As the legitimate daughter of the Su family, Su Wantang is mistreated by her stepmother after her birth mother dies young. She and her little brother are sent away to a dilapidated farmstead in the countryside. Drawing on the plant-cultivation techniques she learned from her wet nurse as a child, she improves rice varieties and cultivates rare medicinal herbs, rising from a ridiculed “cast-off daughter” to a woman capable of managing the household. She outwits her stepmother’s scheme to steal her dowry, clears her half-sister’s false accusations, and resolves the crisis caused by the family’s money-losing cloth business. She helps her little brother earn an official degree and finds her cousin a good husband. In the end, she leads the Su family back into the ranks of Yunzhou’s prominent clans and finds a happy match with the young master of the Gu family’s merchant alliance. She builds a lively, satisfying life by farming to support the whole family and standing her ground in the household.
Very pretty!