Lin Yan transmigrates into the Ming Dynasty as a displaced commoner and binds himself to the System of Historical Regrets.
Everyone on the System's list is doomed to die: Empress Ma will fall ill and die, Crown Prince Zhu Biao will die young, Prince Zhu Xiongying will die in childhood, and the Hu Weiyong case will implicate thirty thousand people...
Other transmigrators rely on the imperial examinations, warfare, or copying poems.
He relies on variety shows.
A one-legged veteran takes the stage and asks Zhu Yuanzhang, “Your Majesty, do you still remember the men who risked their lives for you?”
A blind embroiderer feels her way to a spinning wheel. “If we'd had this machine forty years ago, maybe I'd still have my eyesight.”
The Crown Prince goes barefoot into the fields to plant rice. The leeches are real, and so is the coarse rice.
Backstage, Zhu Yuanzhang sits with a face ashen with rage.
Lin Yan says, “Your Majesty, this is only the first episode.”
