In the eleventh year of Shaoxing, Ye Duan, a talented girl from a poor family, threw herself into the river and was reborn. In her previous life, she was exposed to corruption in the imperial examination and died tragically. In this life, she disguised herself as a man and re-entered the examination room under the name "Ye Qingchen".
From the mysterious case of the sinking of the salt ship to the exchange of Gongyuan test papers, from the hidden secrets at the Prime Minister's Mansion night banquet to the blood-spattered Danqi in front of the Chui Gong Palace - she relies on her past life memories to move forward step by step and tear open the cracks in the encirclement and suppression of the treacherous prime minister Qin Hui and the four major families.
But when half of the jade pendant points to the true identity of the orphan from her former dynasty, she faces the ultimate choice: smash this decaying ladder, or become a new chess player?
This is a race for revenge against time, and it is also a declaration of war against the thousand-year-old clan system.
