Shen Mingyue transmigrates into the story as a doomed supporting character: a woman who throws herself at the top scholar, exhausts her dowry within three years, and dies a miserable death. On the day of their engagement, her former fiancé, Pei Wenyuan, is already calculating away: marry a merchant’s daughter, drain her dowry, then climb to a higher branch. Shen Mingyue gives him a graceful smile. “I’m calling off this engagement.” That very day, she takes a cart of braised snacks down to the docks. From a single lantern at the night market in the southern part of town to the Mingji Trading House, whose reach spans the Great Qi; from a small-time vendor driven out by Wangxian Tower to the “richest person in Great Qi,” feared by the Fifth Prince. When tigers stalk the court, she dares to present evidence at the Meridian Gate; when war breaks out on the northern frontier, she sends grain a thousand miles. As for Huo Yunzheng, that “fallen nobleman”… They agreed to get what they wanted and go their separate ways, so why was he the first to fall in love?
