Lin Zhiyi, the legitimate daughter of an imperial merchant family, has long been betrothed to Shen Linchuan, a Grand Tutor. Yet Shen favors Jiang Yingxue, an orphan who claims to have transmigrated, giving her the Shen family's ancestral glass hairpin while offering Zhiyi only a crude wooden one. He even secretly takes Zhiyi's dowry shops and proposes taking Jiang as a secondary wife after the wedding. Heartbroken by his repeated betrayals, Lin Zhiyi decisively breaks off the engagement and accepts an imperial decree of favor granted by the Empress Dowager years ago, allowing her to enter the palace. There, Emperor Xiao Changheng falls deeply for her and showers her with favor. Soon, she becomes pregnant with the imperial heir and is crowned empress. Unwilling to accept defeat, Jiang attempts to drug and seduce the emperor, but her scheme is exposed. She is thrown into the imperial prison, where she spends her days in madness. Shen Linchuan loses his official position and fortune, eventually becoming seriously ill and destitute outside the city gates.