Amid the chaos of the Yongjia upheaval, the Central Plains are in turmoil. Su Yan, a history PhD, transmigrates into the body of Liu Yan, a collateral descendant of the Zhongshan Liu clan, and becomes sworn friends with Liu Kun and Zu Ti, the famed “rise at the crow of the rooster” duo.
He stands with Liu Kun in Bingzhou for nine years, sounding a reed flute to drive back the enemy amid a lonely city and a solitary lamp. He helps Zu Ti cross the river and launch a northern campaign, striking the oars in midstream and reclaiming Henan. He knows how these two heroes will meet their ends: one will be hanged in a prison cell in Jicheng, leaving behind his final poem, “How could steel, tempered a hundred times, become as soft as a silken thread?” The other will be hamstrung by the court and die of grief and indignation by the Yellow River.
He cannot save them. But the purpose of his transmigration to this era is not to change their fate, but to remember and pass their stories on. He writes The Crowing Rooster Record, preserving their stories so that a thousand years from now, people will still remember: in this darkest age of turmoil, two men once gave their lives for the words “the Central Plains.”
