Chen Yuanzhou, a history doctoral student, touches a mysterious jade seal during an archaeological dig. When he wakes, he has become Zhao Bi, Prince Yi, a frail, sickly, idle prince in the reign of Emperor Zhezong of the Northern Song, forgotten by both court and country.
It’s hell mode from the start: he is poisoned, his treasury holds just thirty-seven taels of silver, and most of his servants are spies. The only person he can trust is Su Tan’er, the maid whose eyes are swollen red from testing medicine for him.
But he has one advantage no one else does: nine hundred years of history in his head. Using modern knowledge, he predicts the Western Xia invasion, improves firebreaks for fire prevention, and proposes replacing coins with paper money. Step by step, he goes from a “useless son on the brink of death” to a force the court can no longer ignore.
But history is veering off course. He discovers that he is not the only one who has transmigrated into this era: one person comes from the late Ming, another from the early Song, and an old eunuch who has served five reigns is secretly scheming to hasten the Northern Song’s downfall. What is his goal? Why is he deliberately engineering the “Jingkang Humiliation”?
Worse still, Prince Duan Zhao Ji, the future Emperor Huizong of Song, is about to ascend the throne, Cai Jing is sharpening his knives, and the Jin are quietly rising in the north. Chen Yuanzhou must survive amid factional strife and train troops and farm the land on the northwestern frontier, spending twenty-five years building an iron army capable of stopping the Jin forces.
And his greatest trump card has never been his advanced knowledge. It is Su Tan’er, who takes an arrow for him, stands with him as he defends the city, and says “I’ll wait for you” amid a sky full of snow.
This is the story of a transmigrator fighting against fate, and a love that spans a thousand years and endures until death.
When the land is shattered and those he knew are gone, he chooses to stay. Because someone is still waiting for him.
