the story takes place in a certain jiangnan period during the republic of china eee。 su zhai is the most wealthy family in the local area. mr. su (played by liu songren) married four wives. since the fifth wife zi tao (played by hu jing) entered the house, the su family, with many wives and concubines, children, has undergone indescribable changes. the inner secrets that men and women in the family thought others did not know were cut open one by one like a cocoon. it turned out that zi tao, who was the last one, was well versed in psychology. her seemingly inadvertent words and deeds showed her intelligent scheming everywhere. in order to punish the su family's past sins and obtain hidden gold and silver treasures, zi tao started a battle game with her second concubine (weng hong decoration), third concubine (bai shan decoration) and the eldest young master. after several rounds, zi tao became the leader of the su family. the selflessness of the second young master mingyuan (played by chen chuhe) gradually influenced zi tao's heart, and she confessed her original intention to him...