Shen Qingci, the legitimate daughter of a Jiangnan family, becomes a convict slave after her family is ruined. She falls in love with Prince Jing, Xiao Jue, but ambition tears them apart. Then the obsessive Emperor Xiao Yan imprisons her deep within the palace. Misunderstandings and torment, along with the schemes of villains, take her from radiant and full of life to utterly broken, until she becomes a discarded concubine in the Cold Palace. Her jade flute shatters, the palace walls loom high, and a lifetime of longing goes unfulfilled, leaving only a tragic, haunting regret.
