only goal is to survive this desperate predicament, but then discovers a secret about his bloodline: he is descended from the royal family of the Li Tang, and is caught up in a national catastrophe destined to bring the dynasty down.
Unwilling to go with the flow and watch China sink into ruin, Li Yun chooses the most difficult and perilous path of all: as a "lonely loyalist," he sets out to "mend the heavens."
He starts on the banks of the Wei River, studies the arts of war and letters, and joins forces with sworn brothers. He enters the court and takes hold of power. On the surface, he is the sharpest blade in the emperor's hand, an "oddity" who refuses to join factions in the eyes of powerful ministers, and a "solitary villain," praised and condemned in equal measure by the upright officials. He introduces new policies, fills the treasury, offers up improved seeds, and brings benefits to the people.
Behind the scenes, he weaves a far-reaching network: founding the "Heaven-Mending Society" to gather talent, organizing the "Heaven-Saving Army" to forge a new force, sending out merchant caravans to collect intelligence, and even planting a deadly "poison bud" in the heart of the northern behemoth. He maneuvers among the emperor, the crown prince, powerful ministers, frontier generals, upright officials, and even enemy states, treating the world as a chessboard as he tries to wrest history from its course.
Yet even the wisdom of one man remains small before the torrents of his age. The wheels of history roll on; corruption within has become deeply entrenched, while threats from without draw ever closer. Loyalty and betrayal, light and darkness, ideals and their price... Everything puts his convictions and his limits to the test.
This is a contest between one man and an entire age, a tragic expedition undertaken in full knowledge that success may be impossible. Watch how Li Yun, the lonely loyalist, faces the raging tide of a world on the brink of collapse: "A man keeps his heart of iron until death. Let me test my hand and mend the rift in Heaven!"
It's okay, it's okay.