The Runaway Bride's Escape Route, Embroidered on an Imperial Edict

Su Jinning, an embroiderer from Suzhou, had secretly pledged herself to the scholar Gu Yunzhou. She hoped he would ask for her hand once he made a name for himself, but an imperial decree shattered all her expectations: in three days, she would be taken into the palace and made a low-ranking concubine, trapped behind its walls and stripped of her freedom forever.

Her father, Su Cheng'an, worried for his daughter but dared not defy the imperial authority, and urged her to accept her fate. But Su Jinning refused to betray her beloved or resign herself to becoming a pawn in the palace. Disguised as a man, she slipped out of the residence to consult Gu Yunzhou, only to discover that the emperor's choice was no coincidence. A secret lay behind it, one even her father knew nothing about.

With the risk of her family being exterminated if she defied the decree on one side, a love worth risking their lives for on the other, and an unspoken plot hidden within the decree, Su Jinning has no choice but to embark on a perilous escape from her unwanted marriage. Using needles as blades and embroidery to send messages, she investigates the truth while joining forces with Gu Yunzhou to fight the imperial power and carve out a way to survive.