In her previous life, she was the capital's foremost talented woman. Her family was honored, she married in splendor, and she took her place as empress. She cleared obstacles for her husband and paved the way to success for her "best friend," only to see her family destroyed, her title stripped away, and her life ended with a cup of poison. As she lay dying, the lofty emperor and her "dear friend" embraced and laughed, telling her that she had been nothing but a pawn and a stepping stone from beginning to end.
Reborn in a single instant, she returns to the age of sixteen, just as she enters the palace to be considered for selection.
Her enemies are still around, and their schemes have yet to begin. Shen Yuwei... gets it now.
What use is a reputation as a talented woman? What use are virtue and propriety, or being the paragon of the empire? To hell with all of it!
This time, she'll live differently.
Fight? Absolutely! But she'll fight with a smile, and make her enemies fall in ways so baffling they'll be left unable even to find the right tune to cry in.
Revenge? Of course! But she'll take it with grace, making the scumbag men and vile women humiliate themselves in front of everyone, with a crisp, satisfying slap.
And so, the inner palace gains an eccentric "madwoman" of a noble consort.
Everyone thinks that Shen Yuwei, the Seventh Prince's consort, has gone mad. Only she and her husband, the ailing Seventh Prince Li Jingxuan, who is close to death, know that this game of chess has only just begun.
While everyone is distracted by the outward show of her "unhinged ramblings," the enemies from her past life are falling one by one, in utterly ridiculous and unexpected ways.
"Your Highness, would you rather see them disgraced, or socially ruined and bankrupt as well?"
"...As long as you're happy, my love." The Seventh Prince, propped up in bed, wore a smile with three parts helplessness, four parts indulgence, and ninety-three parts delight in watching the chaos unfold.
