Reborn: I Won't Be His Caged Bird

【Female lead reborn + unconventional power fantasy + revenge early on, mild coercion later】 Ten years of devotion ended with her entire family executed, while she herself was forced to drink poison and die. Reborn, she carries all the tears and pain of her past life, and feels utterly exhausted. She had planned to lie flat, protect her family, and simply make it through this life. But things didn’t go as she hoped. Better to take up a sword and fight back than let others butcher her at will. While keeping the scum emperor at bay, she makes plans to escape the imperial palace. At last, after her enemy from her past life dies, she fakes her death and leaves the palace that had imprisoned her for so long, heading for the northwestern battlefield. She thought she would live out an uneventful life in the northwest. But with rebel forces within and troops from the northern deserts beyond, she takes up her sword once more to defend her country. In doing so, she also lets the scum emperor discover that she faked her death. But so what? This time, she will never repeat the same mistakes. “Zhou Yi, I never protected you. I protected the Great Zhou.” “But Ning Zhiyu, I want you.” “Then… take my corpse with you.” (Please forgive the writing; I’m still learning. The plot may move slowly at first and feel frustrating, but it will pick up and become more tightly paced later.) (If you care about prose, this may not be for you!)