Reborn: My Half-Sister Swapped Our Marriages, So I Entered the Palace and Became Empress

[Swapped marriages + both reborn + harem intrigue + determined to become emperor]

The setting takes inspiration from the era of Emperor Renzong of Song, but the story is mostly fictional!

Li Lanyue was reborn on her wedding night, but instead of entering the bridal chamber, she ended up in the woodshed.

In her previous life, she had followed her family’s marriage arrangement and wed the heir of the marquis’s household, while her younger half-sister entered the palace as a consort.

Everyone laughed at her for being foolish, saying her half-sister had stolen the place that should have been hers.

But fortunes change. Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west. The emperor died, and her half-sister joined forces with others in a rebellion. Their forces were defeated just as victory seemed within reach, and she was stabbed to death by the troops sent to suppress the uprising. They wrapped her in a straw mat and threw her into a mass grave.

Though her husband had died young, Li Lanyue raised her adopted son to become a chief minister. He was deeply devoted to her and secured her a noble title.

After her half-sister was reborn, she didn’t want to enter the palace, so she came up with the idea of swapping their marriages.

Li Lanyue couldn’t care less. Did her half-sister really think the marquis’s household was some kind of paradise?

Now that they’d swapped marriages, she’d better not regret it.

She was raising a child either way. She was tired of being a noblewoman, so why not become the Empress Dowager?

Unexpectedly, the adopted son of the marquis’s household, who had joined her half-sister in the rebellion, came looking for her.

“Your Highness, you carry the mandate of the emperor. You’re destined to be empress? No! You’re destined to rule as emperor!”

Li Lanyue: “Do you think I’m going to believe that?”

It wasn’t until he produced the imperial jade seal that Li Lanyue’s expression changed at once.

“By Heaven’s mandate, may the empire endure forever.”