Shen Mingying, the legitimate daughter of the Marquis of Dingbei's household, was always clutching a bowl of medicine and coughing as if she might collapse at any moment.
Everyone thought she was a pushover in the hands of her stepmother, Madam Fang. Poison was slipped into her embroidery room, her betrothal was stolen, and even her maid dared to spit into her tea.
But who could have guessed that ten years spent pretending to be ill in the Buddhist hall and listening at the walls had let her see right through the household's dirty secrets? Madam Fang's virtue was a sham; her affair with another man was real. Her half-sister's spoiled behavior was just a mask, concealing the poison she intended to use to kill Shen Mingying.
On the night Shen Mingying took charge of the household, an old servant knelt at her feet with a copy of the Tang Code and its commentaries, left behind by her birth mother. “My lady, it's time to settle accounts.” The moment the frail legitimate daughter lifted her veil, the bloody turmoil of the household power struggle had only just begun.
