Yu Zhile, a modern beachcombing vlogger, transmigrates into the body of a nineteen-year-old girl with the same name in Haiyu Village, China, on March 29, 1970. The original owner had jumped into the sea to save a drowning child but suffered a head injury and nearly drowned. Yu Zhile awakens in a hostile environment where her father, a naval officer, has died in the line of duty, leaving the family without their primary income. Her mother lies in a coma, and she is left with two younger brothers: Yu Yue, a fifteen-year-old genius paralyzed from the waist down, and Yu Chi, a five-year-old non-verbal child labeled an idiot by villagers. The Yu family is a large, extended household of fifteen people, divided into three branches. The step-grandmother, Old Mrs. Yu, and Third Uncle Yu Haiyao are calculating and cruel, while Second Uncle Yu Haizong is honest but weak-willed. Upon waking, Yu Zhile learns that the family is on the verge of splitting due to financial strain and the step-grandmother's desire to seize assets.
The core conflict arises when the step-grandmother attempts to force an exchange marriage: Yu Zhile is to marry the mentally disabled son of the Zhang family in a neighboring village, while Yu Yue is to marry the Zhang daughter to secure care for him. This plan is a ploy to offload the burden of the orphaned eldest branch while securing a servant for Yu Yue. Yu Zhile, refusing to accept this fate, confronts the family during the official division proceedings led by the Village Secretary. Armed with a kitchen knife and the authoritative will of her late grandfather, she demands a fair split of the assets, including the military stipends and communal funds. She successfully secures five hundred yuan and the ancestral house for her immediate family, effectively separating from the toxic extended family. During this process, she discovers a live-streaming system bound to her soul, which connects her to viewers across different planets. The system rewards her with popularity and resources, including rice and a robot butler.
A key turning point occurs during her first live stream, where she beachcombs and saves a young boy named Jiang Shangqing from the sea. Later, while streaming again, she discovers a muscular man named Zhou Yuesheng washed ashore. Mistaking him for the robot butler promised by the system for reaching 100,000 heat points, she takes him home. Zhou Yuesheng is actually a soldier who fell into the sea during a mission to track enemy agents. He pretends to have amnesia to investigate his situation, while Yu Zhile fabricates a story that he is a memory-loss patient she rescued. The Zhang family, furious about the broken engagement and rumors of Yu Zhile dating a man, arrives at her new home with a mob. Zhou Yuesheng effortlessly repels their attackers, establishing his protective role. The story follows Yu Zhile as she navigates the harsh social politics of 1970s rural China, uses her live-streaming system to improve her family's livelihood, and manages the complex dynamics with her brothers, neighbors, and the mysterious soldier living in her home.
