Shen Zhou, a resident doctor in the emergency department, was three seconds too late and couldn't save a life.
When he opened his eyes, he was face-down in the mud at the end of the Sui dynasty, with nothing left on his wrist but a thirty-yuan digital watch.
The refugees knelt before him, calling him the "Maitreya Immortal Doctor" and the "Heaven-Sent Sage."
Before he could explain, the broken watch flashed a string of numbers: 03:47.
It was how much time the patient had left to be saved.
For the patients an old doctor had already given up on, he dared to say, "Give me three minutes."
For the arm the army doctor wanted to saw off, he said, "This one's still salvageable."
For the "plague demon" the entire camp wanted to burn alive, he ordered a fourteen-day quarantine. Not one person died.
Cheng Yaojin's great victory, Qin Qiong's escape, Xu Maogong's schemes, they were all credited to him.
He wanted to take off the hat. But Old Zhao risked his life on him, Xiaocao got another chance at life because of him, and millions lived because of the bets he made.
In the chaotic age when the Sui fell and the Tang rose, he finally understood: he could never take off this false hat.
And the people he truly wanted to protect were never any dynasty, only those on the verge of dying amid the chaos.
But every time the watch lit up, the date leaped forward by a huge margin.
The road back to the modern world was burning away, inch by inch.
