Li Jing transmigrates.
Her father is Li Longji, her mother is Wu Huifei, and she is Princess Xianyi. She gets a System from the start. It looks like the perfect setup for a winner in life.
Until she discovers that the person who pushed her into the water was none other than the emperor who held her and said, “My Eighteenth Daughter is the sweetest.”
The bad news gets worse: the System offers no golden finger, only information.
Li Jing's original goal is simple: survive the An Lushan Rebellion. But when Li Longji kills three of his sons in a single day to stabilize the court, frames Wu Huifei, and keeps Li Jing from seeing her mother one last time, she realizes that simply trying to stay alive won't work.
Her brother, Prince Shou, can't save his wife, so she'll do it herself.
She sends members of the Wu family to the border to build up troops, recruits scholars from humble backgrounds into a network, secures Shu as her fief, and replaces the officials in Lingnan with her own trusted people.
When the An Lushan Rebellion breaks out, Li Longji flees in panic to Shu and seeks refuge with his most beloved daughter.
When Yuhuan is trapped in a palace and her life hangs by a thread, Li Jing surrounds it with her personal guards from Shu and the troops from the border.
“Father, if Li Heng can proclaim himself emperor elsewhere, why can't I become Crown Princess?”
“And besides, you couldn't save Mother back then. But now you have to give Yuhuan back to me.”
Lu Huan, a nobleman from the most esteemed scholarly family of his time, kneels on one knee before Princess Xianyi and accepts her first secret order.
“Wenzhao agreed so readily? If Master Lu finds out, he'll probably be so furious he'll faint.”
“Huan believes Your Highness is the right person to follow.”
If history should record our story, then to have served Your Highness as a loyal and trusted subject would be the greatest honor of my life.
Author's note: This story respects history, but is set in a parallel world and will make some fictionalized adjustments for the sake of the plot.
Theme: May everyone fight against the current and ultimately succeed.