For ten long years, Vũ Hà has stood as the first wife of General Lý Trường Phúc—married to him at fifteen, nursing his mother through illness, giving birth to their twins, Minh Nhi and Ánh Nhi, and following him from Lãng Châu to the imperial capital. Yet on the very day the Emperor’s decree arrives—granting marriage between Lý Trường Phúc and the Emperor-appointed County Lady Tô Ngọc Mẫn—her world fractures. The wedding is tonight. The man who once pledged he would marry no one else is taking a second wife, and the household that Vũ Hà tended through hardship begins turning on her: children who spurn their mother as “ugly,” a mother-in-law who mocks the scars Vũ Hà earned by saving her son, and a husband who shelters behind imperial will.

But this is not a meek woman’s lament. After a near-fatal plunge into the lotus pond—an event the household assumes is suicide—Vũ Hà awakens with the fierce composure of an ace divorce lawyer, reborn into the body of the long-suffering first wife. And while she cannot invent new facts, she can interpret, strategize, and endure. The wedding goes forward. The second wife offers tea. A scalding cup spills. Accusations fly. A mother-in-law barks. A cold, steady gaze answers. Through ceremony, insult, and the private visit of a husband who expects acquiescence, Vũ Hà begins to draw lines—with law, with medical craft, and with truth.

Below is a structured journey through the key events: the humiliations, the courtroom poise, the palace crisis, the child’s rescue, the poisoning scandal, the imperial sentence, and the lingering knot of marriage and yearning that refuses to neatly untangle.
– The Emperor’s order is absolute: General Lý Trường Phúc will take County Lady Tô Ngọc Mẫn as a second wife. The household aligns behind the decree. Vũ Hà’s twins threaten to abandon her if she “bullies Aunt Mẫn.” The mother-in-law calls Vũ Hà’s scarred face “a demon’s mask,” insisting she is unworthy of being mistress of the General’s mansion. Vũ Hà’s pain—ten months of pregnancy and three days of labor for each twin—is dismissed. The new wife, soft-voiced and seemingly virtuous, suggests harmony while undermining the first wife’s standing.

– Ceremony proceeds. According to Liang City law, any concubine or secondary wife must serve tea to the primary wife to be acknowledged. Vũ Hà invokes this rule, forcing Tô Ngọc Mẫn to present tea. A spill occurs. Accusations that the first wife deliberately scalded the second rise; with cold precision, Vũ Hà demonstrates it was avoided, that appearances deceive, and that her calm is not cruelty. Still, the children echo insults. The mother-in-law piles on. The second wife acts aggrieved, yet keeps circling with deference and condescension.

– In private, Lý Trường Phúc visits. He claims duty to the Emperor and insists Vũ Hà must not be angry. She says little, refusing to be drawn into apologetics. He notices she feels “different”: less pliant, less tearful. She neither denies nor confirms. Her eyes are colder now, her voice more controlled.

– The scar salve sent by Tô Ngọc Mẫn worsens Vũ Hà’s face—spreading ulcers where scars had been. Examining it, Vũ Hà discovers mercury: deadly, corrosive. She keeps quiet before the General; telling him would only make her seem jealous and malicious. Instead, she pivots: as a trained herbal aesthetician (from a previous life), she requests aloe, astragalus, pearl powder, and the Liang City legal codex. She will treat her face and educate herself—learning to read if she must—because silence is a strategy, not surrender.

– The transformation arrives. With method and patience, her complexion clears; the wounds close. When she appears later, beauty returns—unexpected, poised, luminous. The household gapes. The children’s cruelty, once unleashed by the “ugly” stigma, loses ground, but their hearts remain hardened by Aunt Mẫn’s careful positioning.

– In the street, Vũ Hà stops a group from beating a ragged boy for brushing their clothes. They mock her as “ugly,” tug at her veil, and claim invulnerability because the offender is “brother-in-law of the General” via distant kin to County Lady Tô. Vũ Hà counters with law: in Liang City, nobles and commoners are equal before the legal code; mocking the law is mocking the Emperor. She names damages for the boy: medical costs, recovery time for bone contusions, and—new to their ears—compensation for emotional harm (150 taels). Spectators agree. Under pressure, the braggart pays. A magistrate confirms her legal citations. Even the sickly Seventh Prince (Yên Nhi) observes, impressed, while others scoff at her “street-law theatrics.” She still wins.

