Shen Buyan, a concubine of the Hanlin Palace whose biological mother died young and who secretly studied in the study and became a talented person, was sentenced to death because her brother Shen Xingzhi was involved in a fraud case in the Jiangnan Examination Center. She was sent by the family to Prince Su's Palace, which was presiding over the case, as a maid, but he was actually an abandoned son.
In order to find a chance of survival, she relied on her photographic memory and strict logic to survive carefully in the palace. She discovered that the Iron-faced Prince Xiao Zhigui was not the cruel official rumored to be, but a "restorer of order" who hated the decadent old rules and secretly drew up a blueprint for a new era.
The two gradually became a soul ally from a tentative relationship with each other. Shen Buyan used the meticulousness of "rule-obsessed disorder" to solve the puzzle from the inside; Xiao Zhigui used the power of "Gui Gui" to open up the darkness in the court.
What they face together is not just an unjust case, but also the intricate salt tax, water transportation interest groups, and the shaky laws of the old world. From the palace to the court, two lonely sober people supported each other and healed each other on the road against the common enemy. In the end, they not only cleared their grievances, but also joined hands to become the pioneers of splitting the chaos and rebuilding the rules.
Purpose: This book aims to explore: when an individual's destiny is overwhelmed by a grand system, how an "insignificant" person can rely on his own wisdom, knowledge and tenacity to find a fulcrum to leverage injustice in a desperate situation. What it celebrates is not crushing strength, but the insight of hearing thunder in silence, the courage to see the truth in the smallest details, and the clear-headed power of women to use their brains and courage to open up a path for themselves under strict rules.
