An Elderly Woman Transmigrates into an Ancient Supporting Character and Is Pampered by a Prince

Xie Qing, a seventy-five-year-old business tycoon known as an iron lady, dies alone and wealthy, having never experienced romantic love. Her final wish is to taste the bitterness of deep emotion in her next life. She is reborn as Xie Qingyan, a sixteen-year-old legitimate daughter of a corrupt seventh-rank county magistrate in the Great Zhou Dynasty. The original host had attempted suicide by hanging to resist a forced marriage to Wang Ping, the impotent and ugly legitimate son of a powerful third-rank Censor. Xie Qingyan awakens to find herself in this precarious situation, with the marriage scheduled for the eighth day of the following month. Her father, Xie Wenyuan, arranged the union to secure a transfer to the capital, unaware that the Wang family is using his daughter as a scapegoat for their son’s infertility scandal.

Instead of despair, Xie Qingyan applies her decades of corporate warfare experience to the crisis. She discovers that Wang Ping has eight concubines who have all failed to produce heirs, proving his impotence. The Wang family seeks a legitimate wife who can be blamed for childlessness, allowing them to maintain their reputation while discarding her later. Xie Qingyan decides to fight back by weaponizing public opinion. She instructs her loyal maid, Chun Cao, to spread rumors through the kitchen staff and local teahouses, revealing the magistrate’s greed and the Wang family’s disgrace. The rumors spread rapidly, evolving into a nursery rhyme that mocks the Wang family’s impotence and the Xie family’s sale of their daughter. The scandal reaches the capital, causing Censor Wang to fall ill from rage and the marriage alliance to collapse. Xie Qingyan’s reputation is tarnished, but she has successfully destroyed the Wang family’s standing.

Following the scandal, Xie Qingyan is confined to the ancestral hall by her furious father. During her confinement, she discovers that Chun Cao has been beaten by a senior servant, Madam Li, for speaking out. Xie Qingyan breaks her confinement to confront Madam Li, physically dominating her and forcing Chun Cao to strike back, thereby establishing her authority within the household. Meanwhile, in the capital, Zhao Chengze, the abdicated Martial Prince and a reincarnated businessman, hears of the scandal. Recognizing the strategic brilliance behind the rumor campaign, he becomes obsessed with finding the mind behind it, believing it to be his past-life rival, Xie Qingyin. He travels incognito to Leping County as a wealthy merchant named Zhou Xunyin, setting up a business trap to lure her out.

Zhao Chengze opens a shop offering absurdly favorable partnership terms, challenging local merchants with a puzzle involving the sale of rare and common goods at the same price without prior inspection. The entire county fails to solve it, including Xie Qingyan’s father. Xie Qingyan, learning of the scheme through Chun Cao, recognizes the business model as a form of blind box marketing. She writes a detailed proposal solving the puzzle and offering a comprehensive business plan for a curio shop. Her father, desperate for political redemption, delivers the proposal to Zhao Chengze. Zhao Chengze confirms that the plan is too sophisticated to be his own and demands a more detailed operational strategy, knowing Xie Qingyan is the true author. He waits for her to reveal herself, setting the stage for their eventual meeting.

Xie Qingyan completes the detailed business plan, translating modern concepts like market segmentation and risk management into language suitable for the era. She embeds subtle clues to test if Zhao Chengze shares her past-life knowledge. Her father delivers the plan, and Zhao Chengze agrees to invest two hundred thousand taels of silver to establish the first Curio Pavilion in Leping County. The partnership offers Xie Wenyuan a path to redemption, but Xie Qingyan’s true goal is to gain freedom and leverage against her father and the lingering threat of the Wang family. As the business takes shape, Zhao Chengze closes in, eager to confront the woman who has once again outsmarted him. The story moves toward a collision between two reincarnated geniuses, blending business intrigue with political maneuvering in the ancient world.