The Calamity-Bearing Empress Reborn

[Featured notice] This story is expected to go premium on October 24, this coming Sunday. A special extra-long chapter will be available then. Thank you all for your support~

Everyone knew that Su Qingyue was Emperor Huiyuan's favorite consort.

Just how favored was she?

Emperor Huiyuan ascended the throne at twenty-five. For her, he abolished the imperial harem, defied the ancestral rule that a daughter of a convicted minister could not become empress, and made her empress with the title "Pure Phoenix."

From then on, at every morning court, the ministers saw the devastatingly beautiful enchantress reclining on Emperor Huiyuan's lap, her every movement alluring.

In the fifth year of Hongyang, the eldest son of the Su family led an army to attack the city, and its walls fell.

Before Emperor Huiyuan's anguished gaze, Su Qingyue, dressed in red, ascended the city tower. She smiled sweetly, then leaped down.

It turned out that her short life had been nothing but a quest for revenge.

The late emperor had destroyed her family, leaving a once-loyal household with nothing but the infamy of treason. So she would turn the son he cherished most into her plaything and make him hand over the entire realm to her.

*

Then Su Qingyue was reborn. This time, she was still the apple of the Su family's eye.

She advised her father and brother to keep a low profile, thinking she could make a different life for herself than in her previous one. But she never expected an imperial decree to betroth her to Emperor Huiyuan, who was still Prince Jing at the time.

On their wedding night, the aloof and dignified young man got thoroughly drunk and held her tightly in his arms, murmuring,

"I'll give you everything. Don't leave me alone..."

*

Jun Ciye had known all along that his favorite consort didn't love him.

How unfair this world was. They owed her far too much. So if she wanted the realm, he would give it to her.

But he hadn't expected that even after getting everything she wanted, she would still leave his life without hesitation, leaving him with nothing but a torn piece of her clothing.

That night, Emperor Huiyuan, Jun Ciye, drank poison and killed himself in prison.

When he opened his eyes again, he had returned to the year before it all began. This time, he would seize the initiative and marry Su Qingyue, the legitimate daughter of a military family, as Prince Jing's consort, with an eight-carriage bridal procession...

*

The female lead is cruel and ruthless. The male lead is a hopeless romantic in both lives.

This probably won't be very long. It's set in an imaginary historical world. Anything that might be a dealbreaker is already mentioned in the blurb. No need to tell me if you drop it.

Coming soon: historical romance, She Regretted Forcing a Powerful Minister to Marry Her. Please add it to your collection~

Blurb:

Everyone knew that Chu Mingtang, daughter of a wealthy merchant in the north, had a stunning, delicate beauty but was really an ignorant, useless beauty.

Her father had a family school set up for her at home, but she took a fancy to the cool and refined young tutor. Using her wealth and power to pressure him, she forced him to become her live-in son-in-law.

On her wedding night, Chu Mingtang had a dream.

She dreamed that a few years later, her father would be killed by pirates while out at sea. The Chu family would lose its fortune and fall from its high status, and she would go from a wealthy young lady to a poor girl.

Meanwhile, the son-in-law she'd forced into marriage would pass the highest imperial exam and soon rise to the highest ranks of government.

He hated the Chu family for humiliating him in the past. So he left Chu Mingtang to languish at home, ignoring her until she died a miserable death.

When she woke with a start, Chu Mingtang looked at the young tutor sleeping properly beside her, covered in cold sweat.

Ignoring her discomfort, she immediately climbed out of bed to write a divorce agreement.

But as soon as she put her name to it, someone wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. The young man's low voice rang in her ear, laced with a strange, gritted anger.

"You had your fun, and now you want a divorce. Chu Mingtang, how dare you humiliate me like this?"

*

Xie Hanzhou hated Chu Mingtang to death.

In his first life, she forced him to become her live-in son-in-law, but after he became Grand Secretary, she killed herself in despair after he'd ignored her for a few days, leaving him alone in unbearable grief.

In his second life, on their wedding night, she did everything she wanted, then waited for him to fall asleep before sneaking out of bed to write a divorce agreement.

...Did this woman have no heart at all?

One-on-one pairing, happy ending.

The heroine's cause of death in her previous life was not what it seemed. A spoiled, arrogant young lady who bullies the weak and fears the strong x a humble, long-suffering young tutor.

Theme: If virtue is repaid with resentment, what should be repaid with virtue?