After the Duke of Zheng's residence is raided overnight, Shen Qinghe falls from a noble young lady in the capital to a convicted woman sentenced to exile. She is thrown onto wasteland No. 37 in the eastern suburbs of Hanzhou. There is a shortage of food, firewood, and people. The saline-alkali soil is so barren that not even grass can grow, while the Liu family and the local authorities obstruct her at every turn. With a bowl of bitter bean soup, she gathers displaced people around her. She repairs carts, hauls firewood, drains salt from the soil, improves the land, and withstands the bitter cold. Against all odds, she manages to grow the first new sprouts in this barren land. In the end, she stakes everything she has gained to negotiate with the royal residence for 300 mu of trial farmland, officially taking the first step toward turning wasteland into a granary.