Xu Qinghuan is exiled to Lingnan because of an old case involving her family. By chance, she arrives in Jiming County, a place that appears to be in complete chaos. The county magistrate is obsessed with gambling, his secretary manipulates the account books, and relief grain is repeatedly resold through layers of corruption, leaving the people hungry and freezing for years. From a bowl of spoiled rice and fragments of old account books, she senses something amiss and gradually uncovers the truth behind the "grain for the dead," the poisoned water supply, and the black-market mining network. As she navigates the county office and its officials, she forces the magistrate to abandon his self-protective disguise and gradually rebuilds order, while pushing herself toward the center of an even greater struggle for power.