Demons and monsters run rampant, a great calamity is coming, and prodigies rise one after another.
But none of this has anything to do with Ye Linghua. She's just a poor village girl, hungry more often than not. Her greatest wish is to study, earn money, and have enough to eat and warm clothes to wear.
So she works hard and proves how capable and useful she can be.
At last, her parents relent and agree to let her attend the village school after the busy farming season.
But fate has other plans.
One day, her foolish, playful older brother hits his head. When he wakes up, he seems to have become someone else.
Her brother says he wants to study. He is favored by fate, born to become a high-ranking official.
He promises that if Ye Linghua willingly marries in exchange for money, then once he's made a marquis and become chancellor, he'll make sure she lives well.
Ye Linghua scoffs. She turns around, only to see her father beaming with satisfaction and her mother overcome with emotion, tears streaming down her face.
No one cares how she feels.
Instead, they urge her to be gentle and virtuous, to see selfless devotion as a woman's virtue. Better to help her brother get ahead than to let some stranger benefit from her.
The last glimmer of hope goes out.
Ye Linghua raises her head and looks toward the endless, impassable mountains. She will create her own miracle.
*
There was once a girl in a fishing village, gentle and beautiful. By chance, she rescued a man in distress, unaware that he was the crown prince. Grateful for her kindness, he welcomed her into the Eastern Palace.
A girl in the mortal world had a heart as compassionate as a lotus. One day, she ascended to the immortal sect, only to discover she had been a goddess undergoing a trial of tribulation. From then on, she returned to her rightful place and blessed all living beings.
These familiar stories, full of admonishment and oppression, do nothing but tell women to be obedient, gentle, kind, and selfless...
It is as if the moment they so much as think an improper thought, the demons of hell and the rules of the real world will rush at them together, hurling insults and lashes at them until they can never be reborn.
They long to shape a flawless saint who cannot be conquered, a saint who is great only for the sake of men.
They hope to carve these rules into everyone's very bones and blood, until they become as essential as air, more blindingly scorching than the sun.
Ye Linghua has grown tired of these stories, so she charges onto the high platform and snaps the magistrate's block in two.
What a vulgar, unruly, madwoman, they scream and rage, then finally fall to their knees, trembling.
Ye Linghua laughs. What worthless cowards.
If Heaven does not favor women, if women are destined to be exploited and oppressed, if morality and power are out of balance, then let the sun fall and the world collapse...
This world was born inside a woman, after all.
PS:
1. The female lead grows over the course of the story and is not perfect.
2. There are more female characters than male characters.
Theme: Let discontent become a flame and burn every last thorn.
