The story follows Liu Ayuan, a poor girl from Suzhou whose courtesy name is Yushu. When her father sells her to pay his gambling debts, she is passed from one household to another, serving as a concubine in the Shen, Zhang, and Wang households and enduring humiliation at every turn as she struggles against her fate. Through those dark, lightless days, she keeps half of a jade pendant her mother left her hidden on her person. Unwilling to accept the life fate has dealt her, she uses the chance to learn to read to secretly memorize evidence of the powerful men’s crimes. Eventually, she is sold to Zhou Qiyuan, an elderly censor, and gives birth to a son, Nian'an. After Zhou dies, Ayuan is driven out, but the old servant Chen Ma takes her in, and she makes a living running a teahouse by the canal. In the end, the evidence she kept hidden leads to the criminals’ arrest, and Ayuan and Nian'an finally find a peaceful life together.
