When a business prodigy steps into the imperial court, a legend of power, ideals, and love begins
After her father dies suddenly, and her stepmother eyes the family fortune, sixteen-year-old Lin Qingyue loses every last shield of protection overnight.
Everyone assumes the daughter of a wealthy Jiangnan merchant will sink into ruin, becoming a casualty of family rivalries.
But in just three days, she sorts out the tangled accounts, lays a trap to expose the traitor within, and uses decisive measures to stabilize the family business teetering on the brink.
Yet this is only the beginning.
An imperial edict announcing the “Court of the Phoenix” examinations shows her that women, too, can use their talents to earn a place at court.
To the capital, to study, to serve as an official.
Every step is strewn with obstacles: contempt from colleagues, oppression by the powerful, and schemes designed to frame her…
Until she meets a general as young as she is: Xiao Jingche.
He has won countless victories on the battlefield, yet his integrity has earned him the hostility of the court. She is exceptionally gifted, yet faces repeated difficulties because she is a woman.
From the illicit salt trade case in Jiangnan to the northern frontier battlefield, from court power struggles to a major case involving a shortfall in the imperial treasury
They are the most compatible partners, the companions who trust each other most, and eventually become inseparable halves of each other’s lives.
“I never wanted to be The Outcast, second only to one and above ten thousand. I want to prove that women, too, can protect this realm with their intelligence.”
Lin Qingyue
“Before I met you, my sword existed only to defend our borders. After I met you, it also existed to defend the ideals in your heart.”
Xiao Jingche
This is a story about how a woman, in an unequal age, uses wisdom and perseverance to make her own way in the world.
It is also a story about how two idealists join hands to change an era.
