During the Great Jing era, a village woman named Lin Awu rescues Xiao Jing, the Yongning Marquis, on a stormy day. He has been ambushed, gravely wounded, and left unconscious outside her woodshed. After recovering, Xiao Jing is grateful for her lifesaving help and pities her lonely, helpless circumstances. He offers to take her back to the marquis’s estate and promises her a secure life. Lin Awu has never seen the splendor of the capital and eagerly dreams of a “good life,” so she agrees.
But after entering the estate, reality deals her a harsh blow. Xiao Jing’s parents, the Dowager Marchioness of Yongning and the Old Marquis, despise her rustic background and lack of refinement. They refuse to let her manage the household and make her life difficult at every turn: assigning her menial servants’ work, deliberately humiliating her at banquets, and even secretly trying to match Xiao Jing with a noblewoman from an influential family. Though Xiao Jing is grateful to her, pressure from his parents and concern for the estate’s reputation gradually make him give in. He turns a blind eye to her plight. After enduring endless cold stares and injustice at the estate, Lin Awu finally loses heart and asks for a divorce. She leaves alone and soon dies in poverty and illness.
When she opens her eyes again, Lin Awu finds herself reborn on the day she rescued Xiao Jing. The rain still falls, and Xiao Jing still lies unconscious in the mud. Remembering the humiliation and tragic death of her past life, she no longer has the slightest longing for life among the nobility. Just then, she spots Xiaocui from the village.
