Blood stains the palace steps at the spring sacrifice. Censor Shen Guanlan dies in protest, and the entire Shen family is brought down. Shen Yanci, the legitimate daughter once skilled in mathematics, becomes an official slave at the mercy of others. No hero descends from the heavens, and no benefactor takes pity on her. Armed with an abacus and scraps of account books, she turns them into blades. She and the legitimate daughters of noble houses, a swordswoman, and a physician become one another's scabbards as they tear through the layers of intrigue surrounding the aristocracy and the imperial court, exposing a web of corruption in the salt and iron trades and fighting to carve out a way to survive.
This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.
