[Female Strategist x Pseudo-Worthy Official with Power over the Court]
"I believed in equality between men and women. I believed the imperial decree. I fought my way through the bloodshed and crushed the court's scholar-officials beneath my heel... I wanted to carve out a path for the countless women who would come after me, so they could see that women were no less capable than men."
*
Blood stains my clothes. All I have left in my hand is a broken sword. Wherever I look, corpses litter the ground.
I know I've been set up. This time, there is no way out. Only death awaits me.
For years, I outmaneuvered everyone, but in the end, I lost. And yet I cannot accept it!
Why must a woman serving as a strategist hide behind a curtain?
Why is the court a place where only men can pursue their lofty ambitions?
Why is a woman's whole life supposed to be spent as a virtuous wife and loving mother, serving her husband and raising children?
What if I could start over?
[Please Read Before Starting]
(1) The heroine is ruthless both before and after being reborn. The difference is that, before being reborn, she has already helped the new emperor ascend the throne and honed her abilities and methods. After being reborn, her connections and network are still in their early stages. She won't immediately start cutting down everyone in her path.
(2) The male lead is the one who plotted the heroine's death. They were on opposing sides and supported different people, so reconciliation was impossible. Even if he hadn't killed her, the heroine would have realized that he didn't support the new emperor and would still have acted against him. You can think of their early relationship as a back-and-forth contest.
(3) The story includes a romance after the heroine is reborn. If you only want a heroine with a career-focused plot, this may not be for you, so consider carefully before reading.
(4) The setting is very loose, with a hodgepodge of systems and institutions. The first-person perspective is only used in the blurb; the story itself is written in third person.
Theme: The wind is strongest against you, making it the best direction to fly
