Song Yutang

Biodata

Background / History

Jing Dynasty life

Song Yutang was the daughter of Princess Danyang and Song Huaiyuan. Her father married her mother for her wealth and political connections while maintaining a relationship with his cousin, who bore Song Lian’er only three months after Yutang’s birth. Yutang’s childhood betrothal to the future Crown Prince Yang also helped the Prince of Qi secure support for his ascent to the throne 274.

Once that support was no longer needed, Song Huaiyuan and his family arranged Princess Danyang’s sexual assault and falsely accused her of adultery. Mother and daughter were confined in a dilapidated courtyard, deprived of adequate food, and subjected to continued abuse. Danyang died when Yutang was ten, after which Yutang was sent to a punitive nunnery 4 274.

During her later palace life, Yutang recruited widows from military families as companions and learned martial arts from them. After ten years as crown princess, she engineered a succession struggle involving Emperor Xiaozong and the Princes of Wu and Wei. She entered the palace under the pretext of suppressing rebellion, forced an edict transferring the throne, and fought her way to the imperial throne hall while protecting her young son. She died from exhaustion on the night she moved into the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility as empress dowager 1 2 50 51 63 286.

The modern Song heiress

Yutang awakened roughly a thousand years later in the body of the Song family’s eldest daughter in Cloud City, retaining the original owner’s memories. The original owner was the daughter of Song Jianye and his first wife, Wang Wen 1 90.

Wang Wen had helped build the family business but left her marriage without assets after discovering Song Jianye’s affair. He subsequently fabricated debts, blocked her employment and housing opportunities, and threatened their daughter to drive her out of Cloud City. She returned to her rural hometown with five-year-old Yutang and later died of breast cancer. The original owner received only a middle-school education, supported herself through odd jobs, and worked gutting fish at a supermarket 2 11 90 104 152.

The Song family brought her back to marry Jiang Muyan after Song Ruowei refused to marry a man in a vegetative state. Yutang accepted the marriage as an opportunity to escape poverty, but first forced her father to provide a substantial dowry 1 2 88.

Appearance

• Delicate, quiet-looking features contrast with the stubbornness visible in her brows and eyes 92.
• Composed, dignified bearing impresses Jiang Dingkun despite reports describing her as ignorant and uneducated 3.
• Formal clothing includes a pale blue-green qipao worn on her first return visit to the Song home 17.
• In her later Jing Dynasty life, she wears a high bun, sumptuous silks, pearls, and jade. Jiang Muyan observes fine lines around her eyes and an emotionally exhausted expression beneath her formal appearance 335.

Personality

Yutang is pragmatic, calculating, and unwilling to endure mistreatment for the sake of superficial harmony. She initially views marriage as a route to money and security rather than romance. Her use of traditional etiquette is deliberately selective: she invokes legitimacy, household hierarchy, and ancestral reputation to expose hypocrisy and undermine relatives who expect obedience while denying her rights 1 6 12 224.

Her ruthlessness extends beyond verbal intimidation. She considers eliminating rival heirs and explicitly wants the Song family ruined, using their competing interests to encourage destructive infighting. She prefers thoroughly investigated plans and maintains several information sources rather than trusting any single ally 82 93 104.

Toward people she considers family, Yutang is protective and generous. She defends her in-laws, assists Butler Wang’s ill wife, and helps vulnerable girls because their circumstances remind her of her own childhood. She believes kindness requires boundaries and encourages the people around her to resist exploitation 14 27 63 104 284.

Her public competence contrasts with private awkwardness. She struggles with modern technology, misunderstands aspects of sexual health, and attempts flirtation by copying palace concubines. Repeated betrayals make her reluctant to trust romantic promises; by the later side stories, she finds security in her own career and no longer sees motherhood as necessary to establish her value 97 239 240 274 352.

Abilities & Skills

Martial Arts and Improvised Weapons

Yutang retains the fighting knowledge acquired from military widows during her previous life 51.

• Spear fighting: Uses a rusted javelin to hold off seven or eight bodyguards, exploiting its reach and the room’s narrow confines 50.
• Precision attacks: Targets joints and pressure points rather than relying solely on strength 50.
• Baton fighting: Defeats bodyguards alongside Jiang Muyan, removing her high heels when they impede her movement 159.
• Teaching: Offers to train Jiang Boyan, insisting that he begin with prolonged basic stance practice 51.
• Firearms limitation: Initially cannot fire a stolen gun and uses its stock as a club. During the same escape, she works out how to operate it under pressure; the encounter does not establish formal firearms training 315.

Political Strategy and Negotiation

Her experience as crown princess informs how she handles wealthy-family disputes 63 286.

