After pulling an all-nighter revising a proposal, corporate drone Shen Zhiyi transmigrates into the Great Sheng dynasty as a low-ranking concubine so poor she can barely make ends meet.
To get a decent meal, she brings out the ice-making skills she learned in nine years of compulsory education and plans to boost her KPIs at the Qianqiu Banquet. But the vicious Empress plots against her, and Shen Zhiyi accidentally knocks a favored consort into a miscarriage. The dog emperor has her beaten to death on the spot.
The good news: When she dies, she can reload and start over!
The bad news: Everyone in this palace is evil. Every choice leads to certain death!
Side with the Empress? She’ll use you as a scapegoat and break your spine.
Switch to the Noble Consort? She’ll poison you and shove you forward to take the blame!
After two unjust deaths in a row, Shen Zhiyi finally gets it. If she won’t survive the day either way, what’s the point of fighting for power in the harem?
On her third restart, she tosses away the gift box and charges empty-handed up the steps at the Qianqiu Banquet. She pins the lofty, venomous Empress and the dog emperor to the banquet table and slaps them back and forth until they look like pigs. Then she faces the executioners with a carefree grin. “Whoever wants this rotten job can have it. I’m out of here!”
She dies in glorious fashion, never knowing that Pei Jin, the powerful eunuch in charge of the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs, already on the verge of madness, has spent years bearing a sea of blood-deep hatred.
On his first attempt, he endured years of humiliation to obtain the Imperial Seal. He was a hair’s breadth from ascending the throne when heaven and earth shattered and everything restarted.
On his second attempt, he killed the emperor’s death squad two hours early. He’d just stepped toward the main hall when the world turned to ashes.
On his third attempt, he simply flipped the table, donned armor, and fought his way toward the Imperial Garden with a blade in hand. He was about to take the dog emperor’s head when, yet again, time reset!
On his fourth attempt, a fortune-teller said the variable was hidden in the harem. He suppressed his murderous urge and held back, only for a fleeing soldier to climb the wall and hack a lie-flat low-ranking concubine to death... A flash of white light sent him straight back ten days!
Director Pei’s eyes were bloodshot. He swore he’d dig up the mysterious variable in the harem who kept ruining his grand plans to seize the throne, then tear them limb from limb.
*
Commander, please carry me to victory!
