The story begins when the Emperor's concubine Zhang gave birth to a daughter. Desperate to bear the Emperor's first son surviving, she agrees to Eunuch Liu's suggestion that her daughter be switched with the son of the Lin family. Lin's wife, however, was enraged by the forced switch and abandoned the baby princess at a brothel in Yang Zhou, Bai Hua Lou, where she was adopted and named Qian Qian.
18 years
