Prologue
The last thing Lin Tang remembers is the excruciating pain as an out-of-control current surged through her body in the laboratory, and the panic-stricken face of her advisor. When she opens her eyes again, the carved, gilded canopy above the bed makes her dizzy. Sickly sweet incense hangs in the air, and a young maid in ancient dress, eyes red with tears, cries, “Princess, you’re finally awake! You gave me such a fright!”
Princess?
Lin Tang, a top brain-science student at a leading university in the twenty-first century, now has another person’s memories crammed into her mind: those of Zhao Mitang, the most doted-on seventh princess of the Great Jing dynasty. True to her name, the princess was born to her father in his later years and raised deep within the palace. She is so innocent as to be almost foolish, pampered by the palace attendants until she can neither lift a finger nor tell one grain from another. Her only interests are sugar figurines and new clothes. In the capital, she is famously known as “the little sugar lump,” though behind her back people mock her as a “sweet but stupid” girl.
And this time, she “fainted” simply because she wanted the last osmanthus cake from the imperial kitchens. The Third Princess shoved her, and she hit her head on a pillar in the corridor.
Lin Tang, now Zhao Mitang, feels the bump on the back of her head and looks into the bronze mirror at a fair, sweet-faced girl with a vacant look in her eyes. Slowly, the corners of her mouth turn up.
A sweet but stupid girl? Starting today, it’s time to live differently.
