After transmigrating into the disgraced empress Shen Mingtang, who was banished to the Cold Palace in The Zhaolie Dynasty, I hadn't even had time to feel sad before reality delivered a harsh lesson: the dowry inventory under my name was thick enough to prop up a table, but the shops, estates, and money houses listed in it had long since been secretly plundered by the Empress Dowager's faction. All I was left with was a mountain of bad debt and the cold stares of the entire palace. Emperor Xiao Jingheng did send Zhao Qingwu, the commander of the imperial guards, to climb over the wall and "inspect" me every so often at night, but I couldn't help feeling that his eyes were sizing me up to see how much more could be squeezed out of me. Then I discovered that keeping accounts and signing in every day in a corner of the Cold Palace could gradually bring my stolen businesses back under my control. Even Cui Momo, the gatekeeper, had begun to look as if she wanted to say something but couldn't. So I took a modern business textbook, broke it down, and fed it to these ancients. From Chun Xing, a low-ranking laundry maid, to the great Confucian Kong Shu, I drew them one by one into my schemes, and the ledgers became more exciting than a play.
