Marrying My Nemesis From My Past Life (Both Reborn)

[Complete] [Bonus alternate-universe chapters will appear from time to time]

The full novel, Like an Old Friend's Return, is complete.

Novel blurb

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To repay the late emperor and empress dowager for their kindness, the palace lady-in-waiting Meng Wan accepted their dying wish and took charge of the Phoenix Seal, assisting the young emperor and becoming the youngest empress dowager in the dynasty's history.

For more than a decade, Meng Wan navigated the competing factions, rising before dawn and retiring late at night, always walking on thin ice.

The regent, Xie Xuanji, was autocratic and ambitious, and the court feared him.

However, the court was riddled with interlocking factions, and pulling one thread could set everything in motion. Meng Wan could not oppose him alone, so she had no choice but to feign cooperation and bide her time. She even wove a web of false affection to lure him into her trap.

In the ninth month of the sixteenth year of Xuanhe, the new emperor took personal control of the government.

In the tenth month, the imperial guards surrounded the Prince of Xie's residence.

Three days later, the new emperor issued an edict ordering Xie Xuanji's execution. The person who went to see him in his final moments was Meng Wan, the woman who had been entangled with him for most of their lives.

As Xie Xuanji drank the poisoned wine in one gulp, Meng Wan knew that he hated her with all his heart.

--

After Xie Xuanji's death, Meng Wan unexpectedly became reborn at the age of seventeen.

In this life, she was tired of schemes and deceit and wanted nothing more to do with the palace and its red walls.

She managed to avoid the palace selection by pretending to be ill, but she could not escape the empress's arranged marriage.

In this life, she became Xie Xuanji's princess consort.

On their wedding night, Meng Wan met the nineteen-year-old Prince Xiang, Xie Xuanji, for the first time. He had yet to lose his youthful spirit and was nothing like the sinister, ruthless regent from her memories.

Before she could gather her wits, he spoke first. "Meng Wan, I've been waiting for you a long time."

[Reader's Guide]

1. The male and female leads are both virgins, and have only ever been with each other in body and heart. In her previous life, the heroine was nominally the second male lead's consort but actually his secretary. The second male lead has his own love interest.

2. Both leads are reborn. The heroine retains all her memories, while the hero gradually regains his.

3. The dynasties and political systems are fictional. There may be a mix of institutions from several dynasties, but I'll try to keep things clear.

4. The early chapters will include flashbacks to their previous lives to explain what happened. The leads' first scene together in this life is in Chapter 9.

5. The previous life has a bad ending; this life has a happy ending.

Coming soon: Unfading Dreams of the Past

1.

Song Linghui was the late emperor's most beloved youngest daughter. She and her husband, Zhao Yanqing, had been childhood sweethearts and loved each other deeply.

But only a year after their marriage, Zhao Yanqing was framed by villains and thrown into the imperial prison. Many of his old friends were implicated as well, with some families stripped of their property and others sent into exile.

Song Linghui knelt outside the palace hall for three days, but the emperor never came. Instead, she was met by Li Tiao, the new favorite minister at the emperor's side, known as the "Living King of Hell" and the head of the Grand Secretariat.

She said coldly, "If you still have a conscience, give them a chance to live."

Li Tiao looked down at Song Linghui, prostrate on the ground. His voice was as detached as his expression. "You have to fight for a chance to live. You can't beg for one."

Three months later, Zhao Yanqing's sentence was commuted from execution to exile. On the same day he set out for Lingnan, Princess Dingguo married Li Tiao, the head of the Grand Secretariat.

Everyone lamented that Song Linghui was cold and heartless, abandoning her marital vows. Others denounced her as blind to right and wrong, willing to join forces with a corrupt official like Li Tiao.

Only Song Linghui knew that she and Li Tiao were merely using each other, and that their paths could never truly align.

2.

Li Tiao first met Song Linghui at a banquet on Qionghua Terrace.

He had stepped away to avoid drinking and happened to meet Princess Dingguo, who was disguised as a young eunuch. Every smile and frown of hers became a fate he could never escape.

Li Tiao thought the marriage he'd schemed so hard to win would make her turn his way, if only for a moment. But her eyes had always held only Zhao Yanqing, the man as pure and bright as the moon. Even on nights spent beneath red candles and gauze curtains, whether awake or half-asleep, the only name she called was his.

Before long, Zhao Yanqing cleared his name and returned, resuming his former post. She went to the Zhao residence again and again, making Li Tiao a laughingstock in everyone's eyes.

Since her heart was no longer with him, Li Tiao no longer wished to force her.

But before he could hand Song Linghui the divorce papers he'd written, she barged into his bedroom and held a dagger to his throat, demanding, "Were you the one who framed Zhao Yanqing and the others and sent them to prison?"

Li Tiao took hold of her hand, pressing the blade deeper into his flesh. Blood gushed from the wound.

Song Linghui dropped the dagger and said coldly, "Li Tiao, I was wrong to trust you before. From now on, you go your way and I'll go mine. We have nothing to do with each other."

A bleak smile spread across Li Tiao's face. "Huìhui, when have you ever trusted me?"

3.

When they met again, the once-powerful minister had become a prisoner despised by everyone.

Every new law he had enacted, good or bad, was repealed. Every achievement, great or small, was erased.

From the imperial family to commoners, everyone called him a treacherous minister. Anyone who disagreed was treated as one of Li Tiao's accomplices.

For a time, no one at court dared to speak up for Li Tiao, even to say that he had been wronged.

Yet Princess Dingguo, who had always been quick to follow the prevailing winds in everyone's eyes, did not this time seek refuge in the arms of Zhao Yanqing, the newly appointed Minister of Revenue.

One day, the sound of the grievance drum rang throughout the palace.

"Who are you here to seek justice for?"

"My husband, Li Tiao, the former head of the Grand Secretariat."

Theme: Work hard to make your ideals a reality.