[Alternate history / reborn political scheming / clear-eyed, powerful heroine / both leads reborn / from princess to empress / his regret-fueled pursuit]
Shen Yun Zhao had died once.
In her previous life, she was Emperor Yongchang's most beloved Princess Zhaohua, until her third imperial brother sent her to her death with a cup of poisoned wine. As she lay dying, she sacrificed all her cultivation and lifespan to activate the Life-Returning Spell. When she opened her eyes again, she was fifteen.
Reborn, she used careful calculations and strategy to win an unprecedented title in three hundred years of the Great Sheng dynasty: Princess An Guo Zhaohua, with imperial permission to establish her own residence and participate in court affairs.
The entire court was in an uproar. But the elders of the imperial clan were watching her like hawks, Consort Xian Wen Jinghe had been laying her plans in the palace for twenty years, and her third imperial brother was waiting to send her off to the grasslands as a political bride once more... Everyone thought she only wanted to survive, but survival had never been all she wanted.
The markings of the Life-Returning Spell were still fading from her wrist. The day they vanished, all her memories of her previous life would disappear. Before the countdown reached zero, she had to rise to a position no one could shake.
What she wanted was not revenge. She wanted to make sure there could never be another Shen Yun Zhao in this world.
On the eve of the power struggle, the man who had once knelt outside the princess's residence all night after her death, his hair turning white, stood ten paces behind Shen Yun Zhao in silence. He said, “Your Highness, in this life, I won't let you come to harm again.”
Shen Yun Zhao smiled playfully. “What if it's not someone's life I want, but the throne? Will you still protect me, Marquis?”
