The regent empress dowager's first imperial edict upon ascending the court was unexpectedly to bestow a marriage granting her own elder brother to marry the eighty-two-year-old Princess Shoukang—all six of her former prince consorts had failed to outlive her. All the court censors initially opposed it in unison, but fell completely silent upon hearing the princess's title. Twelve years ago, her elder brother, to help his adopted sister seize her engagement, tricked her into leaving the city and sent her into the elderly prince's villa. Everyone said she was bound to die as a funerary sacrifice, but no one knew that she held the military tally and endured in forbearance for twelve years. Now the golden palace's pearl curtains are rolled high, and the close kin and former lovers who framed her back then must have their old accounts settled one by one.