Lin Wei, a modern history graduate student, stayed up all night reading the ancient political intrigue novel Jade Shattered Behind Vermilion Walls. When she opened her eyes, she had become Su Qingyan, the cannon-fodder concubine-born daughter of the prime minister who “doesn't survive past chapter three.” A cup of poisoned wine was already at her lips. Her legitimate mother watched coldly, her legitimate sister concealed a smug smile, and death was right at her doorstep.
Drawing on her precise memory of the original plot, she feigned madness to expose her sister's moral failings and narrowly escaped being poisoned. Even after being sent to a remote courtyard, she refused to give up. She replanted the vegetable garden with high-yield crops to build up capital, learned medicine to save lives and expand her connections, and used her wits to turn the tables on her sister at a flower-viewing banquet. Unexpectedly, she also caught the attention of the original novel's hidden male lead, Seventh Prince Xiao Jue.
From a desperate struggle to survive in the inner household to making her mark in the business world, from fending for herself to forming an “information for resources” partnership with Xiao Jue, she advances at every turn: dismantling the Second Prince's poisoned scheme, breaking the deadlock surrounding the prime minister's treason, and thwarting the empress dowager's powerful relatives in their attempted coup. In the end, she transforms from a lowly concubine-born daughter whom anyone could bully into an empress who can stand beside the emperor and bring stability to the court.
Along the way, she not only rewrites her own fate, but also saves the supporting characters who met tragic deaths in the original story. From testing one another to relying on each other through life and death, she and Xiao Jue preserve their love amid the whirlpool of political intrigue, ultimately finding peace and prosperity, and a love that is fully requited.
