Shen Zhaoning has died once.
A three-foot white silk sash and one betrayal showed her the knives hidden behind those smiling faces. Reborn after falling into the water, she is once again an inconspicuous concubine-born daughter of the Shen household. Her stepmother hides scheming behind her kindness, her eldest sister suppresses jealousy beneath a gentle manner, and her second aunt's favors, third uncle's crude jokes, and fourth aunt's "concern" are all performances.
This time, she will not be a pawn. She will be the one moving the pieces.
Pei Yunji is the most lowly concubine-born son in the Pei family.
His birth mother was a lowly concubine who starved to death in the Buddhist shrine, and his childhood was spent like a rat in a gutter. He traded humble smiles for a mouthful of cold rice, then climbed to power through careful scheming. Everyone says he is reserved and self-possessed, with a bright future ahead. Only he knows what twisted, sinister thing hides beneath that respectable facade.
He wants to destroy everyone.
Until one night, he placed a plum blossom outside her window.
It was the flower she had casually said she liked in her previous life.
In a sprawling mansion, hearts are as monstrous as ghosts.
She moves carefully, determined to expose the truth beneath every smile.
He watches coldly, waiting to see how the drama will end.
But the bottle of wound salve she gave him, he clutched all night and could not bring himself to use.
The brazier she had lit for him, he remembered for half his life.
She said, "I'll help you get what you want, and you help me destroy those people."
He agreed.
But later, among all those he wanted to destroy, she was the only one he would spare.
This is a story of two wounded souls finding warmth and saving each other in a mansion that devours people.
An ensemble of double-faced characters, household intrigue and power struggles, and a faint plum-blossom fragrance in the dark.
