She Won't Be Regent Anymore

The aloof, mad Prince Chen; the merciful-faced living King of Hell.

Both descriptions are of the same person: her.

Reborn seven times, she tried reforming the government in her first six lives, backing the great clans, retreating from the world to become a nun, being a good person, and even becoming a completely irredeemable villain.

Every ending was the same.

When she opened her eyes in this life, she was fourteen, and at last she understood.

By day, she was the noble, carefree Prince of Peace, bathed in Buddha's light.

Before others, she lowered her eyes like a bodhisattva, almost as if she were rolling prayer beads between her fingers and preaching mercy.

She returned the spies to their respective families, supported the poor one by one, stayed out of every faction in the capital, and even took leave from court every few days.

When night fell, she became the player laying her pieces in the shadows.

Away from prying eyes, she walked barefoot over golden bricks, her fingertips stained with blood and not a trace of warmth in her eyes.

She never spared those who deserved to die, nor showed mercy to those who deserved punishment.

Wherever her blade passed, the court officials assumed a ghost had come to claim their lives. No one dared suspect her.

She took in a male performer.

She bought a boy from the pleasure quarters. He was breathtakingly handsome, with features like a painting, and his eyes were full of wariness as he knelt on the ground.

Lifting his chin, she asked, "Will you be my strategist, or keep living as a plaything?"

That boy later became the sharpest blade in her hand.

She taught him strategy, how to read people, and how to survive on his feet.

But he learned only one thing: how to kneel before her willingly.

She controlled the court.

The young top candidate in the palace examinations was aloof, stubborn, and impossible to please.

She paved his career path, but he insisted on asking, "Have you seen me in a dream?"

He annoyed her to no end, yet when others pushed him aside, one order from her silenced every impeachment in court.

She kept the princes in check.

The poor scholars she had personally promoted, the agents she had secretly placed, the Listening Wind Tower she had built with her own hands: she even dared to make a move in the game involving the princes of Northern Wei.

The princes at court feared her to their core, yet none could lay a finger on her.

At the top of Listening Wind Tower, a man smiled at her as he waved his folding fan. "Your Highness short on money? I, Xie, may not have much else, but I have plenty of silver."

He had more than money; he had even more information. The most secret network in all of Southern Chu was in his hands.

She found him noisy, yet entrusted him with the most important matters.

There was one more person by her side.

He only ever rolled his prayer beads, appearing whenever she raised her blade to say, "Amitabha."

Then she would curse him: "You old bald monk."

He deserved it. In her sixth life, amid the flames of the Hall of Rebirth, he had taken her hand and said they should die together for their country.

Before the world, she was Prince Chen, Regent, the royal daughter who stood beneath only The Outcast and above all others.

Away from prying eyes, she was a masked bodhisattva, a living King of Hell.

But Chu Qinglan had gone completely mad, and she was utterly exhausted.

In her seventh life, she did her best to put everyone where they belonged, and learned two things as well:

How to save people, and how to make herself look as merciful as the King of Hell.

In this life, she asked for no happy ending.

She only wanted the wicked to get what they deserved.

Aloof, unhinged Prince Chen x repentant, loyal-dog strategist x stoic Junior Minister of Justice x smiling fox of a tower master x compassionate Zen monk friend

Reborn seven times x Everyone gets a bad ending

Theme: Reborn seven times, yet never content at a thousand years.