• Identifies Jiang Dingkun’s concern for family interests, ancestors, and posthumous reputation, then frames demands around those priorities 12 223.
• Uses legal threats and knowledge of a disputed will to obtain property for the eldest branch 115.
• Deliberately presents herself as a useful granddaughter-in-law while using Jiang Dingkun’s authority to establish her own position 224.
• Exploits divisions among Song Jianye, Song Mingzhe, Sun Meifang, and Song Ruowei rather than treating them as a united opposition 70 280 289.

Investigation and Building a Trusted Staff

Yutang treats independent access to information as essential to her safety 82 93.

• Commissions overlapping investigations from Butler Wang, Brother Yan, and private agencies to compare findings and reduce dependence on outsiders 82 93 104.
• Tests Dong Ying through results, offering rewards for capable work rather than granting immediate trust 167.
• Uses Butler Wang’s contacts among Song household servants and company staff to monitor her birth family 280.
• Later develops her own contacts and information network through Zhao Cuifeng, Jiang Baozhu, Tang Yuan, and Jiang Zhixia 352.

Management and Social Etiquette

Yutang actively studies the skills required of a modern wealthy-family representative 85 258.

• Learns finance and management, attracting Jiang Dingkun’s attention before the household transfer of authority 85.
• Handles elite social gatherings without appearing either arrogant or submissive 68 117.
• Studies international dining etiquette to prevent mistakes from becoming grounds for public ridicule 258.
• Oversees the Jiang Charity Foundation and later helps stabilize Jiang Group affairs as a shareholder 225 352.

Caregiving and Emotional Support

• Researches Jiang Muyan’s injuries and learns massage techniques in the hope of helping his recovery; these are caregiving efforts, not established medical qualifications 54.
• Maintains his medication and skin-care routines while believing him unconscious 103 145.
• Supports Jiang Shiqing without pressuring her to speak, then uses the girl’s interest in antiques to encourage conversation and confidence 346 347.

Equipment / Assets / Items

• Wedding dowry: A ten-million-yuan check, a painting valued above ten million, decorative ceramics, Song Jianye’s Rolex, Song Mingzhe’s diamond cuff links, and Song Ruowei’s jade pendant 1.
• Jiang household mistress’s jade bangle: Given to her by Jiang Dingkun as recognition of her household authority 93.
• Jiang family shareholding: Receives 1% directly in her name. A further 3% is notarized and frozen for her and Jiang Muyan’s biological child, rather than transferred to her outright 225.
• Commercial property: Secures three shops during the dispute over Grandma’s estate; Jiang Muyan later prepares a separate transfer of three downtown storefronts to her 115 341.
• Handwritten recipe notes: Treasures and copies recipes left by Shuangxi and Yu Suqiu, preserving a connection to her Jing Dynasty life 100 103.
• Personal wealth: Possesses several billion by the finale, making recovery of the Song estate primarily a matter of justice rather than financial necessity 338.

Relationships

• Jiang Muyan — Husband and eventual romantic partner. His Brother Yan persona earns her confidence before she learns that he has been pretending to remain unconscious. Their relationship includes both growing trust and a serious episode of sexual violence 197 211 224 292 297.
• Li Xiulan — Mother-in-law whom Yutang helps become more assertive. Yutang invites her onto the foundation’s board, and Xiulan later demonstrates that she can confront exploitative relatives independently 14 179 225 284.
• Jiang Guoqiang — Father-in-law. His sincere support moves Yutang, who fights to recover property and recognition for his branch of the family 14 16 115.
• Jiang Zhixia — Sister-in-law whom Yutang treats as her own younger sister. She supports Zhixia against Ji Chengyu and helps pursue property and legal protections for her and Tuantuan 27 126 170 174.
• Jiang Boyan — Younger brother-in-law. Admires her fighting skills; she offers training and rewards his competition success with a drone and conditional allowance increases 51 167.
• Jiang Dingkun — Grandfather-in-law and a source of both authority and obstruction. Their arrangement is mutually instrumental: he uses her against the second branch, while she uses his backing to secure her position 45 224 309.
• Butler Wang — Initially dismissive household servant who becomes an important investigator and ally. Yutang’s financial and personal support for his family wins loyalty beyond ordinary employment 2 104 280.
• Dong Ying — Assistant whom Yutang evaluates through performance and rewards with increased pay and financial trust 167 225.
• Wen Jingyan — Friend whose place in the rival branch does not prevent mutual assistance. Both affirm that their friendship can survive conflict between their families 57 265 266.
• Wang Wen — The original owner’s mother. Yutang seeks redress for the dispossession and suffering she endured 90 152 338.
• Song Jianye, Song Mingzhe, Sun Meifang, and Song Ruowei — Her modern birth family and principal targets of retaliation. She investigates their secrets and manipulates their inheritance disputes 1 82 104 311.
• Princess Danyang — Mother in Yutang’s previous life. Her abuse and death profoundly shape Yutang’s distrust of husbands and romantic assurances 274.
• Wei Xun — A man who promised to marry her during her nunnery years. Later events connect him to Jiang Muyan and resolve Yutang’s belief that he abandoned her 334 335 336.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Entering the Jiang Household

Yutang begins by overturning the role assigned to her as a disposable substitute bride. After extracting her dowry, she confronts the Jiang household’s hierarchy and challenges the preferential treatment given to Chen Ruyin’s branch. She also refuses her birth family’s demand that she kneel outside their gate, having the gates rammed down instead 1 3 6 12 16 17.

