Wudu is a bustling hub for medicinal herb merchants in Jiangnan.
Li Chongyuan, head of Chongyuan Herb Company, has been in the medicinal herb trade for more than thirty years and enjoys a strong local reputation. His rival, Wang Bingkun, is the richest man in Wudu, with businesses spanning medicinal herbs, silk, banks, and pawnshops. He has five wives and concubines and is domineering and arrogant.
The two families have been locked in an open and covert struggle for years, their grudges running deep.
Third Young Master Li Chengyuan returns from studying abroad, young and accomplished, with a wealth of new ideas. Together with his steady, reserved elder brother Li Chengzong, he repeatedly pulls off ingenious moves in the medicinal herb market. Meanwhile, undercurrents roil in the Wang household: the steward is having an affair with a concubine, the bookkeeper flees with confidential documents, and one scandal after another erupts behind closed doors. Seizing his chance, Li Chongyuan advances step by step, driving Wang Bingkun into a corner.
Wang Bingkun dies suddenly, and all his businesses fall into the hands of the Li family.
His fifth concubine, Zhang Lihua, is young, beautiful, and exceptionally clever. In this transfer of power, she becomes Li Chongyuan’s third wife.
Yet a far more dangerous romantic entanglement is quietly taking shape within the carved mansion...
