The Phoenix Returns Home

Shen Zhiyi had been the prime minister's daughter, but after her mother died and her father turned cold, and as the family fortunes declined, she was taken from the mansion by Pei Qingzhi, a poor scholar her mother had once supported. The two depended on each other to survive. Pei Qingzhi fell ill and had no money for treatment. To help him sit the imperial examinations, Shen Zhiyi resolutely entered the brothel "Yan Gui Lou," selling her art but not her body, and made her living by poetry, lyric verse, the zither, and painting. Three years later, Pei Qingzhi was named the top scholar, yet he broke his vow and married another woman, Liu Rusi, a minister's daughter, and even wanted to take Shen Zhiyi as a maid who would share his bed. Utterly disheartened, Shen Zhiyi chose to accept the marriage proposal of a mysterious patron—the reigning emperor, Xie Xuanheng. As it turned out, Xie Xuanheng was the prince she had met by chance in the palace as a child, and he had always remembered her kindness. Shen Zhiyi returned to the palace in the dignity of empress. Out of jealousy, Pei Qingzhi and Liu Rusi framed her again and again; in the end, under the political machinations of the emperor and empress, they were ruined and disgraced, reduced to the debased register, and died destroying each other. Shen Zhiyi and Xie Xuanheng governed the realm hand in hand, bore a crown prince, and came to a happy ending.