Modern finance whiz Su Nian opens her eyes to find herself the least favored illegitimate daughter in the Marquis’s household. Her birth mother died young, her stepmother bullies her, and the inner residence is full of wolves. With her wedding approaching, her older legitimate sister swaps their marriage arrangements, forcing her to become a concubine to a tyrannical crown prince.
Everyone is waiting for her to die in the imperial harem.
But Su Nian smiles. How about using modern game theory to play the palace game and crush the competition with a higher level of strategy?
She turns others’ strength against them, letting the concubines exhaust themselves in infighting. She sets traps to lure her enemies in, making them shoot themselves in the foot. Using incentives and intelligence to keep everyone in check, she turns the harem into an information hub and quietly reshapes the currents of power at court.
The crown prince goes from dismissing her to being astounded, from suspicion to obsession. This woman not only refuses to compete for his favor, she’s manipulating his empire.
When her older sister kneels at her feet and begs for mercy, and the tyrant bends to her will, Su Nian stands at the pinnacle of power and smiles. “The inner residence is merely the smallest game board I play on.”
