[Revenge on scumbags + winning back his wife + one-on-one, both leads pure + heroine and male supporting character reborn + the whole family pays the price]
The emperor is critically ill, and there are no princes in the palace. Ning Qingqing has been married to Mu Bai, heir to the Prince of Jing, for three years. They are devoted to each other, but Ning Qingqing is secretly the empress dowager’s daughter, raised outside the palace.
The empress dowager dotes on her daughter and helps Mu Bai ascend the throne.
Before the investiture, the Prince of Jing’s household tricks Ning Qingqing into going to a temple to pray for blessings. She is abducted along the way, whipped and humiliated for three days, then dumped by the city gate by the bandits. The scandal becomes known throughout the city.
To save his own reputation, Mu Bai refuses to investigate the truth and instead forces her to take her own life, killing both her and the child in her womb.
As Ning Qingqing draws her last breath, her cousin laughs softly in her ear and tells her the bandits were not real bandits. Her family had hired people to impersonate them so her cousin could rise to power, take Ning Qingqing’s life, and claim everything that should have been hers. And Mu Bai had let it all happen!
Ning Qingqing dies consumed by hatred, then is reborn the day before her coming-of-age ceremony.
She throws the embroidered ball and marries the notorious wastrel Mu Feng, heir to the Prince of Jing.
The whole capital waits to laugh at her.
But later, Mu Feng becomes crown prince, and she becomes crown princess.
Days later, Mu Bai’s rebellion fails and the entire Prince of Jing’s household is arrested. As his prison cart passes her, Mu Bai drops to his knees, his eyes bloodshot, and begs her to forgive him: “A Qing, you were supposed to marry me!”
