Water Margin: From the Start, I Calculate That Song Jiang Is Doomed

After transmigrating to the Northern Song dynasty, Song Zhao becomes a failed scholar on the streets of Yuncheng, scraping by by setting up a stall to write letters. A fated chessboard awakens in his mind, showing him how every one of the 108 heroes will die: they gather at Liangshan, accept amnesty, campaign against Fang La, and perish to the last man.

He changes Lu Da's fate, at the cost of choking on water and tripping while walking for three days straight. He saves Lin Chong from disaster, only to be falsely accused and nearly jailed. Each person he saves makes the future on the board grow hazier, turning him from an all-knowing god into a half-blind player. Worse still, someone else lurks in the shadows, holding a fragment of the same divine artifact, the "Heavenly Book," able to divine the fate of the state and lock all the heroes onto a path to their deaths.

One changes fate; the other seals it. A penniless scholar who can't even truss a chicken, against a mastermind who has controlled Song Jiang for twenty years.

Song Zhao once helped Song Jiang write a letter, adding two extra words at the end. Five years later, Song Jiang comes to ask what those two words mean.

He says, "See for yourself."