Ming Dynasty Black Lotus

[Female swindler × hypocrite]

In the year Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty ascended the throne, Magellan’s fleet completed its circumnavigation of the globe.

Decades later, on the eastern coast of Zhejiang under the sea ban, a rural woman accidentally hears the Western theory that “the heavens and earth are round,” and suddenly realizes that since all four seas are round, wherever you stand can be the center of this world.

But when she looks around, women have no way out except marrying and having children.

So she chooses a different way to live—greedy and crafty, cheating and swindling her way through life, she is the infamous female fraudster Bei Luosha on the roads, but she is also a good girl.

To blend into high society, she takes a risk and impersonates the wife of a ranked scholar to attend a noble banquet.

This used to be a prosperous harbor where countless sails competed, but now it has become a place for the powerful to feast and entertain themselves. Every seat is worth a thousand gold, and these people laugh about romance and elegance. Mere ants are not worthy of setting foot here. She insists on coming to taste what this so-called heaven on earth is like.

The noble ladies mock her for being crude: how dare a wild chicken try to climb a high branch?

She is fearless and fires back: how do you know it wasn’t that refined and elegant ranked scholar who seduced me and insisted on begging me to dote on him?

But when she turns around, she sees the real owner standing there with a tall, straight figure. She trembles so hard she even thinks about where she should be buried.

Unexpectedly, the ranked scholar smiles: “Madam is right.”

She still foolishly thought that a gentleman would be considerate and cherish the fairer sex, but little did she know misfortune had only just begun.

It turns out he was being magnanimous only because he wanted to make fake acting into real life, and truly have this streetwise swindler act as his delicate wife! Who is really deceiving whom?

—Are you a gentleman, or a demon?

—That doesn’t matter. You want to overturn the case, I want to turn the world upside down. Why not add a little fire for each other?

Two black lotus flowers bloom on the same stem. You kill, I hand you the knife. A butterfly at the harbor gently flaps its wings, stirring up a storm in the imperial court...