Li Chang'an placed third in the imperial examinations. Overcome with excitement, he fainted while thanking the emperor at the palace exam, becoming the laughingstock of the capital.
No one knew he had just transmigrated from the modern world. In his previous life, he had just passed the civil service exam when an iron pendant he had worn since childhood suddenly began to glow. When he opened his eyes again, he was sprawled outside the Ming dynasty's examination compound.
He tried to “go home” three times: jumping over a wall, leaping into a river, and climbing onto a roof. Each attempt was stopped as people took him for a madman. The Marquis of Shouning seized the opportunity to bind him, force wine down his throat, and keep him overnight. Soon the whole capital was saying that the marquis's daughter had taken a liking to that good-for-nothing.
The emperor summoned him secretly in the middle of the night and handed him an iron ruler. “Your reputation is bad enough. You might as well patrol the capital for me at night.”
The Night Watch Office: an agency absent from every official directory. By day, he is a gifted scholar at Qingyin Pavilion. By night, he carries his iron ruler through every street in the capital. Those corrupted and consumed by taint lose control of their emotions and turn into monsters. Meanwhile, the rifts that dynasties have suppressed with the fortune of the realm are beginning to open.
The six characters “May the sun, moon, mountains, and rivers endure” are engraved on every iron ruler.
They are not words to be recited. They are a duty fulfilled, one step at a time, on patrol.
