Lei Lin-ying (Wayne Lai) and On Tak-hoi (Raymond Cho) came from poor families and were sold to become palace eunuchs at a young age.

Chan Fuk (Elliot Ngok) is the head of the eunuchs, but he saw he was losing his authority because Lin-ying and Tak-hoi won the Empress' favor.

He started plotting against the two, but Lin-ying was fortunate to have palace maid Sin-yung (Nancy Wu) and the eunuch pharmacist, Yiu Sheung-hei (Raymond Wong Ho-yin) assistance.

At the time, the temporary cast featured in the trailer consisted of Wayne Lai as Li, Michelle Yim as Cixi, Bosco Wong as the Guangxu Emperor, Tavia Yeung as Consort Zhen, Susanna Kwan as Li's mother, with David Chiang, Elliot Ngok, and Chung King-fai as prominent government officials.

[1] To compete with the three new free broadcasting television stations in Hong Kong, TVB invested an additional 40 percent to the production budget.

[9] In November 2011, it was revealed that Nancy Wu, Edwin Siu and Aimee Chan would join the cast through their radio interviews and official Weibo fansites.

[16] Production was planned to be moved to Hengdian World Studios on March 12, however, it was postponed to a week later due to the date of Hong Kong International Film & TV Market.