[Out of inspiration, my eldest daughter is in the queue]
Couple: a high-energy heroine who seems indifferent to the world but is secretly ambitious × a seemingly carefree playboy who is actually skilled at winning hearts and deeply devoted
After surviving a bloody struggle in the whirlpool of power, Lu Wuzhao finally put her useless younger brother on the throne.
Just as she was about to retire, a woman who had transmigrated and the golden-finger System she brought with her threw a wrench in her plans.
Lu Wuzhao returned to life five years earlier, with her memories intact.
This time, she decided to give up on her hopeless younger brother.
She would secretly go into business to fill the national treasury, support scholars from humble backgrounds against the aristocratic clans, push through reforms, and, along the way, enter into a fake engagement with a dashing young general from the capital.
The two got their wish: one would clean up the court, while the other expanded the borders, in a semi-long-distance relationship where they lived apart but were not entirely separate.
Driven by their fierce ambition, the scheming couple worked together from the inside and out to bring the troublemaking transmigrator to heel and depose the crown prince, who had hundreds of schemes but could never get his calculations right.
In the end, overcoming every obstacle, Lu Wuzhao became an empress of the ages.
But can someone tell her why the dashing young general she once fake-married has been clinging to her ever since?
Oh, and he's a jealous romantic, too.
Song Peizhen had two wishes in life.
First: peace throughout the land, and safety for the realm.
Second: that the person he loved would live a safe and happy life, free of hardship and disaster.
He had always done as he pleased, yet willingly confined himself in a web of love he had woven with his own hands, determined never to let go.
Fortunately, a marriage born of imperial scheming allowed his love, hidden from the light of day, to finally see the dawn.
Notes:
1. This is actually an older-woman-younger-man romance.
2. Most of the spotlight is on the heroine. She doesn't need anyone to save her.
3. No children, no children, no children! She's already awesome enough to become His Majesty the Emperor. Why does she have to bear a child herself?
4. My bottom line is that female characters won't fight each other over a man. The heroine and the transmigrator simply have different goals, and both are career-driven.
Theme: Peace for the realm.
