One:

What would you do if you transmigrated?

Zhao Baiyu's answer: Kick the bucket while the iron's hot.

Two:

Zhao Baiyu's birth mother was a princess of the highest rank, precious as gold and jade. Driven mad by love, she committed every manner of evil, and was banished from the capital—leaving the infant Zhao Baiyu behind.

His kin and family friends in the capital despise him because of her.

Zhao Baiyu's life is hard.

His half-brother, Zhao Yuzheng—same father, different mother—is his complete opposite. Born prematurely thanks to the princess's schemes, he is doted upon by everyone to the utmost. Even the Emperor and the Empress Dowager, Zhao Baiyu's own maternal kin, lavish extra affection on Zhao Yuzheng out of guilt.

Zhao Baiyu, by contrast, has endured coldness and harsh treatment since childhood, yet keeps an optimistic, positive spirit—clinging to the belief that if he only works hard enough to clear his name, he can win others over and dissolve their prejudice.

Until the men who dote on Zhao Yuzheng band together and pack him off into the Commandery Prince's manor.

And the Commandery Prince is violent and cruel by nature—he has toyed men to death.

Three:

After splitting his head open, Zhao Baiyu abruptly recovers his memory and realises that what he took for a transmigration is in fact a danmei "beloved-by-all" novel.

The universally adored protagonist is Zhao Yuzheng, while he, Zhao Baiyu, is the villainous male supporting character—his identity deliberately switched at birth by the princess. Nineteen years of misplaced lives; the one who should have received all that love was, in truth, Zhao Baiyu.

The truth is only laid bare at the very end, and no one has the heart to blame Zhao Yuzheng—who instead gains a princess-mother who cherishes him like a treasure.

Zhao Baiyu: "......"

Step aside up there, the lot of you. Don't block my road to reincarnation.

Four:

Quelling floods, stamping out plagues, saving tens of thousands...

In a single stroke he beheaded three hundred officials. Hailed as the Great Jing Dynasty's foremost "Clear Sky"—its most upright, incorruptible judge—Zhao Baiyu shook the whole court and made his name known across the realm.

Summoned back to the capital by imperial decree, on the day of the palace banquet Zhao Baiyu takes a blade meant for the Emperor. His life hanging by a thread, he grips the hearts of every official at court—yet he stays the imperial physician's hand as it reaches to draw out the blade, and says: "Don't save me. I don't want to live."

Those who once loathed him, who had wronged him—this night, their hearts are torn to pieces.

Mu Xiniang

The Countdown to Life