I Would Rather Break [Reborn]

As the daughter of the Grand Princess, Li Shan was doted on from childhood and vowed to become empress, the most powerful woman in the realm.

At sixteen, she insisted on marrying the crown prince and helped him ascend the throne. But after only three glorious years, he stripped her family of its titles, deposed her, and imprisoned her deep within the palace.

To take revenge, she conspired with the great general Huo Yi, plotting a rebellion.

Huo Yi was the younger brother of the new empress. Lost at a young age, he took to the battlefield at eighteen and rose to the ranks of the nobility. The emperor trusted him, but he was a sinister man, cold in appearance and colder at heart. Every time he made love to her in the Cold Palace, he left without a backward glance.

One day, as wind and rain swept outside, they clung to each other in the Cold Palace.

Huo Yi's gaze was dark. His thin lips brushed her ear as he asked what she wanted.

Without hesitation, Li Shan gently pressed his palm against her belly. "I want to be empress dowager."

But before she could become empress dowager, she died suddenly.

When she opened her eyes again, she had returned to her youth, once more Chang'an's most dazzling jewel.

*

Li Shan brought a lowly stable hand back from outside the manor. That night, she looked down at the broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted man before her, his expression impassive, and lifted her chin haughtily.

The prime minister's legitimate son, the new empress's younger brother, the future great general: now he was nothing but a lowly stable hand.

She set her foot on his shoulder and narrowed her eyes, about to swing her whip, when a large hand clamped around her ankle.

His fingerprints showed through her thin clothes against her snowy-white skin. He looked at her with eyes full of disgust.

Li Shan shuddered at his grip. Her whip veered aside and struck him across the face.

*

She hated him, so she bullied him every day for fun.

But her hatred had come from nowhere, and Huo Yi couldn't understand it.

Then, one day, as rain poured down and the storm passed in the bedroom, he dreamed of a pair of lively eyes.

In the dream, rain fell hard. Dressed in dark armor, he stood beneath the eaves, drenched from head to toe. He watched her come closer, step by step, until her red lips brushed his ear. "General Huo, will you lose your head along with me?"

In an instant, a demon took root in his heart.

Please note:

1. In their past life, the subject stole his sovereign's wife. In this life, he dares to do even more.

2. This is not a strong-female-lead story, and the heroine is no delicate innocent, either.

3. The hero is all talk and no action in both lives. He's very stubborn, yet fully aware as he falls deeper.

4. The hero will regain his memories of his past life later, probably.

Theme: Don't wait until the flowers are gone to break off a branch