Gu Mingwei opens her eyes and finds herself the living sixteen-year-old ancestor enshrined on the Gu family’s ancestral tablet. Seeing an orphan kneeling on the ground and weeping because her monthly allowance has been withheld, then looking over the accounts and their staggering losses, she smashes a teacup on the spot. “Hand over the keys! Replace the steward! Drag out and beat those collateral relatives who bully the innocent!” The clan elders tremblingly hold up the genealogy. “The ancestral rules must not be broken!” She raises an eyebrow and smiles. “I’m the ancestor. I decide what the rules are.”
A few years later, the Gu family has become the richest in Jiangnan, and a gold plaque bestowed by the emperor, reading “An Eminent Family of Officials,” hangs proudly above their gate. The clan elders who opposed her at first kneel and cry out, “Great Aunt, your wisdom is unmatched!” On her wedding day, however, the Prince of Cheng, a member of the imperial court, suddenly lifts her red veil. His gaze is deep. “You’ve set the family in order. When will you put our lives together in order, Great Aunt?”
After the late emperor’s death, she is invested as the Princess Consort of the Regent and helps him govern in support of the new emperor, overseeing the economy, people’s livelihoods, technological innovation, charity, and education---
