The show is set in ancient China and a large exploration of it is the treatment and expectations of being female set in the era. This includes trafficking, kidnapping, concubines (including those that are underage), and the exploration of the likelihood at being assaulted. That said the show does not romanticize or fetishize this instead seems set to explore just how women suffered. S1E1: the main character is kidnapped by men and sold to work for forced labor at a palace. S1E3: a concubine escapes a marriage she did not want. There is a brief discussion between female characters about how trapped they feel in the situations they live in as women. S1E5: Aafemale character explains to a male character that she uses cosmetics to hide her appearance because she is afraid and aware of the likelihood of being sexually assaulted . This scene is done very respectfully with the male character being visibility distraught, asking her gently about her experience, and being angry that those that treated her to feel this way were not punished. S1E6: there is a discussion about women and girls becoming concubines and having children when they were underage. One character in particular is discussed to have been sexually abused by the emperor and had a child around the age of 9: the main character is disturbed by learning this. S1E15: a man describing a woman he was once infatuated with casually mentions that he seriously considered sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions. S2E7: a man who is a known pedophile preys on a young boy. His mother protects him before anything happens and the man leaves. S2E8: there is discussion on a previous emperor preying and abusing numerous young girls, including one who had to be cut open to give birth because she became pregnant at age 10. S2E9: the entire episode is about a woman who was the victim of child sexual abuse by a previous emperor. It touches on her parents selling her as a political offering because she had her period early, having to give birth as a child, and other young girls also being abused by this man. Later in the episode, it is shown she later rapes this man as an adult in revenge and hoping he had never touch another child. The episode has no explicit rape, but there are scenes of the emperor putting his hand on young girl's shoulders, and the woman over him in bed as an adult just before she rapes him in revenge.