At the Great Liang imperial estate, Wen Hengzhi, a low-born orphan, is pinned to the mud by a stewardess. “You ill-omened wretch! The lychee tree meant for today's tribute has withered. You'll pay for it with your life!” Powerless to fight back, she can only kneel and await her death. In the dead of night, new buds suddenly sprout from the dead tree, and by morning it bears purple-striped lychees, a fruit unseen for a thousand years. At the same time, a cold, mechanical voice rings in her mind: “Supply warehouse activated. Infinite storage space unlocked. Plant affinity ability bound. You can cultivate all things.” Wen Hengzhi falls silent for a moment, stows the lychees in her space, then carries a bowl of plain wild-vegetable soup to the Crown Prince, who has come to inspect the estate.
Prince Pei Zhaoyun takes a bite, his pupils contracting. “Is there perilla in this soup? Perilla has been extinct in Great Liang for twenty years.” Wen Hengzhi lowers her eyes. “If Your Highness likes it, I can grow some in the rear courtyard of the imperial estate.”
From then on, the imperial estate becomes the Crown Prince's secret treasury. Using rare crop seeds from her warehouse, she makes barren land produce tribute rice. With her power, she revives poisonous but delicious pufferfish blossoms, and even brings back the childhood sweets the Empress Dowager remembers from her dreams.
Nanny Shen warns her, “Hengzhi, you've crossed the line. A low-born girl daring to enter the noble clans' dining hall is a capital crime.”
But the Crown Prince slaps his tiger tally down in front of her. “What's the point of farming? I want you to grow enough grain to feed three armies.”
When the Censorate impeaches her for “using sorcery to disrupt the government,” and the Empress sends people to “invite” her into the palace as a servant, Wen Hengzhi opens her warehouse and takes out evidence left behind by the sorcerer clans of the previous dynasty: account books documenting corruption, enough to bring down half the court.
“Your Highness,” she says, handing the books to Pei Zhaoyun, “I want neither a title nor a reward. I ask for just one thing: abolish low-born status.”
