Hailey Lloyd wakes up in a strange era as Willa’s daughter, sharing the same name, and is snapped at by a rude household girl who threatens to have the maid fired. Servants whisper the household is on edge because the real Smith heiress—switched at birth twenty years ago—is returning. Hailey's flashback reveals she once served Natalie Smith, rose with her to a high concubine and oversaw the imperial harem for forty years. Tension peaks when an official decree crowns Natalie empress and she appears; a servant cries, "My lady, I've missed you so much."