The Princess Returns to Claim the Throne, and Chancellor Yun Is Forced into Servitude

[Female lead dominates and torments the men | All male leads are devoted only to her | Emotional and physical angst | Mutual unrequited love | Groveling to win her back | Political power games]

Cangshu Guanlan was once an overlooked illegitimate princess in the imperial palace. Lonely and wretched in her youth, she had only the gentle scholar Yun Baizhou, who sincerely protected her.

When Beidi invaded and demanded a hostage from the imperial family, Yun Baizhou pleaded with the emperor until he bled, offered himself in her place, and tried every means to stop it. In the end, he could not change their fate. Cangshu Guanlan was taken to a Beidi dungeon for three years, shackled in chains, afflicted by icy poison, and subjected to endless humiliation. She sent three letters in blood begging for help, but none ever reached anyone. Her youthful love turned completely into deep-seated trauma and hatred.

At her most desperate, the Beidi prince Helan secretly aided her, the fierce general Lu Jinglan rode a thousand li to her rescue, and the gifted scholar Wen Yanzhi spent his entire fortune supporting her. With all three giving everything they had, she escaped the inferno, led her troops back to the capital, and ascended the throne as the founding empress of the Great Cang.

With great power in her hands, she inflicted on Yun Baizhou every hardship she had endured over those three years. She had him flogged and chained, made him kneel before the court, and used his weaknesses to corner him step by step, humiliating him as she pleased. Yet whenever she saw him silently enduring, covered in wounds, she remembered their tenderness in the past. Love and hatred pulled her back and forth. She acted cold and cruel, but in private she quietly reduced his punishment and treated his injuries, torn between obsession and contradiction.