Ling Xue, the illegitimate daughter of the Grand Commandant’s household, also known as Consort Xue, lost her mother when she was young. Fortunately, the physician Yang Jin took her under his wing and taught her medicine, along with the conviction that “the people’s livelihood comes first.” She opens a clinic in Chang’an’s Western Market, using mint as her remedy and compassion as her medicine to relieve the suffering of the poor and sick. There she meets the emperor, who is traveling incognito, and begins a life that will shape the fate of the Tang dynasty.
After entering the palace, she rejects the struggle for the emperor’s favor and breaks through from a physician’s perspective. She promotes equality between legitimate and illegitimate children and establishes a school for children of concubines, giving poor families’ children a chance to make something of themselves. She advocates equality between men and women, founding the Shuhui Academy and a women’s business alliance so that women can step out of the inner chambers and into government and public life. She establishes public dispensaries and sets out epidemic prevention regulations, protecting the people from disease. Her reforms challenge the old order, but she wins the trust of both court and country through her resilience and wisdom. The emperor and she grow from sovereign and subject into devoted companions who understand one another, while she continues to cherish the memory of Feng Ran, the beloved she lost too soon.
In her later years, even as her health declines, she continues working at her desk on matters of people’s livelihood. As she nears death, she asks to be buried on the Tianshan Mountains beside Feng Ran and entrusts her reforms to future generations. In the end, she lives out her vow to “heal people, heal the age, and heal the nation.” A founder of the Tang dynasty’s golden age, she is remembered forever by the people alongside the ideals of “equality” and “compassion,” becoming a legend that endures through the ages.
