She returns from hell, swearing to burn her enemies to ashes.
A strange skeleton deep inside a karst cave leads her to the blood-soaked vendetta of her previous life.
Lin Wei, a doctoral student in geology, plunges into an abyss because of a skeleton that belongs to her. Her soul travels back to ancient times, and she becomes Lin Qingci, the "Chosen Woman" destined to help a prince ascend the throne. She gives everything she has, only to be betrayed by both her lover and her best friend. Tortured with a thousand cuts and burned alive, she turns to ash along with her unborn child.
An undying soul lies dormant in the body of a lowly concubine-born daughter.
Three years later, she crawls back from hell, reborn as Lin Qingci, a concubine-born daughter of a Vice Minister who is bullied by everyone. Their names sound the same, but their fates are different. Her former lover has become emperor, and her former best friend rules the inner palace. She is the discarded empress, whose death from illness gets barely a mention in the history books, and the forgotten skeleton in a mountain cave.
This time, she believes in no fate but her own.
The inner household's power struggles? With a flick of her hand, she makes her vicious stepmother and half-sister reap what they sow. Her family looks down on her? She makes careful plans and becomes the hidden piece her father cannot afford to do without. The business empire she built in her previous life has fallen into her enemies' hands? She becomes a mysterious tycoon, advancing step by step to reclaim every last thing that belongs to her!
She plots with foresight, her web of spies spread throughout the court. She leaves nothing to chance, driving a wedge between her enemies and their ruler.
She will drag the faithless, wretched emperor from his throne and make him suffer the people's curses and a thousand cuts!
She will ruin her hypocritical former best friend and have the person she loves put her to death!
She will take this vast realm entirely into her hands!
When the phoenix cries through the heavens and her grand design finally unfolds, she sits upon the bloodstained throne.
Though three thousand beauties surround her, not one can warm her frozen heart.
