Borrowing the Golden Branch

[Childhood friends + married young + power struggles + ultimately becoming estranged spouses]

Baoying was like a poisonous floss flower: delicate and unable to withstand the cold, with a willful temper. No one in the palace could control her except the Grand Empress Dowager and the princess. Ever since Baoying could remember, her mother had told her that the most prestigious position in all of Great Ning would one day belong to her, whether as Crown Princess or Empress...

As a woman of high status, Baoying never went out of her way to please anyone. She always did as she pleased, until she met a fool when she was seven. Whatever she said, he agreed with. The people in the palace disliked him, calling him a prince raised in the Cold Palace and saying the emperor detested him. But Baoying alone found him amusing and interesting. Gradually, the two grew up, and the fool began to earn more and more of the emperor's trust...

A calamity awakened a long-sleeping old acquaintance.

Everyone in the Spirit Realm breathed a sigh of relief.

But she had still become entangled in karma.