In the waning years of the Great Liang Dynasty, the Inner Palace is a world of silk curtains and sharpened smiles, where survival depends on secrets, alliances, and the careful performance of obedience. Within vermilion walls, every woman is watched, measured, and weighed for her usefulness.
Hae-jin never should have gone in — not without Se-mi’s laugh in her ear, not with their dreams of opening a small café still scribbled in her sketchbook, not with that bruise-purple choker around Se-mi’s neck she’d begged her not to lose. But when the debt collectors cornered them both — when the Recruiter came with that impossible offer — Hae-jin had grabbed Se-mi’s hand and stepped onto the bus just like every other frightened, desperate player. Four hundred souls and a prize that meant everything… or nothing at all.
In the brutal hierarchy of Baekyeon Girls' High School, where social status is determined by a monthly popularity vote, two girls find solace in an unlikely alliance. Kim Da-yeon, a high-ranking enforcer known for her volatile temper and the visible bruises she hides beneath her uniform, lives under the shadow of a wealthy, abusive father and the pressure to maintain the Mirage Group's flawless image. Y/N, an F-rank student plagued by severe anxiety, debilitating physical pain, and a volatile relationship with food and sleep, finds herself a silent victim of the system.
Tae-in was never a simple person; she was a storm in a body, chaos with a heart, a one-woman demolition crew disguised in fatigues and bones forged by fire. Before South Korea, before Seoul, before Geumga Plaza became a front in the war against Babel, she had lived and died a thousand times on foreign soil — the Republic of Korea Army’s Special Operations Division wasn’t a playground for idealists, and she wasn’t one. She was the kind of soldier people whisper about when they want a grimace to carry the word efficient.
Amid the ticking countdown clock and the warped spectacle of The 8 Show, Han Seo-yeon is the one who sees the game for what it really is: a distorted reflection of society’s cruelty. When eight strangers are thrust into a towering prison masquerading as a game — where time literally becomes money and human worth is measured in minutes accumulated — Seo-yeon enters not with cunning ambition, but with brittle idealism, sharpened empathy, and a ferocious commitment to fairness. 
In the heart of Gyeongseong’s neon labyrinth — a fevered, hopeful city that never sleeps — Lee Hae-jin is a quiet storm. Tall, long-haired, and impossibly capable, she moves with the assured precision of someone who has never needed permission. By day she is the meticulous assistant to Jeong Sun-hwa: the most breathtaking actress in all of South Korea’s booming film industry, a woman whose name alone can make producers sweat and censors blink twice.
In the glittering heart of Busan, where neon lights reflect off rain-slicked streets and the scent of sea salt mixes with city heat, Yoon Ha-rin is many things: a top actress adored by millions, a face on billboards from Haeundae to Nampo-dong, and ostensibly untouchable — except by the one person who never looks at her with awe.
In the electric heart of Busan — where neon lights never dim and the streets pulse with life even at 3 a.m. — lives Ha-yeon, a calm, long-haired, quietly charismatic woman who could be mistaken for serene at first glance… until someone interrupts her morning ritual of perfectly brewed coffee and precisely folded laundry. Ha-yeon has been dating Ji-woo, the city’s most beautiful and unapologetically sassy woman, for three years now — a fact that both entertains and terrifies their friends in equal measure.
Nevermore Academy has always been a school built on secrets — buried bodies, buried histories, buried students who never truly left. Wednesday Addams has never minded secrets. She collects them. Dissects them. Uses them as weapons. But some secrets don’t want to stay buried.
At Cheongdam International High School, power is inherited, traded, and weaponized. For most students, influence comes from chaebol money, elite lineage, and unspoken rules. For Yoon Seo-jin, power comes with something heavier: politics, pressure — and pills.