Her parents-in-law’s genuine concern gradually turns the marriage from a financial opportunity into a family commitment. She defends their standing and begins teaching them that maintaining peace does not require accepting humiliation 14 16 27.

Establishing Household Authority

At an auction, Yutang lights the sky lantern to demonstrate publicly that she has the Jiang family’s backing. She later explains that the display was intended to establish her standing before outsiders and support her ambitions within the foundation 76 77 92.

Jiang Dingkun’s transfer of household authority begins with Li Xiulan’s formal involvement and culminates in his recognition of Yutang as the family mistress. Yutang also secures promises of shares tied to a future child and pressures him into distributing property to the eldest branch 85 87 93 115.

Protecting Zhixia and Building Her Own Circle

Yutang intervenes in Jiang Zhixia’s troubled marriage, demands three homes for her and Tuantuan, and helps investigate Ji Chengyu’s agreements, debts, and transfers to Lin Lu. She obtains legal guidance and the offer of a divorce-lawyer team while withholding distressing findings until they can be properly assessed 126 174.

Alongside these disputes, she recruits Dong Ying and develops independent investigative channels rather than relying entirely on Jiang family personnel 93 167.

The Drugging Plot and Jiang Muyan’s Revelation

Wang Yaru drugs Yutang with an aphrodisiac at a hotel after Yutang helps her while she is drunk. While affected by the drug, Yutang admits attraction to the masked Jiang Muyan but resists going further because she believes it would betray her unconscious husband. Removing his mask exposes the connection between the two identities 193 197.

Yutang later acknowledges that she had underestimated Wang Yaru’s involvement. She nevertheless understands why Jiang Muyan concealed his recovery, judging secrecy a reasonable response to the second branch’s threat. The second branch is removed from the main residence, and Yutang formally takes over the charity foundation 199 210 211 225.

Retaliation Against the Song Family

Yutang uses evidence of Sun Meifang’s affair and pregnancy to aggravate Song Mingzhe’s inheritance fears. When Butler Wang discovers that Mingzhe arranged Sun’s miscarriage, Yutang has the evidence delivered to Sun and uses further humiliation to deepen their hostility 280 287 288 289 290 311.

By the finale, her objective has narrowed from total destruction to obtaining justice for the original owner and Wang Wen. She is willing to accept an equal division of the estate with Mingzhe, provided he stops acting against her 338.

Marriage, Violence, and the Jing Dynasty Connection

Jiang Muyan courts Yutang through outings and promises of patient support, while she struggles to regard their marriage as more than an alliance. During a later jealous confrontation, he restrains and sexually assaults her despite her protests, continuing until she loses consciousness. Subsequent chapters depict her expressing anger more openly and becoming more willing to trust him; these developments follow, rather than negate, the assault 255 278 290 292 297.

The late Jing Dynasty sequence connects Jiang Muyan to Wei Xun. He protects Yutang at Water Moon Nunnery, rescues her from a wolf, and promises an open marriage without concubines. The eventual revelation allows Yutang to reconsider the abandonment she had attributed to Wei Xun 333 334 335 336.

Independent Career and Later Family Affairs

In the side stories, Yutang helps address Jiang Siyu’s misconduct and Jiang Shiqing’s psychological distress. With Shiqing, she follows medical advice to avoid pressure and gradually draws her into conversation through antique appraisal 341 342 346 347.

After the inheritance struggle settles, Yutang’s foundation work and corporate influence continue to expand. She becomes publicly recognized as President Song in her own right, while Jiang Muyan is described as President Song’s husband. Having a child ceases to be a strategy for securing status and becomes something she is willing to let happen naturally 352.

Notable Quotes

“True harmony isn't earned by giving in, but by mutual respect.” 14

“While he's using me, aren't I using him too?” 224

“Mom, kindness needs a sharp edge, or people will only bully you.” 284

Trivia

• Prefers Chinese food despite studying foreign dining etiquette for formal engagements 258.
• Enjoys male-model livestreams and sends monetary gifts, repeatedly provoking Jiang Muyan’s jealousy 30 143.
• Initially mistakes the marks Jiang Muyan leaves on her neck for mosquito bites 57 214.
• Chooses mango-and-grapefruit fruit tea and a milk tea as favorites during a tasting outing 255.
• Wins a brown bear from a claw machine herself during an arcade date 278.