Lu Chen is transported to the twenty-fifth year of the Wanli reign in the Ming dynasty, where he becomes a condemned prisoner awaiting execution.
He is no ordinary transmigrator. He is an experimental subject from the future's Civilization Observation Project, carrying a damaged Historical Situation Simulation System.
The System lets him see a red heat map of plague outbreaks, probability curves for canal transport bottlenecks, the network of relationships between the Donglin faction and the eunuch faction, and a countdown to the Ming dynasty's collapse...
But every time he uses the System to change history, it consumes his lifespan.
Save a child who was supposed to die of the plague, and he loses three days.
Prevent a mutiny that was supposed to break out, and he loses a month.
Turn the Battle of Sarhu, which was destined for a crushing defeat, into a draw, and he loses a year.
The System's warning is icy and sharp: [If you completely overturn the Ming dynasty's fall, the Host will die immediately.]
Coughing blood, Lu Chen smiles and writes in the System's historical revision log:
“On the first day, I saved a beggar. Three days of my life gone.”
“On the hundredth day, I saved a city. Three months of my life gone.”
“In the third year, I will save this country. Even if the price is...”
“All the time I have.”
Years later, in the Forbidden City, the Chongzhen Emperor looks at the memorial Lu Chen has sent him. Drawn in vermilion on its pages is a graph of the Ming dynasty's lifeline, with its endpoint marked unmistakably: 1644.
Trembling, he asks, “Sir... can this country still be saved?”
Lu Chen points to the graph's one and only turning point, a flame he has kindled with his own lifespan.
“Your Majesty, starting today, we will rewrite history.”
