Qin Zheng, a modern infrastructure engineer, transmigrates into the body of a Crown Princess. However, instead of a life of luxury or palace intrigue, she wakes up to a collapsing empire. As the enemy breaches the gates, a eunuch hands her a length of white silk, advising her to “die with dignity.”

To buy time and avoid forced suicide, Qin Zheng rushes to the bedside of her dying husband, the Crown Prince, and puts on an Oscar-worthy performance of a grieving wife.

Chu Chengji, the legendary founding emperor of the Great Chu Dynasty, was a man who spent his life on the battlefield and died young without an heir. Upon opening his eyes, he finds himself reincarnated into the body of his own descendant—a useless Crown Prince presiding over the fall of the empire he built.

Furious that his descendants squandered his legacy, he decides to rebuild his kingdom from scratch. As for the “fragile” wife weeping at his bedside? He is unimpressed: “Women will only slow down the speed of my restoration!”

The Founding Emperor spends every night knocking on the Empress’s door: “Zheng’er, can I come back to the room to sleep now?”

When military funds run dry, the Crown Prince turns around and loots his own ancestral tombs. He hands the funeral treasures to his wife to fund the army, leaving Qin Zheng wondering: Is my husband’s brain broken, or is he just a tactical genius?

Wen Yu, the most celebrated noble beauty of the capital, sees her world shatter when her family falls and her country collapses. While fleeing to seek help from her fiancé, she is forced into the company of a crude “thug” named Xiao Li. Born in a brothel and infamous for his violence, Xiao Li is everything the refined Wen Yu despises.

Despite their mutual hatred, Xiao Li carries her on his back through a rainy night with broken bones, risking his life to escort her six hundred miles to safety. On the eve of her wedding to another man, he breaks into her room, soaked by rain, and begs: “Don’t marry that Prince. I will restore the Liang Kingdom for you. I will avenge your clan.” Wen Yu’s response is cold and pragmatic: “I want soldiers and power. Do you have them?”

Years later, a new power—Northern Wei—sweeps through the central plains. The Prince who Wen Yu married surrenders and offers her as a gift to the Wei Emperor. The man who dismounts from the horse is none other than Xiao Li.

He uses a blood-stained sword to lift her chin and asks chillingly: “Wen Yu, what kind of trash did you end up marrying?”

The world thinks he hates her, but behind closed doors, he is a trapped beast. Even after chaining her with gold, he presses his forehead against hers with a fragile, desperate look: “I have the soldiers now. I have the power. Will you marry me?”