The Aloof Heir Can't Let Go, but Miss Cen Knows When to Move On

[A beautiful, scheming stepdaughter who follows her mother into the Duke of Wei’s household VS the heir to the Prince of Yong, cold and elegant on the outside but obsessive and unhinged beneath]

The leads save each other + a supporting female character transmigrates into a book + villains get their comeuppance and face-slapping + mutual devotion + revenge + an alternate historical setting

An orphan from the modern world is reborn as the youngest granddaughter of the magistrate of Yuzhou. With a rakish yet gentle and devoted father, and a beautiful, clever mother who is a cousin of the Duke of Wei, Cen Zhiyu thinks Heaven has finally taken pity on her and granted her the love of both parents.

But her father suddenly dies of a terrible illness, her mother is trapped in the inner quarters and can’t even keep her dowry, and her black-hearted aunt persuades the servants to sell her into a brothel...

Just then, Duke Wei, who lives far away in the capital, rushes overnight to Yuzhou and saves mother and daughter from their plight. She follows her mother into a second marriage with her mother’s cousin, becoming the awkwardly placed third young lady of the Duke of Wei’s household.

It seems their fortunes have turned, but beneath the surface, tensions simmer. Cen Zhiyu proceeds cautiously, joining forces with her mother to secure their footing in the duke’s household and using it as a springboard to rise higher.

She won’t spare a single person: the man who killed her father, the man who stole her mother’s fiancé and forced her into a faraway marriage in Yuzhou, or the powerful figures who helped the villains from behind the scenes!

But who could have guessed that the life debt from when she gave a dagger to the young heir would tangle them up in a bond neither can sever nor sort out?

And her “future brother-in-law,” who lives in the martial world, has secretly fallen for her as well.

There’s also Zheng Baiyuan, that irritating junior minister of the Court of Judicial Review, and Pei Yan, the only son of the eldest princess...

They all made their move too late!