Spoilers Led Me Astray

In her first year after transmigrating, Jiang Yuanzhi discovered that she had returned to ten thousand years in the past. As the chosen one holding the script, she was sure she could avoid danger, pick the right side, nurture a promising talent, and cling to a powerful patron.

With spoilers in hand, the whole world was hers. She'd reach the pinnacle of life in no time.

In her tenth year after transmigrating, Jiang Yuanzhi discovered she had landed in a heavily rewritten version of the past. The supposed savior was neglecting his duties, while the antisocial troublemaker who was supposed to die young kept stirring up trouble. Immortals were popping up everywhere, and the plot was taking wild turns. Every day, she wondered if she'd been studying fake history.

She was the only one in the whole world trying to get back to the original plot. Everyone else was doing whatever they pleased. Not a single person was sticking to their character or script. This cursed world was driving her up the wall.

In her fifteenth year after transmigrating, Jiang Yuanzhi finally made up her mind.

Forget schemes and spoilers. She'd go with the flow, do whatever she wanted, and cut down every obstacle in her way.

In her twentieth year after transmigrating, Jiang Yuanzhi sat at the pinnacle of life and wondered:

Had she, perhaps, gone a little too far in doing whatever she wanted?

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P.S.

1. Unconventional cultivation fantasy, with a parallel-timeline past-life-and-present-life setting.

2. Happy birthday, Jiujiu!

3. There are lots of side characters, side pairings, and bonus chapters. That's just my style; if it's not for you, no hard feelings. The bonus chapters mostly fill in the story from side characters' perspectives. They aren't necessary to understand the main story, and there is no paywall. To help readers avoid anything they don't like, here are the main characters featured in each bonus chapter: Chapter 18, Huo Xiao; Chapter 36, Xuan Xiyu; Chapter 54, Madam Ying; Chapter 72, Pei Wanxian; Chapter 90, Gu Xilan; Chapter 108, Qing Luo; Chapter 126, Mu Beinuo; Chapter 144, Gu Xing; Chapter 162, Zuo Jingyan; Chapters 163-171, Xuan Heyin; Chapters 172-177, Rong Xuan and Jiang Yuanzhi; Chapters 178-180 are all-in-one chapters: Chapter 178 covers the past events of the ancestors and parents' generation, Chapter 179 tells the story of the protagonists' and antagonists' generation, and Chapter 180 covers the younger generation and the epilogue after reincarnation.

*One more recommendation: my darling Jiujiu Tiao Landeng's page. She mainly writes crossover fanfiction without romance, including martial arts and anime crossovers. She's much more prolific and diligent than I am, and I adore her.

[Blurb for my next story, Five Thousand Days Until the Fall of the Kingdom]

In the third month of the thirty-sixth year of Tianyou under the Great Yue, the Di-Yan army invaded from the south, taking city after city with unstoppable force. At last, they reached the capital and laid siege to Yujing.

With the kingdom on the verge of collapse, the emperor abdicated in haste. After all the princes tried to pass the burden to one another, the nineteen-year-old Princess Shaoyi, Zhong Fanwei, ascended the throne as the only empress in the past 160 years.

With the realm in turmoil and its people in panic, almost no one believed in this princess, whose name had been little known in her early years.

Yet on the day the new sovereign took the throne, an army came from the princess's fief, routing the Di-Yan cavalry and lifting the siege of Yujing.

The empress stood atop the city wall, her calm gaze hidden beneath a twelve-streamed crown. Outside Yujing, the elite force she had built stood in solemn ranks, their armor and weapons glinting coldly.

Everyone was dumbfounded. Where had this princess, driven from the capital and exiled to her fief years earlier for angering her father, found an army? Where had she found the food and money to support it?

The people of the realm did not yet know that their astonishment had only just begun.

In her lifetime, the empress reclaimed lost territory, drove out foreign invaders, restored order at court, reformed corrupt policies, and ushered in an age of peace and prosperity. History would call it the Tian Sheng Revival, an achievement without equal.

Later generations were just as baffled. This empress, raised in the palace as a girl, never allowed to take part in court affairs, and practically pushed forward to bear the blame for the kingdom's fall, who had taught her to command armies? And who had taught her to govern?

No one knew the answer. The history books recorded only the empress's cryptic words: "I was instructed by the sages of generations past."

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When Zhong Fanwei was seven, she saw a vision in a dream of her kingdom falling and her family perishing when she was twenty-two.

She could ask no one for help. She could only save herself.

Fortunately, she had the aid of a national treasure, and nine lifetimes to learn from in her dreams.

In those long dreams, emperors waged war in every direction and unified the realm; generals won victories against the Qiang and Yi; members of the imperial clan cleared the way for a peaceful return; empress dowagers ruled from behind the curtain and kept the nation at peace; sovereigns endured hardship and finally quelled rebellion; emperors ushered in a new golden age and brought peace to the four seas; princesses spoke out for their people and country; royal daughters married far away to end wars; and descendants of the imperial family rose from nothing to save their country...

Across eight thousand miles of rivers and mountains and three hundred years of history, she accompanied those whose names had gone down in history, walking through their extraordinary lives and witnessing every rise and fall since the founding of Great Yue.

When she returned to the starting point, she was seven years old, with just over fourteen years left until the kingdom's fall.

The legends of her forebears had come to an end. Her own legend would begin now.

Theme: Human will can triumph over fate; reject superstition.