The Rise of Ning

Luo Yining (罗宜宁, played by Ren Min, 任敏) is the lawful daughter of the Luo family, but she grew up away from the main house in a separate villa and never absorbed the habit of strict etiquette. Back in the family home, she keeps stepping in when the household bullies her "third brother" Luo Shenyuan (罗慎远, Zhang Wanyi, 张晚意). Born to a lesser wife, he is looked down on at home, yet she gradually realizes he is a gifted scholar and a skilled fighter. After a romantic disappointment, Yining decides she will not stay tied to the household and sets out to open a shop of her own.

Shenyuan has his own aim. His teacher was falsely accused and died, and Shenyuan has been gathering what he can to find out why. When Yining's business runs into trouble, he backs her, and the two come to depend on each other. Lu Jiaxue (陆嘉学, played by Ci Sha, 此沙) disturbs the Luo family's peace along the way.

The setting is a scholar-official household in imperial China. The series is adapted from the Jinjiang Literature City web novel Shou Fu Yang Cheng Shou Ce (首辅养成手册, "handbook for raising a senior grand secretary") by Wen Tan (闻檀). Shoufu (首辅) is the title of the senior minister of the imperial cabinet.

Mai Guanzhi (麦贯之) directed. The producers named art director Shao Changyong (邵昌勇) (credited with the look of Nirvana in Fire), and costume and makeup director Huang Wei (黄薇), who worked on A Dream of Splendor. Huace Croton's Xintiandi Studio produced it with Tencent Video.

It premiered on October 10, 2024. After the finale, the producers reported that it led the daily average ratings charts on Hunan TV, that Mango TV's front-end plays passed 1.32 billion, that Maoyan counted over 1.344 billion effective plays, and that its Tencent Video heat value passed 28,000.