Lin Wanwan, a modern corporate drone who died suddenly at her desk, opens her eyes to find herself the "shadow beauty" in an emperor's harem. The empress, her legitimate elder sister, expects her to imitate her, win the emperor's favor, and serve as a pawn to be discarded once she's used up. Faced with the emperor's layers of probing tests, she refuses to act devoted and instead hits the entire court with a barrage of corporate jargon.
The emperor: ? Now that's interesting.
Court intrigue? It's just project management in a different setting!
She manages upward with the emperor, forms horizontal alliances with the consorts, and whips the team into shape, all while staying calm and results-oriented.
A modern office drone, worked to death by 996, wants no romance. She only wants to escape control and live for herself for once!
So while everyone in the harem is still weeping and squabbling over household affairs, Lin Wanwan has quietly taken up the weapons of modern science and management.
She uses distillation to purify alcohol, becoming a "living bodhisattva" during an epidemic in the palace and earning the people's reverence.
She uses microexpression psychology to expose the layers of deception behind the empress's innocent facade, uncovering the shocking secret behind her five miscarriages in three years.
Using project-management principles, she joins forces with the "flower of wealth and nobility," the favored consort, to gradually dismantle the chancellor's clan's overwhelming power, becoming the emperor's sharpest and least controllable blade.
The scheming emperor, who at first saw her only as an "interesting pawn," gradually comes to regard her as his one true partner in the game and the one he loves most.
See how a humble-born office drone makes her bid for freedom and fights for a prosperous age amid the palace halls!
