[Undergoing major revisions. Planned to be a short story of under 30,000 characters.]
In the nineteenth year of Chengguang, imperial tea was dumped into the river. Ye Junting, the Tea Transport Commissioner of Jianghuai, had secretly monopolized the tea trade and stolen from the very office he was meant to oversee. The Ye family was confiscated, leaving everyone in an uproar.
Her father was falsely accused and thrown into prison. Ye Yunzhi and the women of her household were sentenced to labor as ironworkers, becoming the lowliest mine slaves at the Shezhou mining site.
Once a daughter of wealth and privilege, now a prisoner in chains, she watched her loved ones leave her one by one.
On a snowy night at the mine, she stumbled upon the true face of the mastermind. Seeing her elder sister and younger sister lying cold and lifeless on the ground, she tasted blood in her mouth, her eyes red with fury.
A long sword plunged into her belly. When she opened her eyes again, she had returned to two years earlier, when the Ye family had just risen to prominence, their teahouse was in need of renovation, and their tea plantation was just getting started. None of it had happened yet.
Ye Yunzhi had had her fill of a life of wealth and ease. She would no longer be a sheltered young lady at the mercy of others. She would take her family's fate into her own hands.
Protect the tea plantation, settle the bad accounts, save the tea farmers, win commercial power... In a world of turbulent schemes and shifting power, this time she would draw closer, step by step, to the person behind the bloodshed of her previous life. She would avenge the dead, join forces with those who shared her cause, expose the wicked, and bring peace to the people.
Theme: There is always a time to break the deadlock, and I will not walk the tea path alone.
