The Deeply Resentful Emperor and Empress Are Reborn

[Wicked empress x Unrestrained emperor, a mutually antagonistic couple, chaste male lead]

[Both strong, both rationally attracted yet clear-headed as they fall]

*

Pei Zhun and Xie Qiongzhi are betrothed, but one has a cinnabar mole and the other has a white moonlight. They intend to call off the engagement, but after a wild night at a palace banquet, they end up forced to marry.

Later, Pei Zhun ascends the throne and rules for thirty-one years, thirty of them spent clashing with Xie Qiongzhi.

Xie Qiongzhi was born into a century-old aristocratic family, but has none of the gentleness, modesty, deference, or virtue expected of a noblewoman. She loves power, covets beauty, is wildly ambitious, and begrudges every little thing.

Pei Zhun strips her uncle of his military power, so she cuts away at his trusted retainers.

He accuses her of usurping the throne and ruins her reputation, so she spreads rumors that he covets his ministers' wives and has no personal virtue.

He takes her half-sister into the palace and spends romantic nights with her, so Xie Qiongzhi turns around and summons his younger brother for nights of revelry.

At their worst, they both end up injured. Amid the wreckage of the room, Pei Zhun's eyes turn vicious. "Xie Qiongzhi, if there's another life, I'd rather die than have anything to do with you."

Yet when a coup erupts and the palace goes up in flames, neither he nor Xie Qiongzhi escapes.

Pei Zhun opens his eyes again and finds himself back in his youth.

This time, to escape Xie Qiongzhi, he immediately tracks down the person who drugged him at the palace banquet, petitions to end the engagement, and hastily begins choosing a noblewoman to marry.

But later, when the palace banquet arrives as scheduled, Pei Zhun looks at the pair of wine cups, one of them empty, and his mind goes blank for an instant. His face suddenly darkens.

"I think I saw Miss Xie heading to the waterside pavilion... Your Highness, where are you going?"

Pei Zhun's expression is grim. "To court death."

*

After being reborn, all of Xie Qiongzhi's careful plans come to nothing. At the time, she is trapped inside the household compound and has no way to break out of her predicament.

So Xie Qiongzhi thinks, she might as well choose Pei Zhun to help her break free.

After all, he's a dog she personally trained in her previous life. He's easier to handle...

*

Later, a mysterious letter arrives on the emperor's desk. Pei Zhun sees Xie Qiongzhi's handwritten words: [Recently, Pei the dog has been in a bad mood. His leash should be loosened a little, and he should be given a treat.] His expression turns terrifyingly cold.

Clutching the letter, he kicks open the doors of the bedchamber, only to see Empress Xie, the woman who infuriates him to no end, looking ethereal and elegant, with cloudlike hair and a languid beauty in her eyes, as though she had expected him.

"You're here? Want to sleep together?"

"... ... ... Yes!"

Pei Zhun grits his teeth, reaches out with his long arm, scoops her up, and heads for the bed. "Xie Qiongzhi! Don't you dare beg for mercy later!"

Theme: To be decided