The Princess Won't Take the Throne

[Currently updating my other story. This one is too hard to write, so I'll revise it extensively later.]

Jiang Chengjiu, a notorious overachiever, gets transported into a novel she once wrote and becomes a minor cannon-fodder female character.

The book is full of imperial power struggles and deceit. As a minor character, she is killed off right at the beginning.

So she resolves to lie flat like a salted fish, shut the doors to her estate, carefully avoid all the plot points, and focus on enjoying a peaceful life as an imperial princess.

So while everyone else stops at nothing to curry favor with the emperor, Jiang Chengjiu plays with cats, raises fish, and goes shopping.

While everyone else stays up all night plotting how to push out rival factions, Jiang Chengjiu goes to bed early and gets up late every day.

But when certain plot developments beyond the original book appear, Jiang Chengjiu is forced into action.

For the sake of her beautiful life of lying flat, Jiang Chengjiu puts her former overachiever self to work, secretly bending the plot behind everyone's backs.

At last, the emperor decides to retire, and the original heroine is about to take the throne. Jiang Chengjiu shuts her doors, thinking she can finally lie flat.

But Jiang Chengjiu never expected her secret identity to be exposed.

The ministers, their eyes brimming with tears, declare, "The Third Princess has kept her merits hidden, serving her country and people. Your Highness is the only worthy choice for the throne."

Even the original heroine of the book, her Second Imperial Sister, looks at her with approval.

Jiang Chengjiu: "What? Help, even if a salted fish flips over, it's still a salted fish!"

Years later, after taking the throne, Jiang Chengjiu finally learns that the former neighbor from next door, now her trusted prime minister, was actually reborn.

Jiang Chengjiu: "So you were the one who did this to me!"

[A female lead who keeps getting forced to sit up from her lie-flat life x a seemingly sweet but secretly scheming, theatrical male lead]

Theme: A simple, peaceful life is what matters most.