Beneath the Dry Well: The Abandoned Consort's Prophetic Dream

Burdened with a prophecy that she would bring ruin to the nation, Shen Manli is forced to marry into Prince Huai’s household. On their wedding night, her husband, Xiao Huai, warns her coldly, “Know your place, or the Shen family will be buried with you.”

But Shen Manli knows this marriage is a dead end. She has already dreamed that she will eventually be abandoned in a dry well and die a miserable death. Knowing when she will die but powerless to resist, she is the only clear-eyed participant in this game of power, walking willingly to her own demise.

So she lies low, maneuvering carefully amid cold stares and false accusations. At the plum-blossom banquet, she foils a poisoning plot; in the witchcraft case, she turns the tables against all odds. With a blood-written plea and her sharp wits, she brings the vicious secondary consort down at last, and even the eyes that have always watched her with cold suspicion finally show a flicker of feeling.

As trust quietly takes root amid schemes and danger, the nightmare of the dry well draws near once more. But this time, she refuses to accept her fate. Xiao Huai watches the woman he once pushed away with his own hands, his eyes bloodshot. “Manli, don’t go...”