After Stealing My Imperial Consort Mother's Regrets

After my mother consort passed away, my father, the emperor, betrothed me to the second son of a marquis whom I had never met.

I knelt before her spirit tablet, believing all that remained of my life was endurance.

Then a short-tempered little spirit sprang from a white magnolia hairpin, claiming it could become an immortal.

“This great immortal can take you back to the past.”

“To save my mother consort?”

“No. Your mother consort is already dead in the original timeline. No one can change that.”

“...Then why go back?”

“To let you see the truth with your own eyes. In another world, you can save someone you should have been able to save.”

The little spirit called it the Art of Tracing the Light.

Three chances. Each time, I could enter a parallel world and change its fate.

But the price was that after death I could never be reincarnated, and would spend eternity guiding souls onward.

I smiled. “What about my own world?”

“In your world, you can only rely on yourself.”

Fine.

I'll rely on myself, then.

My mother consort endured everything until the day she died. I refuse to do the same.

Abolish face veils, establish schools for girls, open the civil service examinations to women. They say women studying will throw the world into chaos?

Then I'll make the world see what women are truly capable of.

The empress wants to poison me? The great clans want to kill me?

Come on, I'll send you all on your way together.

Wait, how did I end up on the throne?

He handed me a piece of osmanthus candy. “Your Highness, since I was nine, I've wanted to be the one who makes you stop crying.”

I bit down on the candy. It was so sweet that my eyes stung.

This novel is also titled: After Inheriting My Mother Consort's Legacy, I Ascended the Throne