After transmigrating as the cross-dressing heir of the Duke of Zhenguo’s household, Wang Meng has just one wish: make money, stay alive, and don’t die.
Her father died in battle, her mother is no good at managing the household, and seven or eight hundred mouths are waiting to be fed. She keeps the family afloat by borrowing poems and making rouge, planning to quietly grow rich and coast through life.
Then a transfer order to the northern frontier changes everything.
Some people think she’s here to overturn a wrongful conviction. They’re wrong.
As she investigates, she discovers that:
The transfer order for her father, Wang Huaizhang, was forged. The real order was issued by Shen Zhiyuan himself.
The late emperor’s heart ailment was a lie. The chronic poison was administered by Li Chengen, the Right Envoy of the Demonic Cult.
The Empress Dowager’s decree is genuine, but hidden behind it is a secret order from Li Chengen.
Li Chengen and the Empress Dowager conspired to kill the late emperor, while Shen Zhiyuan is the only person who knows the whole truth.
Shen Zhiyuan says the late emperor left him a secret edict: the crown prince’s identity is questionable, and he may decide the matter himself.
But he protected the crown prince.
Not because he was loyal, but because he hadn’t finished investigating.
From the twelfth year of Chongde to the twenty-fifth, thirteen years of old cases lead to the same place:
The correspondence between the Empress Dowager and Li Chengen.
It wasn’t the hand behind a coup.
It was a carefully planned, two-sided game of chess that had lasted thirteen years.
And from the very first day she transmigrated, Shen Zhiyuan had pushed Wang Meng onto the chessboard.
Starting with a transfer order, she investigates the Department of State Affairs, the Raven Guards, the Empress Dowager, and Li Chengen.
And the deeper she digs, the more she turns an entire generation of the imperial court upside down.
