Betrayed by her husband and best friend, Lillian loses her standing as a royal merchant and spends five years behind bars. When freedom brings only fresh humiliation, a spirit fox she once saved returns to repay her kindness. Lillian rescues her daughter, Shirley, whose years of hardship have inspired a daring ambition: to establish the nation's first school for girls and defy a world that expects women to leave their futures in someone else's hands.