[Nontraditional transmigration + political intrigue + obsessive love + tormented romance + redemption + alternate history]
A modern soul suddenly awakens to find herself in the body of Zhao Qingcheng, the infamous, tyrannical Grand Princess. Faced with the legacy of power and moral shackles left by the original owner, she must tread carefully: maintaining the original persona is essential to survival, but using her modern knowledge will accelerate the original owner’s takeover of her consciousness. More dangerously, trapped in the “golden cage” she built with her own hands is Wen Su, an upright top scholar, a man who should hate her to the bone, yet remains entangled with her in a twisted coexistence. The blood and tears along the Bian River, the corruption in the imperial examinations, the ambitions of the regional warlords: layer upon layer of political rot closes in like a vast web. In a sickening love tangled up in exploitation and possession, dependence and revenge, Zhao Qingcheng struggles between her modern conscience and the original owner’s addiction to power. When her attempts at reform are met with the backlash of the feudal system, and a withered lotus pond reflects the corruption at the heart of power, they must choose amid the flames consuming the old order: will they sink into becoming new monsters, or pay for a desperate redemption with their own destruction? This is a desperate struggle in which a transmigrator cannot overpower history, a dirge of power and desire devouring each other at the end of the world.
