The disgraced official's daughter, Su Wan, is sent to the inner palace to serve as a slave. With her ability to remember everything she sees and her keen insight, she rises from the lowest rank of palace records clerk, repeatedly finding ways through crises in the court ladies' System. She sorts through twenty years of old records for the Palace Administration Bureau and uncovers embezzlement; identifies tribute goods from the Western Regions for the Palace Treasures Bureau and exposes forgeries; and even gets caught up in the undercurrents between powerful ministers and the imperial family. She carefully climbs the ranks to become an officer in the Phoenix Ceremony Bureau. But in her clashes with the powerful minister Pei Yan, mutual suspicion gives way to working side by side to solve a crisis. In the end, she helps bring clarity to court politics as a palace official and finds pure love and mutual salvation with Pei Yan.
