After her mother was brutally killed, her dowry seized, and Gu Yunxi drugged with madness for six years, her stepmother mocked her as a lunatic, her half-sister laughed at her as a fool, and the whole capital saw her as a worthless nobody they could push around.
When her mind finally cleared, she had planned to restore her family's imperial merchant status, only to discover that the last item on her mother's dowry list was a betrothal gift from the Prince Regent.
For a woman, building a career means navigating a path lined with blades.
She would tear up this cruel script. She would trade her skirts and hairpins for a scholar's robe, change her name, disguise herself as a man, make a name for herself through her writing, and earn a recommendation. She would climb out of the mud and reach the Golden Throne Hall to punish every villain under heaven who had harmed her mother.
Every official at court was a man, so she had no choice but to move among them, reading their intentions and testing their limits.
A young, handsome guard who carried a sword at the emperor's side, a young lord with delicate features and red lips, and a scheming Prince Regent all ended up in her bed, one after another...
Crazier still, they all knew she was a woman, yet none of them exposed her. Each had their own agenda.
It was only after she discovered that the key ingredient in the madness drug she'd been given for six years was not in her stepmother's hands, but deep within the imperial palace, that she understood.
There was never just one person in this game who wanted her to go mad, wanted her dead, or wanted to use her as a pawn.
