Hanabi no Youna mono

Shaolan is an orphaned girl living a solitary life in the mountains at the edge of an impoverished village. Her humble existence changes forever when an envoy from the imperial palace arrives and selects her to serve as a lady-in-waiting in the imperial harem. Thus, a wild girl raised in the wilderness finds herself dwelling amid the luxury of the palace. Her new life, however, gets off to a disastrous start. On her very first day, a series of unforeseen circumstances drives Shaolan to slap one of the imperial consorts—a transgression that instantly brands her a criminal. Though execution seems all but certain, she receives a special pardon at the cost of a demotion: cast down from her post as lady-in-waiting, she is reassigned to a lowly maidservant position handling the palace's odd jobs. The other consorts scornfully nickname her the "Princess of Odd Jobs." Yet this humiliating setback marks the true beginning of her rise. Drawing on the survival wisdom gleaned from a lifetime of poverty, Shaolan implements reforms throughout the rundown palace and turns her menial chores into feats of remarkable efficiency. Her ingenuity soon captures the attention of ladies-in-waiting and consorts alike, and her name spreads through the imperial palace—until it reaches the ears of the emperor himself.