Let the Dust of a Past Life Drift Away

She is hopelessly in love with Li Que, heir to the Marquis of Anjing, and commits one unforgivable mistake after another for his sake. Defying both the emperor's decree and her father's orders, she forces her husband, General Lin Ke, to divorce her. After marrying Li Que, the Li family uses her name to cover up their murders and seizure of land and businesses. Li Que's own brother, Li Shi, spends his days cockfighting and dogfighting, kills husbands, and steals their wives, yet gets away with every evil deed thanks to her influence. She endures Li Que's countless concubines, his mother's unreasonable antics, and the Li family's many ugly faces. Then the Li family embezzles disaster relief funds sent to Jiangjing, leaving corpses strewn across the region. When the scandal breaks, the Lis conspire with foreign barbarians and flee as a family to their lands. Utterly ridiculous. Utterly hateful. The royal family owes the people an answer. The Lis may have fled, but she remains their daughter-in-law. The emperor intends to give her a length of white silk, allowing her to die with her body intact and a shred of dignity. But she rejects that last shred of dignity and petitions to be beheaded in public. She enjoyed the riches and glory of the royal family, and must repay the royal family with her dignity and sense of responsibility. She has done much wrong, and only hopes that even in death she will remember her mistakes. She never imagined she would get the chance to begin again. Even if it is only a dream as fleeting as a mirage, she is willing to live a different life within it and never make the same mistakes again.