In the first year of Yongning, Chu Yunsheng, a weaving merchant from the south of the Yangtze River, witnessed her father's tragic death on the eve of her sixteenth birthday in a murder case involving collusion between officials and businessmen. Before he died, his father entrusted her with an ancient jade engraved with the words "life and death". Overnight, she went from a carefree girl to an orphan, and was involved in a thousand-year chess game involving nine pieces of destiny jade.
On the way to escape, she met Xiao Jingyan, the cold and forbearing seventh prince, Xie Yunting, the gentle and jade-like merchant's son, Rong He, the master of the spy cabinet who was both good and evil, and her lifelong enemy and best friend - the former princess Feng Tianyin.
It took her fifteen years to travel from Jiangnan to the capital, from an orphan to a powerful official, from a chess piece to a chess player. She gathered all the jade, assisted two generations of kings, set a precedent for women to serve as officials, and was eventually recorded in history as the "Mrs. Zhenguo".
But during this long journey, she lost far more than she gained.
