Seize Heaven's Mandate (Reborn)

In the twenty-seventh year of the Tianming era, strange changes appeared in the heavens.

Princess Xu Mu dragged the powerful chancellor Bai Cangzhou out of the palace and onto the city wall, making him open his dog eyes and look at the flames of Xudu and the Wuzu cavalry.

That day, they both fell from the wall and died when the city fell and the nation was destroyed.

When Xu Mu woke again, she realized she had been reborn at the age of fourteen.

She had barely woken when someone came after her.

A young man in plain clothes saved her. That one rescue was enough for Xu Mu to learn the secrets of palace intrigue from her youth and realize that she had been unable to hide her little crush in her previous life.

But seventeen-year-old Bai Cangzhou already had a fiancée.

As Xu Mu mocked herself for repeating the same mistakes, she encountered the man who had made her live like a widow for five years in her previous life.

She fled in a panic. Looking at the dark river, she even began to think about dying.

Bai Cangzhou rushed over and grabbed her, scolding, “What could possibly be so hard to get over that it follows Your Highness through two lifetimes?”

Xu Mu was stunned for a moment, then shoved him to the ground. “So you were reborn too. Do you get a kick out of watching me act like an idiot?”

After a long talk, they agreed on one thing: they had to go back.

She would seize the throne, defy Heaven, and extend Dongling’s national fortune by another three hundred years!

But everyone in the former court and inner palace was a master strategist. How could she learn to plan and scheme?

During the three years she spent lying low, she watched them fight for power and learned their schemes and calculations.

Three years later, when she saw Bai Cangzhou again, she put what she had learned to use. She set a trap, spent a night with him beneath warm bed curtains, and afterward denied everything.

Bai Cangzhou regretted it. Three years earlier, he shouldn’t have used her to set his trap and let her hate him for so long.

*

After being reborn:

Xu Mu is fourteen, and Bai Cangzhou is seventeen.

Xu Mu: Bai Cangzhou, you won’t lose anything by saving me.

Bai Cangzhou: ???

Xu Mu: Aren’t you from a poor family and unable to afford the imperial exams? I’m a princess, and I’m filthy rich.

Bai Cangzhou: ...

That same year, Bai Cangzhou places first in the imperial examination.

*

Three years later

Xu Mu is seventeen, and Bai Cangzhou is twenty.

Bai Cangzhou: Your Highness, this official was wrong. I shouldn’t have schemed like that.

Xu Mu: ???

Bai Cangzhou: If I can stay by Your Highness’s side, I’m willing to be your male favorite.

Xu Mu: ...

That same year, they join hands to reverse Dongling’s fate.

*

Reader’s guide

1. Before being reborn, the heroine was not a virgin, while the hero was. (Readers who require both leads to be virgins, beware.) The heroine has a crush on him early on and pursues him; in the middle, he pursues her, with a partial redemption arc, while they plot to rule the country. Later, she strikes back and turns around Dongling’s doomed fate.

2. Ensemble cast, political intrigue mixed with romance, and a second and third male lead. Three men compete for the heroine.

(The hero goes through a redemption arc to win her back. The second male lead tries to force her into love. The third male lead gets a true redemption arc but can never win her over.)

3. Part of the Dongling Empire series, also known as Rule the Mountains and Rivers 3. The story takes place three hundred years after the founding of the Dongling Empire.

4. By this point, the Dongling Empire has already gone from its heyday into decline. The heroine is reborn and forcibly gives the empire more time.

5. The full manuscript is complete. New chapters every day without interruption.

6. Love you all, mwah!

Theme: There’s joy in fighting Heaven.