I Make Her a Blade

Blurb: Ji Ruhuan is the daughter of a powerful minister. From childhood, she followed every rule and lived for power and her family. At seventeen, she was married off to the puppet crown prince, Yuan Huan, in a political alliance. At twenty-one, she became empress. At twenty-three, her husband, who had finally secured the throne, launched a palace coup and slaughtered every man of the Ji family in a single day. Yuan Huan, now holding supreme power, stood before her and spoke as gently as ever. "Don't be afraid, my dear. You will still be my one and only empress." Ji Ruhuan pulled out her phoenix hairpin and flung it at his face. "I'll be waiting for your edict to depose me!" Who could have imagined that news of the foreign cavalry at the gates would arrive before the edict of deposition? The dynasty was consumed by internal strife. Yuan Huan fled south with his troops, leaving her and the people with nothing but an empty city. Ji Ruhuan refused the loyal retainers who offered to escort her out of the palace, making the first willful decision of her life. The empress who had yet to be deposed raised her sword and looked at the frightened, uncertain officials. Her voice was calm and resolute. "Follow me and defend the city." Yan Cheng was young, reckless, and unrestrained. Others feared his skill at riding alone into enemy territory and beheading the enemy, yet looked down on his slave origins and base bloodline. He seemed to hold everyone in contempt. Even when faced with the powerful Ji family and their much-admired young lady, he dared to tease her without a care. In a world where status determined rank and bloodline determined worth, Yan Cheng thought it only natural that he should hate her and everything she represented, and that she should hate him in turn. But he never expected that, at the palace banquet, when she rejected her engagement to the crown prince and her gaze casually swept past his seat... His heart would beat so fast. Many years after being reborn, Ji Ruhuan finally learned the truth. On the night she had taken her own life in her previous life to die for her country, someone had led an army of a hundred thousand across mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, beheaded the foreign chieftain, and nailed him to the city wall she defended, together with the last emperor, who had fled in panic. Yan Cheng, his eyes blood-red, gathered her cold bones in his arms. His silhouette was utterly alone. His trembling lips brushed her forehead, as if kissing the most precious treasure in the world. 1. The setting draws on a historical era, but is essentially fictional. The male lead is a battle-hardened virgin in both lives. 2. The blurb was written on August 6, 2022, revised on July 4, 2024, and has been notarized. Theme: Love should be honest