[Content advisory: The male and female leads have no other romantic partners. Includes some coercive scenes. The female lead kills the male lead in the end. Read on only if you’re okay with that.]
One year, one month, Su Chaoying, eldest daughter of the General of Dingbei, was married by the tenth emperor of the Yue Dynasty and made empress.
But on their wedding day, the old emperor died of old age.
Su Chaoying was utterly bewildered to find herself promoted to empress dowager.
And that wasn’t all. The new emperor was the scruffy little boy she had helped when she was young.
The boy promised not to restrict her freedom, and said she could keep living as she had before entering the palace.
So Su Chaoying happily carried on with the carefree life she’d enjoyed before marriage.
But the good times didn’t last… After discovering the new emperor’s secret, she was imprisoned by him and became a canary in a cage.
In the end, the bird spread its wings and struck the cage, breaking its own wings and killing its keeper.
