Reborn Yi Xiu: A Complete Guide to Smiling Villainy and Crushing Scum

On the sickbed in Jingren Palace, Yixiu coughs up blood that stains the red plum blossoms on her handkerchief.

Outside the hall, Zhen Huan’s icy declaration rings out: “The late emperor and Empress Chun Yuan were a devoted couple. All your life, you were nothing but a substitute.” Blood rises in Yixiu’s throat. She stares at the phoenix robe, its folds covered in dust, and takes her final breath. She spent her whole life fighting for the Ulanara clan, only to become a stain in the history books!

She opens her eyes reborn, beneath warm curtains scented with aloeswood.

In the diamond-shaped mirror, her face is that of a twenty-year-old new empress, but inside her lies fifty years of icy grief. Her fingertips brush her flat belly, and the agony of losing her child in her previous life feels as if it happened yesterday. Jianshu kneels with a medicine bowl and reports, “Your Majesty, Princess Chun Yuan has come to the palace to visit her family. She has arrived at Yongshou Palace…”

“Help me get dressed.”

Her voice is as gentle as ever, but a blade of frost flashes in her eyes. “I will welcome my elder sister myself.”

The medicine bowl is set down on the table. The brown liquid swirls like a poisonous snake in the glass cup. Morning light pierces the window lattice, illuminating the jar of aconite powder from the Western Regions hidden deep in the antique display cabinet. It was the source of the poison that killed Chun Yuan’s unborn child in her previous life.

The stone path in the imperial garden is slick with dew.

“Your Majesty, Empress, be careful!” Chun Yuan cries, reaching out to steady her.

Yixiu twists her hand around Chun Yuan’s arm, her peony-shaped nail guard digging into the woman’s jade-white skin. “Don’t worry, elder sister.” Her smile drips with honeyed poison. “The child you’re carrying… will be the emperor’s first heir since he ascended the throne.” Chun Yuan’s suddenly ashen face is reflected in Yixiu’s dark jade eyes.

**In this life, the phoenix throne is her chessboard.**

She watches Zhen Huan slay the dragon with a cold smile and waits for Yongzheng to draw his last breath. Shoukang Palace becomes a tomb for the imprisoned dragon. Twirling the coral beads Chun Yuan left behind, she hears the new emperor kneel and say, “May the Empress Dowager enjoy eternal peace and good fortune.”