On the eve of Sima Yan's death in April 290 AD, Lin Han, a thirty-one-year-old male teaching assistant and PhD candidate in the history department of a university, transmigrates. His research focuses on the history of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties. He knows every historical detail of this period like the back of his hand: how Jia Nanfeng staged her coup, how the Eight Princes took turns appearing on the stage, and how Yang Jun was executed. He could list it all with his eyes closed. But fate plays a cruel joke on him: he transmigrates into Sima Zhong, mocked for over a thousand years in history as the “Idiot Emperor.”
Sima Zhong himself has no redeeming qualities. He is so mediocre he barely registers, and so foolish that the “Why not eat meat porridge?” anecdote was recorded in the history books, leaving readers unable to bear looking at him. But Lin Han, the transmigrator, has history in his head, giving him a kind of “god's-eye view” of this broken world in advance. Faced with these historical figures all over again, he cannot be stupid, but he must not seem too clever, either. The moment he shows intelligence, people will realize Sima Zhong has awakened, that he has changed. Jia Nanfeng, Yang Jun, and the princes of the imperial clan will immediately spot that something is wrong, and then his life will be over. So he has to “play dumb,” endure humiliation, and make seemingly overambitious plans step by step as he reaches for the highest seat of power. Not because he wants to be emperor, but because every faction around him wants to trample him into the ground. If he doesn't make a move himself, he'll never get back on his feet.
