After Toying With and Abandoning a Paranoid Yandere

[Civil service exams and officialdom / everyone loves her / competing suitors / 1 female lead and 10 male leads / confinement and forced love] After her family falls from power, the impoverished scholar Chu Qingli spends three years as a slave, enduring every humiliation. When she accidentally gets a taste of power, she develops an obsession with it. Without some authority in her hands, she feels uneasy and can't sleep. So she wants to become a powerful minister. To smooth her path to office, she can bow lower than anyone else and endure what others cannot. She can also stop at nothing to get what she wants. She can wipe out an innocent family for her own benefit, sacrifice her kin's lifelong happiness for her family's wealth and glory, divert disaster relief grain and let the people starve to take down a political rival, or betray the person closest to her without hesitation to climb higher. To curry favor with the powerful, she also used a string of handsome men and then heartlessly discarded them. They gave her their sincere affection, but she trampled on it and toyed with them. People condemn her for stopping at nothing, currying favor with the powerful, and being a heartbreaker! But Chu Qingli has never thought she was in the wrong. So what if she craves power? In this world, the strong rule. Until one careless move lands her in a trap... [The lovesick prince she jilted hates her to the bone. Just before she ascends the throne, he shackles her in iron chains... and toys with her...] [The aloof, chaste Imperial Preceptor loses control after she seduces him and tosses him aside. He uses a deadly secret to blackmail her into spending night after night with him at the Observatory...] [The all-powerful “Crown Prince” treats her like a plaything. After forcing her to submit, he plans to discard her, but goes mad and imprisons her when he sees her getting close to someone else...] [Her once kind and upright best friend hates her for her betrayal. After bringing her to justice, he punishes her with the lash in prison... and torments her...] Chu Qingli: ...??? Is this what they mean by good and evil getting their just rewards? Has even Heaven had enough of me and come to collect? You can run wild for a while, but sooner or later, you have to pay for it. 1. Ten male leads, all virgins, with many obsessive and possessive types. There will be forced scenes. (There are 10 male leads, not just the ones in the blurb.) 2. The female lead is highly intelligent but arrogant. She can bend and adapt, stops at nothing, and is cold-hearted. She is rather passive when it comes to romance. This is not a story about an invincible female lead: she makes mistakes and hits rock bottom, and things won't always go smoothly. If that's not your thing, please read with caution. 3. Not a matriarchal world. Both women and men can serve as officials. The main plot follows the female lead's rise through the ranks, with a substantial focus on her career and a romance woven in. Theme: Self-reliance and strength.