Zhang Nian, a modern surveying engineer, opened her eyes to find she had become a sixteen-year-old orphan in the famine-stricken Great Qi, the kind who was starving to death in a ruined temple. She had only a loyal, lame servant named A Huai by her side, and her golden finger was pitifully meager: one room and one jar, with time-stopping preservation, not enough to store a winter's worth of supplies. Saving people required merit, upgrading required merit, and there was never enough merit. She fled famine while scraping together merit along the way: drawing maps to safety, teaching people how to identify edible wild plants, building charitable shelters, and opening childcare centers. Every time she helped one place, the System hurried her on to the next. The world was falling apart, and she was responsible for patching it back together. Her loyal servant guarded their home, the male lead cleared the way for her, and she carried a lantern along the road, bringing warmth wherever she went and drawing one route to survival after another for the people of the world.
