After staying up all night devouring an ancient romance tragedy full of unhinged characters, Shen Qiyao transmigrates into the book as the doomed, love-struck legitimate daughter with the most miserable fate.
In the original, she is infatuated with the crown prince, abandons her family and ruins her reputation, becoming a pawn for every faction. In the end, the entire Shen family dies unjustly, while her own corpse is left exposed in a mass grave.
She opens her eyes to a mortifying scene: kneeling before everyone to declare her love, while the whole hall mocks her.
Shen Qiyao calmly gets to her feet and severs every tie with a single sentence.
Romance? Being a lovesick fool? Throwing her life away? She wants none of it.
All she wants is to keep the entire Shen family safe, tear apart the tragedy already written for them, build up her resources, and hold steady control of the game.
But as she carries out her plans, everything starts to veer off course.
Her hypocritical, jealous, resentful elder sister curbs her sharp edges and becomes wholeheartedly devoted to her.
Her cold, taciturn elder brother turns into an overprotective sister-obsessed man, ready to defy the court for her.
The callous, selfish crown prince becomes consumed by obsession and willingly gives up his empire.
Even the bloodthirsty regent, whose power dominates the court, has eyes only for her, his obsession impossible to restrain.
Shen Qiyao: I just want to keep my head down and protect my family. How did all these unhinged people at court end up bowing to me?
