Merit awakens on the morning of the Nile Inundation Festival, having reincarnated into the temple square where Egyptian maidens cast golden scarabs to select their husbands. In her former life, she sacrificed everything to elevate a military officer, only to be butchered by her envious younger sister Nefti. Spotting Nefti rushing to claim that same ambitious officer in this timeline, Merit deliberately tosses her sacred scarab toward a flea-bitten beggar resting in the reeds.
Unbeknownst to the mocking crowd, the beggar Kaji is actually the reigning Pharaoh Amenemhotep, wandering the streets in disguise to test aristocratic virtue. Living in a modest mud-brick hut, Merit uses ancestral botanical healing to tend the sick, capturing the disguised monarch's heart. When Nefti frames Merit for palace theft, the beggar steps onto the golden chariot to crown his bride.
