Gambling addict Hsiao Pao (Wang Yu), the son of a prostitute Wei Chun-hua (Shaw Yin-yin), gets involved with anti-Ching revolutionaries Mao Shih Pa (Kuan Feng) and Chuang Tan-kung (Hsiao Yu). When Chuang is executed, Hsiao Pao joins Mao in storming the execution ground; both are injured and flee to the capital. There they are captured by Chief Eunuch Hai Ta-fu (Ku Feng). Hsiao Pao manages to blind his captor with a fatal overdose of medicine, thus enabling Mao to escape while he himself poses as the Eunuch’s attendant Hsiao Kuei-tzu, whom he has just killed. Hai sends Hsiao Pao to fetch a volume concealing a Ching treasure map from the Royal Study, and Hsiao Pao quite accidentally becomes acquainted with a young man named Hsiao Hsuan Tzu (Gordon Liu Chia-hui), who turns out to be the Emperor Kang Hsi in disguise. Kang Hsi persuades Hsiao Pao to conspire with him to eliminate his snobbish minister Ao Pai (Lung Tien-chiang), to behead his entire family and to get the volume for the Queen Mother instead. Hai has meanwhile discovered that Hsiao Pao is an impostor and tries to kill him, but Hsiao Pao hides in the palace, Hai calls on the Queen Mother; Hsiao Pao overhears their conversation and learns that she is in fact the daughter of an anti-Ching revolutionary who is holding the real Queen Mother hostage. She tries to kill Hai, and both wound each other, whereupon Hsiao Pao rushes out of hiding to finish the Eunuch off. Hsiao Pao helps Kang Hsi find his real mother after killing the imposter. He is rewarded with a title in Yangchow, where he is now able to buy out the brothel in which his mother works. He then returns to the capital to serve the Emperor.
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