Shen Yi transmigrates into an old book set in the Great Zhou dynasty, becoming a widowed general whose husband has just died.
The original owner went to war in her husband's place and defended Yanhui Pass for forty days, only to return to the capital and receive an honorary title. The officials at court all think she should go home to tend flowers and raise children, but Shen Yi refuses. She takes on three military officers in a row at the training grounds, slaps her petition before the emperor, and fights her way into the position of Vice Minister of War.
While investigating military provisions, she uncovers twenty years of rotten accounts at the Ministry of Revenue. While investigating corruption, she sends Lu Tingzhao, the Marquis of Zhenbei, to the imperial prison. Everyone says the woman is mad, but only the aloof, powerful minister Wenren Yu knows that the evidence she holds is more extensive than anything he has uncovered in two years.
"Lord Shen, Zhou Yun has spent twenty years building his influence at court. Are you really not afraid?"
Shen Yi doesn't even look up. "I am. But I'm more afraid that the soldiers starving and freezing to death at the border will never see justice."
Later, she investigates the Minister of Revenue, topples half the court, and sends a book called Records of the Embers to the Imperial College. The emperor wants to appoint her Minister of War, but she resigns and moves with her son to a small courtyard on the outskirts of the capital.
Years later, someone asks Lu Nianzhao, "Your grandfather was a criminal minister. How did you end up becoming chief minister?"
Lu Nianzhao says, "Because my grandmother taught me something: Making a mistake isn't frightening. What's frightening is knowing it's wrong and refusing to change."
The embers never die, and conscience lives on.
Good-looking, good-looking, good-looking, I like it