She wakes in a heap of corpses, covered in mud, with half a moldy flatbread to her name.
No one knows that this starving girl, too weak to walk, was once a law PhD who was framed and murdered.
No one knows that the hand once used to hold a pen will one day lay bare the secrets of the Great Liang dynasty.
She teaches little beggars to keep accounts at the City God Temple, washes dishes in the Drunken Immortal Inn’s kitchen while eavesdropping on military secrets, and kneels in court to silence the powerful with a chain of evidence.
He is the Ninth Prince, with no maternal clan and no outside support. The officials throughout the court regard him as a lone courtier.
He brings a beggar back to his residence, at first only because he needs someone to handle the accounts.
Later, he discovers that this woman has given him half an empire.
From a heap of corpses to the City God Temple, from the accounts room of a prince’s residence to a courtroom showdown, from secondary consort to principal consort, from principal consort to empress
through it all, she relies on neither bloodline nor beauty, nor anyone’s pity.
She relies on her wits.
This is the story of a woman who once went hungry and made sure the world would never go hungry again.
