The Inner Chambers

The story opens with the heroine, Liu Ruosi, who in her previous life married into a marquis's household. Less than two years after the wedding, caught in layer upon layer of schemes by her family and the inner quarters, she is driven to her death by her husband. When she opens her eyes again, she is back on a New Year's morning at the age of fifteen. Her father is still alive, her mother is well, and none of the tragedy has yet begun.

After her rebirth, Liu Ruosi must first confront the problem of the second branch having no son and needing to adopt an heir. She has to find a way to keep out the heir from her previous life who harbored malicious designs, and to find her parents a reliable alternative. At the same time, she must guard against the first branch's covetous eyes on the second branch's property, seizing the initiative step by step amid family visits, sisters' marriage arrangements, and banquets and rituals. Beyond the family maneuvering, she meets her husband from her previous life again. At first she keeps her distance, wary because of old memories, but as they spend time together she discovers that the misunderstandings of the past had another side to them.

Set mainly in boudoirs and family compounds, the novel moves forward through everyday events such as adoption, marriage, household division, and relations between mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law, and sisters-in-law. It traces the heroine's growth from a quietly enduring young girl into a mistress who runs the household, and it portrays women's survival wisdom and choices within the order of the traditional clan.