– The boy’s name is Thác Bạt Chiêu—Chiêu Chiêu. He refuses the money, saying his mother taught him not to be greedy. He’s an orphan; his father is gone; his stepmother was cruel; his father abandoned him. Vũ Hà sees in him a wound that resonates with her own abandonment. She offers to adopt him and bring him home. Lý Trường Phúc protests, worrying about palace rules in the General’s family. The Seventh Prince offers to report the adoption to his father, smoothing the path. Chiêu Chiêu calls Vũ Hà “mother.” She calls him “son.”

– At home, twins Minh Nhi and Ánh Nhi, coached by Aunt Mẫn, deride Chiêu Chiêu as a “stinky beggar.” The mother-in-law sneers that the General’s mansion is not a kennel for stray cats. But when the General explains that Chiêu Chiêu is the orphaned son of a fallen soldier, family pride twists. The mother-in-law begrudgingly accepts him—so long as care reflects the honor owed to a martyr’s child. Aunt Mẫn immediately covets the role of caretaker, promising fine garments; Vũ Hà refuses—she will clothe and protect her son herself. The child clings to her.

– Soon after, Chiêu Chiêu falls from a rockery, head bleeding. Servant Thái Chi claims she saw the first wife push him. Aunt Mẫn and the mother-in-law demand punishment. Vũ Hà coolly demands a formal inquiry at the magistrate. She devises a test: the rockery is limestone—a powder that would dust the shoes of whoever pushed the child from above. She orders everyone’s shoes checked. The twins tremble. The General’s discipline is firm: once cruelty is proven, there must be consequences. It emerges that a servant hurled a stone that worsened the head injury, acting to “help the young master vent his anger.” The servant is sold off by order. The General beats his son for his part in the harm, then, bleeding, goes to Aunt Mẫn for care—only to be refused by Vũ Hà, who says she has no spare medicines for traitors. He lingers at her door like a wounded dog; she sends him away to the second wife.

– The Emperor summons the General’s household to the palace—word of the chaotic wedding and the first wife’s “improprieties” has spread. In the throne room, the Emperor chides Vũ Hà for “ruining a citywide celebration” by disrupting the second wedding. The twins accuse their mother: she bullies the grandmother, breaks dishes, assaults the second wife, and terrifies the children. The General pleads for clemency, calling his wife “foolish but devoted.” Vũ Hà answers with careful logic: public humiliation of the first wife at the General’s own table is a stain on the General’s name and suggests the Emperor has failed to reward the General enough to keep servants. She stitches a case that the household’s cruelty harms the throne’s dignity. The Emperor reprimands everyone: Tô Ngọc Mẫn must copy “Women’s Instructions” 300 times; the General loses stipends for three months and must correct his children’s behavior.

– Then crisis strikes: the Seventh Prince collapses at the racetrack with his chronic heart illness. Doctors fail. He stops breathing. Vũ Hà offers a desperate modern technique: rescue breathing. The court calls it obscene; the mother-in-law calls her shameless; even the General demands she stop. She proceeds, undeterred. The Prince wakes. He testifies: a “flow of air” entered him—the General’s first wife saved his life. The Emperor, humbled, offers a reward. She asks only for the right to divorce: a clean break from a husband who loves another, with the children remaining with their father and half the estate granted to her for ten years of service. The Emperor urges caution, offering her the chance to reconsider.

– At the Mid-Autumn banquet, gifts from the Empress Dowager are displayed. Aunt Mẫn boasts of a ruby hairpin bestowed upon the “General’s wife”—but the hairpin is engraved with Vũ Hà’s name. Hồng Bảo Thạch (Red Treasure Stone) pieces are said to “know their true owner”: stained by another’s blood, they may crack or harm the thief. Under pressure, Aunt Mẫn claims the palace sent all gifts to her courtyard. The Empress Dowager arrives, enraged—she had rewarded the first wife, not the second. The Seventh Prince reveals he personally commissioned the hairpin for Vũ Hà. The Empress Dowager orders Aunt Mẫn to sweep public streets for three days, face uncovered—an open shame to check her arrogance.

– Meanwhile, the mother-in-law secretly uses the scar salve that destroyed Vũ Hà’s face. Burns erupt. She howls. The General apologizes to Vũ Hà, who gives an antidote.

– A northern envoy arrives: the Khagan of Sơn Bắc. He bears a rare arctic fox-fur gift and a desperate plea: his only son, Thác Bạt Chiêu (Chiêu Chiêu), has disappeared in Liang City. He wants his boy back. He finds Vũ Hà—the woman his son calls “mother.” Panic spreads through the banquet: Chiêu Chiêu collapses after eating a pastry. Poison—arsenic (thạch tín). The Khagan rages: “If my son dies, I will raise war.” Vũ Hà acts instantly: she orders salt and water, induces vomiting, and flushes the poison until the water runs clear. The court physician confirms: the boy is saved.

