The Yong'an Dynasty! The hierarchy between legitimate and secondary-born children crushes daughters born to concubines? Xie Qingci is determined to tear those rules apart!
Falsely accused by her stepmother of “bringing her mother's death” at age five, she is banished to an estate for ten years. Instead, she masters the teachings of a reclusive expert, becoming skilled in medicine, commerce, and strategy. The moment she returns to the family residence, she turns the tables on a deadly plot!
Her stepmother poisons her? She feeds it to her trusted aide instead. Her half-sister provokes her? She turns it into a chance to win public acclaim. They try to marry her off to a brutal wastrel? She tears up the marriage contract and ruins his reputation!
From the inner household of the Xie family to the bustling markets of Jiangnan, she saves the people from an epidemic through Ningchuntang and crushes the Meng family in a business battle. She joins forces with Seventh Prince Xiao Heng to stir up the struggle for the throne, yet refuses to become a concubine in the imperial harem. “I don't want to be empress. I want a world where women no longer have to bow to rank and birth!”
She establishes schools, opens medical examinations, and abolishes outdated laws. From a concubine-born daughter anyone could trample to a “Guardian Scholar” whose name rings across the land, Xie Qingci declares: “If Heaven will not protect me, then I'll defy it and change my fate!”
