I had been nothing more than an ordinary cleaning woman at the Jinyang Marquis's Residence, lost among the crowd-until I met the Fifth Miss.
-Chen Yuerong, a serving woman
The Jinyang Marquis's Residence was divided into two factions: the Younger Branch and Third Branch, led by the Old Madam, and the Elder Branch, led by Jian Zhang.
Great Xia governed through filial piety. The Elder Branch had little influence, and the entire Jinyang Marquis's Residence followed the Old Madam's lead.
Despite being the eldest legitimate son of the Marquis's Estate, Eldest Master Jian Zhang was at a disadvantage in the struggle for the title. Under the Old Madam's leadership, the Younger Branch had always held the upper hand.
Those high-level household power struggles originally had nothing to do with me. I was merely a cleaning woman in the First Madam's courtyard, doing sweeping and cleaning. I rarely even saw the First Madam, and I could not begin to compare with the trusted servants in the Old Madam's courtyard. Even when the other serving women gathered to wag their tongues, I could not get a word in.
A Fifth Miss suddenly appeared at the Marquis's Estate. How she had come to be there, I did not know.
I was one of those people on the very fringes of the Jinyang Marquis's Residence, with the lowest allowance and the filthiest, worst jobs. Big, brawny servants like me were not fit to attend our masters in person. We would offend their eyes.
The ones who attended our masters closely were all senior maids as lovely as flowers and jade.
Then one day, the First Miss wanted to take the Fifth Miss to see the epiphyllum bloom. The Fifth Miss had eaten her fill and could not walk quickly, and the First Madam was