Being the Main Wife Is Easy, but Guarding Against the Younger Brother Is Hard

(The male lead has relatively few scenes early on, as he spends that time laying the groundwork. The romance will gradually come into focus later.)

Chang Ying is the princess most beloved by the emperor and empress of the Wu Dynasty. One day, with nothing better to do, she listens to a story.

It tells of Liu Changying, the legitimate daughter of the Liu family, who shares her name. From childhood, she is tormented by her father's concubine and her half-sister. When she grows up, her half-sister even steals her fiancé. After being harmed and losing her unborn child, she watches as the scumbag regrets his actions and pursues her, and the two reconcile.

The story makes Chang Ying so angry she practically coughs up blood. The bad luck of it leaves her asleep for three days and nights straight. When she opens her eyes again, she discovers that she has transmigrated into the story.

She has become the story's saintly heroine, Liu Changying.

Since she's here, she might as well make the best of it. Having once been born at the very heart of power, she'll set things right now, rip the mask of hypocrisy from her half-sister's face, kick the scumbag who wants to make up right out the door, and become the elegant lady of a marquis's household.

But who could have known?

She has barely had time to settle into her new marquis's estate.

Then a palace coup turns the household upside down.

The humble, groveling younger half-brother of her husband, who once lived miserably under her thumb, rises in one leap to become the dynasty's chief minister and a founding hero.

Yet he pins her against the wall and kisses her tenderly. “If you like it, Second Sister-in-Law, I'll give you not just a marquis's estate, but even the throne itself, with both hands.”