Aromatic Radiance Wins Yuan Xin's Heart

In the early Ming dynasty, in Yingtian Prefecture, Gu Linghui, a talented woman from a family of scholars, draws on her family's heritage to take part in compiling the monumental Yongle Encyclopedia. Amid its vast collection, she keenly notices that the rhyming-category system makes women's writings exceedingly difficult to find, leaving pearls hidden beneath the dust. Boldly, she proposes an innovative approach: organizing works by subject and creating a separate section for women's writings. To put her ideas into practice, she develops a systematic classification of literary history and devotes herself to collating Biographies of Exemplary Women, correcting errors in the historical record, such as Ban Zhao's mistaken birth and death dates. She also launches a literary relay, inviting talented women from across the country to contribute and bring together their diverse voices. Faced with the old belief that women should not be educated, Gu Linghui relies on her outstanding scholarship and steadfast character to navigate the Hanlin Academy. In the end, she persuades the court to establish a library for women's classics, bringing women's wisdom openly into the official catalogue and quietly advancing a revolution for gender equality in literary scholarship, amid the fragrant pages of old books. Her growing bond with Shen Yanzhou, a fellow editor from a humble family who shares her ideals, adds a tender note of romance to their scholarly world.