Xie Yunjin, the chancellor's legitimate daughter, was reborn on the day of her coronation as empress. In her previous life, she had happily married her childhood sweetheart, Crown Prince Xiao Jingyan, and helped him ascend the throne, only for her entire family to be destroyed in return. Her father died of the plague, her eldest brother perished in exile, her second brother died leading an uprising, and she miscarried and died in the cold palace.
When she opened her eyes again, the phoenix crown was already on her head. She wanted to demand of the heavens why they had not let her return to the time before her marriage, but could only wipe away her tears in front of the bronze mirror. The game was already underway, so she would be the one to make the moves.
In this life, she would no longer revolve around the emperor. She used the memories of her past life to lay an invisible board with banks, granaries, and an intelligence network. When the noble consort tried to make her miscarry by repeating her old scheme, Xie Yunjin played along and made her enemy lose all reputation instead. The emperor, however, only fell deeper for her coldness, believing he had finally met a woman who didn't crave power.
But she had stopped believing in that long ago.
