Palace Masquerade — Episode 4

Three years prior, Shen Mingyuan, Director of the Ministry of Works, was wrongfully convicted on charges of “colluding with the Crown Prince to stage a rebellion”, bringing total ruin to the Shen household overnight. Three years later, his daughter Shen Weiwan assumes the alias Shen Che. Disguised as a man, she enters the Imperial Household Department. Under the cover of overseeing palace construction and renovations, she sneaks into the imperial palace to clear her father’s name. Endowed with outstanding mathematical talent and masterful architectural expertise, she uncovers a string of suspicious clues while auditing accounts, inspecting water canals and examining palace halls: irregularities in the Eastern Palace construction projects, embezzlement linked to drainage waterworks, and the theft of a phoenix hairpin, among other conspiracies. By chance, she crosses paths with the Seventh Prince Xiao Che, who appears idle and carefree yet secretly investigates the truth behind his birth mother, Noble Consort Shu’s death. The pair shift from wary testing of one another to forming an alliance. Amid layered schemes and relentless assassinations orchestrated by the Crown Prince, the Prime Minister’s Su clan, and Jiangnan salt merchants, they endure imprisonment, secret tunnel escapes, frame-ups and betrayals. Eventually, they find irrefutable evidence hidden within a secret chamber in the Imperial Library and hidden passageways beneath the Eastern Palace. They expose the fabricated treason plot before the Emperor in the Golden Throne Hall, vindicating Shen Mingyuan and avenging Noble Consort Shu. Once the chaos subsides, Shen Weiwan casts off her male disguise and sheds all her hardships. Xiao Che abandons his power and status in the capital. Hand in hand, they leave the palace walls far behind and retreat to Jiangnan to spend the rest of their lives in peaceful seclusion.