[Black-hearted schemer, no romance, ruthlessly self-serving]
Pei Shiyuan is the daughter of the Marquis of Ruyang, who grew up away from home.
When she returns to the marquis's estate, she finds no loving family waiting for her.
Instead, the family is stripped of its property and exiled!
In her previous life, her twin sister, Pei Shihuan, fled an arranged marriage, enraging Regent Xie Xu.
Because Pei Shiyuan had the same face as Pei Shihuan, she was given to Xie Xu as a substitute.
By day, she was the regent's consort.
By night, she was a servant anyone could trample underfoot.
For five long years, she endured humiliation, all so Xie Xu would rescue the adoptive parents and siblings who had been implicated because of her.
But Xie Xu treated her like a plaything, calling her a dead rat in a gutter who could never measure up to Pei Shihuan.
Later, Pei Shihuan returned to Jian'an and rekindled her relationship with Xie Xu, mocking Pei Shiyuan as a clumsy, laughable imitation.
Even the exiled members of the Marquis of Ruyang's household returned home safe and sound.
They accused her of stealing Pei Shihuan's husband and having no shame.
Everyone else was alive. Only her own family had all died...
Pei Shiyuan went mad and burned the people in the marquis's household alive, but failed in her attempt to assassinate Pei Shihuan.
Her hands and feet were broken, and she died miserably in a dungeon.
Then she was reborn.
She saved the young emperor, was made a county princess, and gained the empress dowager's protection.
Gentle and kind on the surface, she killed without blinking behind closed doors. She wanted power and status, and she would crush everyone who had humiliated her beneath her heel.
Everyone in the Marquis of Ruyang's household called her a venomous, vicious monster.
But the people of the realm said, “The County Princess of Fuchang is compassionate and devoted to helping the suffering. She is a living bodhisattva of our age!”
The officials at court gazed at her peerless figure and sighed, “The Star of Literary Prosperity has descended. Great Zhou is blessed for ten thousand years!”
Pei Shiyuan entered officialdom through the imperial examinations and made an astonishing debut.
She defended the throne, killed treacherous ministers, and brought peace to the realm.
What she wanted was to stand at the summit of power and leave her name honored for generations!
(Read with caution: ruthless and unscrupulous.)
