I Woke Up in a Mass Grave and Made the Entire Capital Bow to Me

Shen Zhiyao, the star agent of the modern Special Adjudication Bureau, died alongside a laboratory during a mission gone wrong after she was betrayed. When she awoke, she had become the good-for-nothing legitimate daughter of the Great Jing dynasty, stripped of her phoenix bone, humiliated by a broken engagement, and tossed into a mass grave. Rather than endure it in silence, she returned to the engagement banquet in bloodstained robes, broke off the engagement, proved her lineage, and delivered a face-slapping reckoning to the fake heiress and the crown prince in front of everyone. She dragged the crimes that should have remained hidden in the depths of an estate into the light of the entire capital.

As the truth came to light, Shen Zhiyao discovered that she was not the biological daughter of the Duke of Zhenguo's household, but the long-lost granddaughter of the Yun family. The entire Yun family fiercely protected their own, but she refused to be a pampered young lady who only let others protect her. She opened a teahouse, built an intelligence network, investigated a case of switched lives, and reclaimed her phoenix bone, gradually exposing the web of interests behind the fake heiress, the crown prince, the Imperial Preceptor, and the empress.

Xie Wujiao, the regent prince, was enfeoffed as a prince in his youth and was decisive and ruthless. Afflicted with a deadly cold poison, he had been treated for years as the core of the nation's protective formation. At first, he suspected Shen Zhiyao. Then he joined forces with her to investigate cases, came to admire and cherish her, and eventually fell in love with her. In the end, he went from “wanting to protect her” to “standing by her side and handing her the blade.”

On the surface, this is a story about a good-for-nothing legitimate daughter taking revenge and crushing her enemies. At its heart, it's the tale of the Phoenix Fate's master, reborn through nine lifetimes, putting an end to a cruel system that steals women's lives, offers them up as sacrifices, and forces them to make the ultimate sacrifice. In the final showdown, Shen Zhiyao destroys the immortality formation, puts the imperial power on trial, reopens the Special Adjudication Bureau, and reaches a happy ending alongside Xie Wujiao as his equal.