When I Bloom, All Other Flowers Die

[Merchant’s daughter Gu Zhao, who turns the tables against all odds and is actually a Grand Princess, VS domineering, cold-blooded Jiu Qiansui Ji Yunzheng, a eunuch in name only + a transmigrated-into-a-book woman as a foil, no female rivalry + a transmigrated emperor father + tearing apart the whole scumbag family + a feel-good story with a powerful heroine]

Gu Zhao: She uses her dowry to pay off the marquis’s debts and helps her husband buy his way into office. But he despises her as a lowly merchant, wants to demote her from wife to concubine and marry a commandery princess instead, and shows her the Marquis estate’s ugly oppression of women. Gu Zhao enters the game herself, starting by divorcing her husband and setting out on the road to becoming an emperor.

Ji Yunzheng: He knew Gu Zhao was extraordinary from the moment she saved him as a boy. But burdened with a blood feud, he enters the palace as a corrupt eunuch and dares not let himself get involved with her. He never expected her to live such a miserable life. From the moment he pulls her out of the mire, she is destined to enter his life and rescue him from the palace and his sea of blood, becoming his only light. He is willing to burn himself to illuminate Gu Zhao’s path.

The commandery princess: She transmigrates into a book and knows only that Li Yiling, in the story, rises to become Chief Grand Secretary, a brilliant and deeply devoted male lead. She has no idea that his smooth rise to power was all thanks to Gu Zhao’s careful plans.

Only after the commandery princess discovers the truth does she realize she has hurt Gu Zhao. She wants to make amends, but discovers that Gu Zhao is no fragile flower: she has already risen from a merchant’s daughter to a Grand Princess who rules a region. She is willing to use the knowledge and technology she brought with her to help Gu Zhao achieve her imperial ambitions.