Reborn with the Phoenix Bone, I Refuse to Be a Stand-In
Shen Zhiyuan died in Zhaoren Hall, the palace locked in by heavy snow.
The thin quilt was frozen stiff as iron. No medicine could help, and all that remained by her pillow was a pair of cold tiger-head shoes.
She had once been the emperor’s favored consort, in charge of the six inner palaces and envied by all. But everything she had was because she was a stand-in for her older sister, Shen Mingshu. Her sister was the emperor’s beloved, while she was only a shadow.
On a night of torrential rain, her child burned with a dangerous fever, but the entire Imperial Hospital was stationed at Kunning Palace because the empress was pregnant and the emperor had ordered them not to neglect her for even a moment. Holding her child’s gradually cooling body, Shen Zhiyuan knelt in the rain and finally understood that obedience would never earn her even a shred of kindness.
In the end, she died in the seventh year of Chengxi’s reign.
That year, she was pregnant, her sister had yet to enter the palace, and there was still time to change everything.
In her previous life, she had yielded at every turn. In return, mother and child were torn apart, and she lost everything.
In this life, Shen Zhiyuan cast aside her meekness and concealed her obsession. She would use the child in her womb as a piece on the board and the imperial palace as her playing field.
The emperor was heartless, so she would give him no sincere affection. Her sister was a hypocrite, so Shen Zhiyuan would tear off that gentle mask with her own hands. She would reclaim everything owed to her and avenge the loss of her child.
She would protect her child and seize power, making everyone who had once trampled her life look up at her.
From a ghost in the Cold Palace to the holder of the phoenix seal, in this life Shen Zhiyuan would be her own woman, wielding the power of life and death, with a sharp edge in her bones.
