【Alternate-History Period Romance + Adorable Three-Year-Old + Martial Arts Escort Agency + Beloved by All + Political Schemes and Detective Work + Face-Slapping Comeuppance + No Saintly Heroine】
Fusang is three and a half. Her father is a disgraced general demoted to guard the imperial mausoleum, and her older brother is an eccentric teenager who wears patched martial arts clothes every day and dreams of making a name for himself in the martial world.
A letter from the capital sends Fusang on a journey to find her mother.
But she never gets to see her. Instead, the Qingxu Abbey throws her out, claiming her fate is inauspicious. Penniless, Fusang can only crouch on a street corner and gnaw on a cold steamed bun, until the poorest escort agency in the capital, Iron Sword, takes her in.
The agency is so poor that even its gate is painted on, its signboard is borrowed, and the mice in the accounts room have to bring their own food.
But Fusang soon discovers that...
Her eldest senior brother, who chops wood all day, was once the top young swordsman.
Her second senior brother, who makes a living performing on the street, is an expert tracker.
Her third senior brother, who copies books for people, can see through false accounts anywhere in the land.
Her senior sister, who cheerfully cooks, can hold off half a street with a single dagger.
They aren’t talentless. They were trampled into the mud by a conspiracy over an old case.
From then on, when the powerful come looking for trouble, Fusang uses her little wooden sword to expose their dirty tricks. When rival agencies maliciously poach their jobs, the Iron Sword team turns the tables together. When scions of noble families abuse their power, she leads her senior brothers into a fight that ends with their foes coming to apologize.
Everyone thought the Iron Sword Escort Agency had picked up a useless burden.
Only later did they learn that the little girl they’d taken in was the darling who could reshuffle the entire capital.
Clutching her wooden sword, Fusang announced in her baby voice:
“Anyone who bullies my family has to line up and take their beating one at a time.”
