On the eighteenth day of the eleventh lunar month in the eleventh year of the Jinghe era of Great Sheng, on the night the Shen family hosted a banquet, their adopted daughter Shen Muheng was drugged with a bowl of calming soup. What awaited her was the sight of the household steward from the outer courtyard with his clothes in disarray, and her adoptive mother, Madam Lin, crying and raising a scene as she caught them in the act.
In her previous life, that night ruined her reputation. Her legs were broken, and she was thrown into a dry well, where she froze to death overnight. Before she died, she heard someone say, "It's all because of that little something your mother left behind."
When she opened her eyes again, she was back at the moment when the soup was still steaming. The jade bangle her mother had left her grew warm against her wrist. It was no ordinary bangle: it held a spirit spring that could cure all poisons and a medicinal garden where any herb could be grown. She swallowed a mouthful of its spring water, lit up the room, and turned the trap meant to catch her into one of her own.
She sent her adoptive family to prison, went to the capital, and opened the Hengzhitang pharmacy. She saved the Dowager Consort, gathered medicinal ingredients, and tested for poisons, building her reputation step by step. But the deeper she dug, the more she uncovered: her birth father had died in a salt case fifteen years ago, her birth mother's keepsakes pointed to the Duke of Jing'an's estate, and the fire that wiped out thirty-seven people had revealed the same poisonous snake.
The person behind it all was deeply hidden. She was in no hurry. She would settle the score for the fifteen years she had endured, one account at a time. By her side was the heir of the Marquis of Dingyuan, shielding her from blades and investigating the case with her. She just didn't know that he had another face, one closer to the heart of the game than she could ever have imagined.
Good-looking, love to watch, recommended