Gu Nanzi, a leading scientific researcher who retired prematurely, finds herself transported into the body of a girl with the same name after a nightmare of abuse. The original owner was an adopted daughter raised by Gu Youcai and Li Chunhua, who treated her as a beast of burden, sleeping her in a pigsty and forcing her to work from dawn till dusk. The abuse escalated to sexual harassment from her adoptive father and brother, while her mother and sister enabled the torment. When the family attempts to force her into a marriage with a vegetative man in the neighboring Xiejia Village as a trade for her brother's marriage, Gu Nanzi fights back, beating her abusers with a thorny branch before hanging herself from the rafters to frame them when neighbors arrive. She then flees to the mountains, where she discovers she has brought her fully stocked pharmaceutical laboratory with her, granting her access to advanced medicines and medical equipment in this backward era.
Gu Nanzi learns she has transmigrated into a period novel as a cannon fodder character destined to elope with her scum ex-boyfriend and die tragically. Determined to change her fate, she seeks refuge with the Xie family, whose eldest son, Xie Zhenting, is the vegetative man she was supposed to marry. She discovers that Xie Zhenting is actually a decorated special forces hero who was shot three times and hidden at home for recovery. Gu Nanzi offers to cure him in exchange for escaping her abusive family, a deal the Xie parents eagerly accept, paying five hundred yuan to sever ties with the Gu family. She successfully transfers her household registration to the Xie family, becoming Xie Zhenting's legal sister rather than his wife, thereby avoiding her doomed fate in the original story.
While recovering Xie Zhenting, who regains consciousness but remains secretive about his identity, Gu Nanzi confronts her ex-boyfriend Wang Bingcheng when he attempts to manipulate her into stealing from the Xie family. She publicly exposes his greed, leading to his ideological re-education. She then returns to the Gu household under the guise of retrieving documents, secretly drugs her former abusers, and loots their hidden savings, food coupons, and clothing, returning the stolen wealth to the Xie family to support Xie Zhenting's treatment. The Gu family accuses her of theft, sparking a community dispute that draws in both village chiefs. Gu Nanzi continues her medical treatment of Xie Zhenting using her laboratory resources, aiming to wake him fully while navigating the complex social dynamics of the rural village and avoiding the original plot's tragic endpoints.