– Who tried to murder a foreign prince? The twins say a maid pointed them to the pastry. Vũ Hà notes standard criminal psychology: perpetrators return to the scene. She gathers everyone present at the garden and proposes a simple “salt-water test,” knowing guilty hands will panic. Aunt Mẫn refuses to dip her hands. The Seventh Prince examines: traces of arsenic appear on her fingers and a small vial is found with her sachet. Evidence emerges that she had previously incited the twins to bully Chiêu Chiêu and even used stones to worsen the boy’s head wound. The Emperor strips Aunt Mẫn of her title, banishes her from the General’s mansion, shaves her head, and orders seclusion in a temple until death. The Khagan, grim but satisfied, withdraws the demand for blood.

– The mother-in-law, still convinced Aunt Mẫn is “good,” uses the tainted salve again, blistering her own face. Vũ Hà’s remedy helps once more. The General begs for normalcy, promising a quiet, peaceful family life. Vũ Hà refuses, asking him to agree to a divorce. He clings: she must not stop loving him; he never wanted to marry Aunt Mẫn; it was the Emperor’s will; she is his only true wife. He tries to share her bed; she throws him out. He carries her sleeping body to the bed, insisting he will leave once she rests. He lingers in doorways injured and embarrassed; she mocks him for seeking comfort with Tô Ngọc Mẫn when wounded. The Seventh Prince openly favors Vũ Hà, vowing to wait for her to divorce and then court her. Another northern noble—an “outsider”—admires her fortitude and offers to “steal” her away if her husband won’t let her go.

– Chiêu Chiêu must return north. The Khagan calls Vũ Hà “the best mother” his son could have found and invites her to come to Sơn Bắc. She declines—she has a family still. They share a farewell feast. The Seventh Prince arranges jewelry for her after the meal. The Khagan jokes that the stew tastes like a northern braise; he says she would thrive in Sơn Bắc. The General warns them not to covet a married woman. The Prince shrugs: he’s waiting for her divorce.
The highest tension coils around two trials: first, saving the Emperor’s beloved son in front of a hostile court; second, exposing attempted regicide of a foreign prince within the palace grounds. In both, Vũ Hà uses knowledge rather than force—law, medicine, inference.

– Before the Emperor, while jeers mount and even her husband hesitates, she kneels and rescues the Seventh Prince with breath and resolve. The court calls her obscene; she rescues life anyway. That victory secures a promise she converts to an ask: divorce. The Emperor stalls, generous but wary of allowing scandal.

– In the poisoning of Chiêu Chiêu, what begins as domestic malice becomes international crisis. Vũ Hà’s technique neutralizes arsenic; her trap of “salt-water fear” flushes out guilt; physical evidence seals it. A second wife who claimed virtue is sentenced to lifelong penance. The court’s arrogance—law for show, face as weapon—collides with a woman who speaks the code and saves a prince. Imperial justice shifts because she forces it to see.

– Under the Khagan’s gaze, every misstep becomes geopolitical. And yet by the end, the boy lives, the culprit is punished, and the Khagan relents. Vũ Hà wins time—time for a choice that remains unresolved.
The Emperor has sentenced the second wife to a shaved head and temple seclusion. The mother-in-law’s face, poisoned by false kindness, heals thanks to the antidote from the woman she maligned. The General stumbles between pride and yearning, too late understanding the cost of neglect. Vũ Hà keeps her promise to herself: she will not beg for love; she will not conceal truth; she will choose, when the moment is right, to leave or to remain on her own terms.

Chiêu Chiêu returns to Sơn Bắc, hand in his father’s. He calls Vũ Hà “mother,” tears shining. In the farewell feast, princes and khan argue over her future; she brushes them aside with grace. The Seventh Prince offers jewelry; the Khagan offers a country. She accepts neither—yet. She eats, she smiles, she lives. The General asks for calm days together. She answers with the same steady line she drew in the throne room: if he truly wants to make amends, then grant the divorce. The very last words he speaks—promises—arrive after she no longer hears them.

In the end, the story does not slam shut. It leaves us with a woman who became both guardian and advocate, mother and magistrate, healer and strategist. She rescued a prince; exposed a poisoner; saved a foreign heir; and faced down her own house’s contempt with law and composure. Whether she crosses north to become a queen, remains and becomes her city’s fiercest counsel, or simply walks free under the moon with no man’s permission—the choice belongs to her. And for the first time in ten years, she knows it.