[Solving Cases Through Makeup and Medicine + A Wronged Woman's Rise + A Powerful Imperial Couple + Vengeance for Every Grievance + Justice for a False Conviction]
Twenty years ago, the entire Su family was executed. She was the sole survivor, having escaped death. Under the assumed name A Wan, she infiltrated the imperial harem as a low-ranking palace maid. Everyone saw her as a worthless nobody they could bully at will.
But no one knew she possessed her family's unparalleled art of makeup and medicine:
She could identify strange poisons from lipstick residue, determine the cause of death from traces of foundation, and track down the real culprit by scent. With a makeup box and a brow pencil, she could pronounce judgment and clear the wrongly accused.
The Noble Consort is disfigured and frames someone? She brews an antidote in the time it takes half an incense stick to burn, then catches the real culprit and humiliates the Noble Consort on the spot!
A palace maid dies suddenly, leaving an unsolved case? She sees through the poisoning at a glance and follows the clues to dismantle the Empress Dowager's covert network!
Witchcraft accusations, poisoned meals, thefts pinned on others... No secret plot can escape her notice.
From a lowly maid working in the dirt, to a records officer in the Palace Service Bureau, to a consort personally appointed by the emperor, she climbs ever higher over the corpses of her enemies.
If no one harms me, I harm no one. If anyone harms me, I root them out completely.
The leisurely emperor praised by everyone saw through her disguise at first sight.
From mutual suspicion and probing to standing side by side, playing the game together and breaking out of a dead end.
He shields her from every open attack and hidden scheme. She helps him reclaim imperial power and expose the shocking miscarriage of justice that has remained buried for twenty years.
The Su family's wrongful conviction is finally overturned, and she stands in the throne hall in a magnificent red phoenix robe, receiving the homage of every official.
Once the daughter of a disgraced minister, now the mother of the realm.
These palace walls can confine ordinary women, but they cannot hold back her rise to greatness.