The Ninth Princess eventually died, brought down by her own ambition. She had wholeheartedly supported the First Prince's rise to the throne. A princess whose birth mother was unknown had dared to reach for power, only to die in the struggle for it and become an insignificant casualty.
As she died, someone remarked, "After all, she was the princess His Majesty loved most."
The Sixth Prince, who had never gotten along with her, stepped down from his carriage and looked at her. He said dismissively, "She's just an illegitimate daughter with an unknown mother. No matter how much Father favors her, can she ever outrank me?"
The Ninth Princess opened her eyes once more, back at the moment of her birth.
This time, she wanted to know who her birth mother really was.
But when she opened her eyes, she saw the assistant who had always worn a smile that never reached his eyes, standing beside her royal father. At that moment, he was grinning so widely that his eyes disappeared.
"Your Majesty, you have given birth to a noble princess."
It took the Ninth Princess quite some time to figure it out.
Her royal father was actually her mother, who had been disguised as a man for over twenty years.
And her mother had only ever given birth to one child: her.
The Ninth Princess listened as her birth mother plotted to pass the throne on to her.
There was only one thought in her mind:
In her previous life, she had even made it into the military, yet in the end all she did was help her beloved eldest brother claim the throne. She really hadn't imagined enough!
After the Ninth Princess died, the First Prince, who had always played things safe, began a furious counterattack. The emperor even ignored the nobles' objections and charged the Sixth Prince with murdering a member of the imperial family, implicating several other princes as well. Yet the emperor refused to back down. Every prince except the First Prince was caught up in it.
In just three months, no one could have imagined that the death of an unremarkable princess would overturn the entire imperial family.
The First Prince, the ultimate winner, eventually asked to leave the imperial family and went alone to guard the imperial mausoleum, where he died in sorrow.
Content warnings: The female lead's mother is the emperor. She is ruthless and calculating, no saint, and very fickle in matters of love.
The female lead's love interest is the reborn First Prince. (They are not blood relatives and are not on the same household register.)
A modern imperial-family story set in an alternate world. (The setting might suit an ancient court story better, but I really don't know how to write those, so I changed it to a modern imperial family.)
Theme: A mother's love
