In the spring of Kangxi’s 61st year, sixteen-year-old Zhen Huan jolted awake from a long nightmare.
Her reflection was unchanged, but the scar on her neck, a mark of the emperor’s favor and humiliation, was gone. Memories of her past life surged back: the rainy nights at Ganlu Temple, the poisoned wine at Tonghua Terrace, Yunli’s ashen face, and Yongzheng’s eyes widening in his final moments...
She remembered how she had gone from “a likeness of Wanwan” to Noble Consort Xi, and how she had buried every person she loved with her own hands.
Reborn with the whole story in her hands, she faced two choices:
First, avoid the selection and flee with Yunli, risking the lives of her entire Zhen clan;
Or return to the inner palace and walk the blood-soaked path to the phoenix throne all over again, watching helplessly as her loved ones died once more.
Zhen Huan smiled and, dipping her brush in rouge, wrote a third path on the rice paper:
She would enter the palace, but change its rules;
She would compete for favor, but master the emperor’s heart;
She would keep Yunli alive, free to become an Iron-Capped Prince in the open;
She would make those who had harmed her suffer every torment she had endured in her past life, then kneel and watch her ascend to a throne no one else could reach.
And so:
• On the day of the selection, she dazzled Yongzheng at first sight, then tore up the title bearing the character “Wan” with her own hands.
• Consort Hua fell three years ahead of schedule, and the cassava flour scandal became the first “grand gift” she presented to the empress.
• On the eve of the affair at Lingyun Peak being exposed, she deliberately pointed the trail of evidence toward Jingren Palace.
• For the blood test, she prepared two bowls of water: one to clear her name, the other to send her enemies to their graves.
