The Old Madam Puts Every Defiant Soul in Their Place

Lin Wanqiu, a modern-day expert in pushing children to excel, opens her eyes to find she has become the old matriarch of the Marquis of Yongning’s household in the Great Zhou Dynasty.

Though the old lady holds a first-rank title and has children of her own, that doesn’t change the fact that she has gone from a high-achieving mentor to an elderly matriarch who needs help walking and runs out of breath when she speaks!

After lying in bed for five days, Lin Wanqiu reluctantly accepts reality. Just as she’s preparing to enjoy retirement with her children and grandchildren around her, she discovers that...

Her eldest son dotes on his concubine and neglects his wife, leaving the marquis’s household in chaos;

Her younger daughter is lovesick and insists on marrying a poor scholar;

Her eldest grandson is a spoiled wastrel who has already driven away his eighth tutor;

Her eldest granddaughter is timid and meek, bullied by her father’s concubine until all she can do is cry.

Lin Wanqiu throws off the brocade quilt. “Help me up! This household needs sorting out!”

And so strange stories about the Marquis of Yongning’s household begin circulating in the capital:

The old matriarch starts a “Concubine-Doting Correction Class” for her eldest son, the marquis, and makes him copy “The Virtues of Men” a hundred times a day;

She arranges a “Capital Ladies’ Matchmaking Event” for her lovesick daughter, so she can see what a truly suitable man looks like;

She designs a “Wastrel Transformation Challenge” for her spoiled grandson and sends him to experience life in the army;

She opens a “Legitimate Daughter’s Presence Training Camp” for her timid granddaughter, where she has to master music, chess, calligraphy, painting, martial arts, and strategy alike!

Just as everyone in the household is being “pushed to excel” until they can barely take it, at a palace banquet...

The emperor sees how the marquis’s children have transformed and beams with delight. “The old matriarch has raised them well. Reward her!”

An old madam who used to be her rival grits her teeth. “How did her children suddenly become so capable?”

Even the regent, whose power towers over the court, comes to call in person. “Madam, my son is a handful... Could I send him to you for a little ‘discipline’ too?”