One fall into a well takes her from the depths of a prime minister’s mansion to the bustling everyday world of the 1990s.
When she opens her eyes again, there’s cooking smoke, cassette tapes, cramped apartment blocks, and a report card with “dead last” on it. The legitimate daughter of a prime minister’s household has become a socially awkward girl in a county town.
Her classical arts skills are maxed out, but first she has to learn how to use a rice cooker. She speaks in elegant, literary phrases, only for the neighborhood aunties to think she’s “talking nonsense.”
She thinks she’s a fallen phoenix, but everyone around her just assumes she’s going through an embarrassing phase.
Then comes the first monthly exam. While everyone else scratches their heads over classical Chinese, she casually turns the Analects into an essay. Her teacher is so excited he slaps the desk: “Provincial top-scorer material!”
When the neighbors fight over the shared washroom, she brings over a cup of tea and settles things in three sentences, turning a battlefield into a friendly chat. A tenth-level expert at harem intrigue, she utterly outclasses a small county town.
Before long, she becomes a local legend:
“That girl’s strange, but she can make the dead sound alive and the poor sound rich.”
All she wants to know is this:
Should she find her way home first, or simply turn this road into her own golden path?
