Before he died, Yang Hao was a street thug. His one redeeming quality was his loyalty.
When he opens his eyes, he finds himself a starving beggar in a ruined temple south of Bianjing. Even the crescent-shaped scar on his left wrist is exactly the same.
But this is not the world he knows.
The authorities and gangs collude, the gentry monopolize education, and no matter how much merchants earn, they are just meat on the chopping block for the powerful. And he, a modern thug who has transmigrated here, has only two things going for him: twenty-first-century fighting skills and a silver tongue that can make black sound white.
All he wanted was to stay alive. Gather a few underlings, take over a street, collect some protection money, and become a local boss in Bianjing. That would be good enough.
Until he meets Su Wan'er.
The eldest daughter of the Su family of Jiangnan tosses twenty taels of silver from her palanquin. There is no pity in her eyes, only a warning: “The Black Tiger Gang is colluding with Magistrate Wang. If you have a grudge against them, you must be careful.”
For the first time, Yang Hao realizes that someone can be so clever, and so fierce.
And for the first time, he realizes that when a thug falls in love, it is even harder to get out of than a fight with knives.
From then on, he adds a new rule: he will remember the peaceful world she wants to see.
And so
He uses a rogue’s cunning to dismantle the gangs, a merchant’s shrewdness to amass a fortune, and a transmigrator’s vision to usher in steam and electricity.
She builds an intelligence network for him from the inner quarters, drafts new policies for him at court, and stands by his side through the chaos, tempering one man’s ambition into the dawn of a civilization.
Some call him a fiend who has thrown the court into chaos. Others call her the bewitching Su, a woman who dares to meddle in state affairs.
“The realm is far away, but I’ll walk there with you. People’s hearts are treacherous, but I trust you to be strong enough.”
