The Death of Huan Ji

[Alternate Eastern Han setting] Brave older-year Marquis Yang Qu x daughter of an Investigating Censor

Huan Shao'er, daughter of Investigating Censor Huan Xiao, lost her mother when she was young. She stutters and is disliked by her father and stepmother. Fortunately, she is naturally beautiful and impossible to overlook. When the flowers bloom, she captivates Luoyang. With her immense ambition and desire to climb the social ladder, Shao'er successfully catches the eye of Yuan Chuping, a top young scion of a family with four generations of high-ranking officials. From age fourteen to sixteen, they secretly carried on an affair.

Unfortunately, just before their wedding, Yuan Chuping's father died. To preserve his reputation, Yuan Chuping insisted on observing three years of mourning, ignoring Huan Shao'er's pleas and entreaties.

Her affair with the Yuan heir was known throughout the city, and she became a laughingstock. Desperate to leave the Huan household as soon as possible, Shao'er pulled herself together and began looking for a husband again, only for Yuan Chuping to sabotage her efforts.

The following year, as spring turned to summer, the Lord Situ suddenly sent someone to the Huan household to propose a marriage for his younger brother.

But three months later, when the wedding took place, everyone was shocked to realize that the beautiful Huan daughter who had caused a sensation in Luoyang was marrying the Lord Situ himself.

At seventeen, he had accompanied his father on a campaign to Liaodong, massacred a city, and raised a mound of skulls. He had repeatedly served as General of the Central Guard for Missions to the Xiongnu and as General Who Crosses the Liao. The Lord Situ cherished seventeen-year-old Huan Shao'er like the apple of his eye, loving her deeply and indulging her in everything.

From then on, she plotted to exterminate the Liang and Sun clans, powerful in-laws of the imperial family; brought ruin upon her stepmother's entire family; manipulated the newly enthroned emperor; and even went so far as to poison the empress. When the Xianbei of Liaoxi launched a surprise attack on Luoyang, she was pregnant but still stepped forward to protect her household and followers, manipulating and winning people's hearts.

Huan Shao'er hid behind a pack of predators like a rabbit, letting Luoyang run red with blood for a time and bringing herself and her husband to the pinnacle of power.

In the end, after staining her hands with blood, she too must face her fate.

[Before you read]:

1. Set during the reigns of Emperor Zhi and Emperor Huan of the Eastern Han.

2. Includes a sexual relationship between brothers.

2. The male lead has an ex-wife. They live apart for a long time, divorce when he is thirty, and he marries Huan Shao'er at thirty-two. Neither lead is sexually inexperienced.

3. The female lead is very bad, extremely ruthless, and extremely radical. She is a full-fledged villainess. If you don't like that, please steer clear.

Theme: The rise of a stuttering girl, from daughter of an Investigating Censor to wife of the Commandant of the Capital Region