Shen Man awakens in a cramped, old-fashioned room in 1970s China, her body burning with an intense fever and her consciousness slowly returning. She finds herself lying on top of a man, Qi Yuan, who is struggling to maintain his rationality despite being drugged. As memories flood her mind, she realizes she has transmigrated into the body of Shen Man, the malicious stepsister in a novel she once read. In the original story, this character was a stunning but barren widow who drugged her deceased brother’s wife’s fiancé, only to be caught, humiliated, and driven to suicide by the returning Lu Zhengguo. Her mother would later lose her sanity, and her half-brother would suffer from autism due to the family’s disgrace.
Qi Yuan, fighting the effects of the drug, pushes Shen Man away and wraps her in the quilt, urging her to stay calm. He is the younger brother of the man she was supposed to be with, and he refuses to take advantage of her vulnerable state. Meanwhile, outside, Shen Ping—the novel’s heroine—arrives with neighbors, carrying meat and feigning kindness. In her previous life, Shen Ping was betrayed by fate, losing her fiancé Lu Zhengguo to death and ending up sold to a remote mountain. Reborn, she sought revenge by having Shen Man drug Lu Zhengguo and climb into his bed, ruining Shen Man’s reputation. However, Lu Zhengguo has returned alive, disrupting Shen Ping’s plans.
Lu Zhengguo arrives home to find a crowd gathered outside his house. He kicks open the door, expecting to catch his wife in an act of infidelity. Instead, he finds Shen Man sick in bed, with an open window and a footprint on the sill. He realizes she was drugged and framed, but chooses not to expose the truth immediately. He orders everyone out and tends to Shen Man, cooling her with water. Shen Man, now sober, analyzes her situation. She decides to maintain the marriage for now, as divorce in this era would further damage her reputation. She plans to wait for the right moment, possibly after the college entrance exam is restored, to end the marriage.
The next day, Shen Man visits her mother, Yang Fang, and half-brother, Shen Mingchuan. She confronts Shen Ping about the framing, revealing that she knows Shen Ping drugged her. Gu Yang, the novel’s male lead, arrives and confirms he has no romantic feelings for Shen Ping, further isolating her. Shen Man’s actions disrupt Shen Ping’s schemes, causing Gu Yang to distance himself from her.
Back at the Lu family home, Shen Man faces hostility from her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, Lu Hongmei. Lu Hongmei accuses Shen Man of stealing her job at the textile factory, which would force her to go to the countryside. Shen Man clarifies that her mother bought the job independently, not taking it from Lu Hongmei. The Lu family, desperate to keep Lu Hongmei in the city, pressures Shen Man to give up the job. Shen Man refuses, asserting her right to the position her mother paid for. Lu Zhengguo, witnessing the unfair treatment, supports Shen Man’s stance, marking a shift in their relationship as he begins to see her not just as a scheming woman, but as someone being unjustly accused.
