Empress Dowager from the Start? Fulin Begs Me to Take Back the Harem

Meng Guqing, condemned by history as a “jealous, vicious empress who deserved to be deposed,” returns to the moment before the edict stripping her of her title is issued.

She no longer fights for the emperor's favor. Instead, she voluntarily hands over the imperial seal and uses her status as a “nominally deposed empress” to step out of the harem. She inspects granaries, quells epidemics and unrest, establishes a women's medical bureau, and takes charge of northern border trade, steadily becoming an indispensable empress.

The young emperor who personally deposed her in her previous life goes from suspicion and wariness to entrusting her with his full confidence. In the end, he kneels before her with the imperial seal in his hands. “I am not ordering you to take your place again. I am begging you to come back.”

She wants vindication and power. He gives her a singular devotion that goes beyond the rules of imperial authority.

Who wrote Meng Guqing into history as a notorious jealous empress? And why is the “Chronicle of Mountains and Rivers” in her mind filled entirely with Fulin's handwriting?