[Revenge + Rise from the Bottom + Happy Ending + First Person + Reborn]
My mother was named Ye Qingmei. She was a widow who ran a wonton stall in the south of the city, and she made the best wontons in all of Qingzhou.
Shen Wanyi, the richest man in Qingzhou, took a fancy to her and wanted to make her his eighteenth concubine.
My mother resisted to the death. One rainy night, eight burly men dragged her into the Shen residence, where she took her own life by smashing her head against a pillar.
I was fourteen that year. My only skills were reading and keeping accounts.
To avenge her, I entered the Shen residence as a laundry maid.
Shen Wanyi had no idea who I was. He had crushed too many ants in his life to remember what any one of them looked like.
There were seventeen concubines and more than a hundred servants in the Shen household.
Some vied for favor, some fought over the inheritance, some poisoned their rivals, and some framed the innocent.
I worked my way from the laundry room to the main courtyard, from chopping wood to managing the accounts. Thousands of taels of silver belonging to the Shen family passed through my fingers.
I helped the principal wife defeat a favored concubine, helped the eldest legitimate son reclaim the family fortune, and helped a concubine uncover the real culprit.
Every step brought Shen Wanyi closer to his doom.
Later, he knelt before me and confessed with his own lips.
My mother used to say that in this life, it isn't enough just to survive. You have to live with your dignity intact.
This is the story of a girl who climbed out of the mud and carved out a future for herself.
In the end, she will bloom in that ravenous mansion, where people are devoured alive, and grow a flower of her own.
