Shen Qingci died during a palace coup in the Tang dynasty. She swallowed a cup of poisoned wine, thinking her life was over, but when she opened her eyes, she had become Mary Grant, the third daughter of a penniless aristocratic family in nineteenth-century England.
Her father has died, leaving behind five unmarried daughters and an estate buried in debt. The heir acts like he owns the place, while a capitalist arrives with a purchase agreement. The family is on the verge of being turned out onto the street.
No one expects the third daughter, who used to keep her head buried in books, to suddenly step forward.
She puts the strategies of a woman official from the height of the Tang dynasty to work in restoring the family estate, conquers London's social scene with the aesthetics of a thousand-year-old civilization, and carves out a path through the men's world of business with the tactics of the battlefield and the game of Go.
Fitzwilliam Darcy had only meant to buy a pile of bankrupt assets at the lowest possible price. Instead, he found himself facing the most formidable opponent of his life: a young woman he had never thought twice about.
At the negotiating table, she turns the tables on him. At the estate, she moves heaven and earth with a flick of her hand. He goes from disdain to admiration, from opposition to standing by her side.
On a rainy night, he holds out a ring to her. “I've lost all my pride. I only want to win a single word from you.”
She smiles faintly. “You barbarian from a foreign land, you're mine now.”
