When the Empress gives birth to Princess Xu Yaohua, a Taoist priest declares the child a harbinger of disaster, and the Empress Dowager orders her killed. The chief eunuch abandons her by the palace moat instead, but not before putting a collar around her neck and cutting a cross-shaped scar into her arm, so she can be recognized one day. Sixteen years later, the arrogant Crown Prince torments a common girl of no standing and nearly gets her killed, with no idea that she is the princess the palace lost.