The Illegitimate Daughter's Stunning Reversal: I Was Reborn as a Pitiful Girl, Then Turned the Court Upside Down

After quarreling with her boyfriend, Tang Youyou wolfs down five bowls of river-snail rice noodles and chokes to death on a pickled bamboo shoot. She wakes up as Zhong Lingwei, the prime minister’s concubine-born daughter in the Yunlong Dynasty. The moment she opens her eyes, the original owner’s spirit clings to her: “Don’t go wandering! Your stepmother will beat you to death!” The original owner was so timid that her legitimate elder sister, Zhong Yanyu, tormented her for years. In the end, she died of hunger after fainting from a bowl of spoiled rice. As the legitimate daughter, Zhong Yanyu is convinced that “rules come first” and that a concubine-born girl belongs groveling at her feet. Modern independent woman Tang Youyou believes that rules are dead, but people are alive. When her sister steals her hand warmer, she stuffs it with chili powder. When her stepmother punishes her with kneeling in the ancestral hall, she brings a little stool, snacks on sunflower seeds, and talks back. At a literary banquet, one modern folk song leaves the entire room stunned. The original owner’s spirit goes from freaking out, “You dared to talk back? They’ll sell you off to the countryside!” to becoming her biggest fan: “Host, you’re amazing!” She becomes Tang Youyou’s “spiritual sidekick.” Tang Youyou has no intention of relying on a man, but three suitors fall for her: a guardian general who stands up to public censure for her, a literary leader who writes about the common people for her, and a martial arts alliance leader who sweeps away her hidden enemies. She also has six allies at her side: a loyal servant, a craftsman, an official, a heroine, a reclusive doctor, and an old eunuch. Starting out in the prime minister’s manor, she earns her first fortune by improving soap, then uses better farm tools to boost harvests and fights epidemics and disasters, breaking through the barriers between legitimate and concubine-born children. She takes on four major villains in turn: a hypocritical stepmother, an ambitious second prince, a power-hungry vice minister, and an influential tutor from the empress dowager’s family. At last, she uncovers the ultimate mastermind: the empress dowager, who is plotting to seize power.