Liu Yin survives by refusing to be ashamed: after her husband sells her, her song wins Prince Chen’s favor and carries her from the streets into the heart of imperial power.
Between a calculating prince, a brilliant consort, a former husband who never stopped protecting her, and a court that despises her origins, she learns to turn every humiliation into leverage.
When death leaves her holding the imperial brush, the woman once dismissed as secondhand goods must defend a child emperor and rule a realm that never meant to make room for her.