After Everyone Met a Bad End, She Ascended the Throne

The author is studying for exams, so updates will be irregular.

Advance warning: This is a very long story with a slow burn. The female lead has no romance!!!!! It leans toward an ensemble cast; the side couples have little screen time, but there are a lot of them. (Even couples who are only mentioned once count as side couples.) The early part is angsty. No System, no transmigration; the main cast are all natives of this world.

One day after her coronation, the Crown Princess asked Xie Jingshu, "If you had to sum up your legend in one sentence, what would you say?"

She had always considered the Empress before her a legend, and had always worried whether she was worthy of becoming Crown Princess.

"Don't overthink it. I raised you myself. Since I chose you as Crown Princess, I naturally believe in you. Don't sell yourself short." Xie Jingshu immediately saw what was on her mind.

"First, you need strong luck and a ruthless heart to inherit the throne. Then, if you're not ruthless enough, you can't secure your position. After that, balance firmness with compassion and stabilize the situation. Finally, look to the future with ambition, steadily moving upward, until the people live in harmony and everyone can thrive."

"If you want to know why I did all this..."

"I saw how all living beings suffer, and wanted to fight back."

"I had to fight! If I lost, I would suffer alongside everyone else. At worst, I would lose my life, be condemned in the history books, and mocked by later generations. But if I won, so what if the history books criticized me? What if I could change their fate? What if I could benefit generations to come?"

"I hope you can do the same one day. Don't be a spectator perched on a high tower."

Xie Jingshu was originally the fourth princess of the Great Qian. As a child, she imagined that a safe, uneventful life would be the best fortune she could hope for.

It seemed she had never considered resisting.

Not until she saw her eldest sister's life shackled by the word "concubine," her second sister forced into a political marriage beyond the frontier, loyal ministers and generals punished along with their entire clans, upright officials framed and hounded to death, and the countless commoners struggling just to survive in this world.

Yet she was powerless, swallowed up by her feelings.

Only then did it dawn on her: shouldn't she try to fight? Not only for herself, but for others, too.

If none of her imperial brothers were fit to be wise rulers, then she would take the throne!

Planned volumes (What on earth were those volume titles I came up with?):

[Moon Falls, Blossoms Break] The bright moon sinks into the sea, peach blossoms snap beneath the snow; she resolves to fight back.

[White Steed in the Empty Valley] The white steed roams the wilds, then enters public service, all brought about by her own hand.

[Moon Halo, Rain on the Horizon] Portents are unclear, her departure from the palace is imminent, and she exterminates her enemies amid wine pools and meat forests.

[Spring Chill over the Sea] She pays respects in Yangzhou, takes command in the south, and wipes out pirates along the southeastern coast.

[Dragon's Blood and Yellow Earth] ...

[Fire Refines the Sarira] ...

[Turmoil at the Meridian Gate] ...

[The Realm in Her Hands] The land and all beneath heaven are in her grasp...

The story spans a long period, starting when the female lead is eleven. In the early part, she is an exceptionally empathetic sweetheart. Later, she takes down all her imperial brothers and ascends the throne. (P.S. The Crown Princess mentioned in the blurb appears later in the story and is not the female lead's biological daughter.)

This story is exactly what the title promises! It is not a matriarchy. The early part is practically a collection of tragedies endured by women in a feudal society!!! There will be resistance!!!

This is a fictional world, but its customs and ways of life resemble reality. It has martial arts elements, though the martial arts are low-powered.

Coming soon: Restoring a Fallen Nation

In a chaotic age after the fall of a dynasty, a princess and the emperor's eldest son plan to restore the nation and bring peace to its people.

Advance warning: The siblings are co-protagonists, no romance, an ensemble cast, and the female lead ascends the throne as emperor.

Brother Xie Ningyi, sister Xie Ningxu

In the tenth year of the Chunzhang reign, foreign tribes invaded the imperial capital. Xie Ningxu led the Chixiao Guards back to Zhaoming Pavilion. Looking behind her at the Hall of Merit, a symbol of Great Qian's golden age, she gave her order: "In this battle, we may die, but we cannot retreat!"

She would rather fight to the death than watch Zhaoming Pavilion be destroyed.

As she lay gravely wounded and near death, Xie Ningyi broke through the enemy encirclement with gunpowder and saved her.

"Little sister, do you remember what you said back then?"

One day three years earlier, Xie Ningyi had smiled and said, "Today I heard someone say that you and I are both gifted in the civil and military arts, but were born at the wrong time. They said it would have been better if we'd been born a hundred years earlier."

Born a hundred years earlier, they would have seen Great Qian at its most prosperous.

But Xie Ningxu disagreed. "What if my brother and I were born to turn the tide of this collapsing dynasty?"

She did long for that golden age, but she would rather build a new revival with her own hands.

Their mother named her "Ningxu," hoping she would be like the light of dawn, piercing the apocalypse.

In the first year of the Hongxuan reign, Great Qian was restored.

Xie Ningxu began a reign that would last forty-three years, later known as the Hongxuan Golden Age.

From the time Xie Ningyi was old enough to understand the world, he had many questions. But his mother told him not to talk back to his father, the emperor.

He could not understand why his father, despite sitting in the highest position, refused to shoulder its responsibilities. He could not understand why ordinary people suffered so miserably while his father continued to wallow in luxury and excess. He could not understand why, even though Great Qian had produced the first female emperor in history, his father still worked relentlessly to suppress women's status.

So, on the day he saw his father tear up his sister's book and scold her, he talked back to him for the first time.

His father called him a "rebel son" and forbade him and his sister from taking part in court affairs. He stubbornly persisted in his ways, and Great Qian grew weaker by the day until it finally fell.

He and his sister struggled to survive, advancing carefully at every step, and eventually restored Great Qian.

He became Great Qian's first Prince Who Stands Shoulder to Shoulder with the Emperor, and achieved another distinction: the longest-lived Prince Who Stands Shoulder to Shoulder with the Emperor in history to die a natural death.

People joked that his name suited him well: Yi meant "to assist."

Theme: Never stop striving