Li Zhu, a modern woman from the twenty-first century, transmigrates into the body of a low-ranking palace maid named Li Zhu in the Funing Palace of the Da Long Dynasty. The original host was timid and had been transferred there as a replacement for a maid executed by the Emperor for attempting to seduce him. Li Zhu quickly realizes she has entered a novel she previously read, where the Emperor, Li Shengyuan, is known as a tyrant with a violent temper who executes people on a whim. Despite his harsh reputation, he is also a capable and workaholic ruler who maintains peace and clean governance. The novel's original plot involves the heroine, Xu Guiyan, and the male lead, Jin Wang, conspiring to seize the throne after the Emperor's death. Determined to survive and avoid the dangerous political games, Li Zhu decides to lay low and stay out of the main couple's romantic entanglements.
Li Zhu possesses a unique ability to see exclamation marks above people's heads, which reveal their secrets when she focuses on them. This power allows her to uncover the hidden lives of her fellow palace maids, such as Mei Xiang's foolish devotion to a broken engagement and Xia Yu's deceptive nature. Her life changes when Emperor Li Shengyuan discovers that he can hear Li Zhu's inner thoughts. Initially alarmed and suspicious, believing she might be a spy or poisoned him, he becomes intrigued by her candid and often humorous internal monologue, which frequently revolves around food and her fear of death. He promotes her to a first-rank palace maid and assigns her to serve him personally, a position that draws the jealousy and hostility of other senior maids, particularly Xiuyu, who had previously manipulated another maid into her fatal seduction attempt.
Li Zhu's role evolves as she becomes the Emperor's nightly reading companion, helping to cure his chronic insomnia and improve his appetite. Her presence brings a strange sense of calm to Li Shengyuan, who finds himself relying on her company more than he cares to admit. However, her proximity to the Emperor makes her a target in the harem. Consort Shu, jealous of Li Zhu's access to the Emperor, publicly humiliates and punishes her by forcing her to kneel on gravel. The Emperor, upon learning of this overreach, severely punishes Consort Shu by confining her to her quarters, inadvertently elevating Li Zhu's status and making her enemies even more numerous. Li Zhu also uses her knowledge of the plot and her ability to read minds to assist the Emperor in uncovering a corruption scandal involving an imperial examination cheat, further cementing her utility to the throne. As she navigates the treacherous palace environment, Li Zhu must balance her desire for a quiet life with the growing attention from the Emperor and the lethal schemes of the consorts, all while hiding the fact that she is a transmigrator with knowledge of the future.
