Jiang Lige, a brilliant medical scientist from the twenty-first century, transmigrates into the body of the young emperor of the Great Yu Dynasty. The original host was a female disguised as a male due to her mother’s desperate political maneuvering eighteen years prior. Now seated on the Dragon Throne, Jiang Lige finds herself a puppet ruler, completely overshadowed by Shang Guanqi, the powerful Grand Eunuch known as Nine Thousand Years. Shang Guanqi orchestrated her ascension after the previous emperor’s death and controls the Eastern Depot and the Imperial Guard, keeping the court in a state of fear. The empire is politically divided between Shang Guanqi’s Thousand-Year Faction and the Su Faction, which supports the unconscious Crown Prince and is backed by Empress Dowager Su and her family’s two hundred thousand troops.
Jiang Lige’s primary goal is to survive and eventually abdicate to live a free life. However, her attempts to assert independence are constantly thwarted by Shang Guanqi, who appears to possess mind-reading abilities or at least an uncanny intuition that allows him to evade her assassination attempts. During a ritual at the Palace of Benevolent Tranquility, Empress Dowager Su drugs Jiang Lige with an aphrodisiac to force her niece, Su Luo, into the empress position. Jiang Lige escapes to the cold palace, where she encounters a masked shaman and injects him with a tranquilizer to counteract the drug’s effects. This shaman is later revealed to be Xie Shu, the exiled heir of the loyal Xie Clan, who has returned to seek revenge against Shang Guanqi for framing his father six years earlier.
Xie Shu allies with Wen Zhimo, a young marquis and Jiang Lige’s childhood friend, to dismantle Shang Guanqi’s power. They manipulate public opinion by causing a landslide that reveals a stone tablet predicting the fall of the dynasty due to a calamitous star, identified as Shang Guanqi. The resulting civil unrest forces the court to demand Shang Guanqi’s execution as a sacrifice to heaven. In a pivotal confrontation at Longevity Lake, Jiang Lige accidentally poisons Shang Guanqi with a hidden hairpin and falls into the water. Shang Guanqi rescues her, an act that complicates his previously cold demeanor and hints at unresolved feelings from their past life together.
At the Sacrificial Altar, just as Xie Shu’s assassins prepare to strike, Jiang Lige interrupts the ceremony. She publicly accepts blame for the nation’s disasters and offers herself as the sacrifice instead. Her genuine repentance and bravery move the crowd, resulting in the appearance of a phoenix, which is interpreted as a divine omen favoring her rule. The political tide shifts dramatically as the common people and elder ministers pledge their loyalty to Jiang Lige. Duke Su and Xie Shu’s plans are thwarted, and an assassin targeting Jiang Lige is killed by Shang Guanqi, who shields her with his own body. The chapter ends with Jiang Lige’s status as emperor solidified by popular support, while her complex relationship with Shang Guanqi enters a new, uncertain phase.
