Currently stockpiling chapters. It will start once there are 100,000 characters.
In the third year of Yongchang, Grand Princess Gu of the State Protectorate died suddenly.
Gu Yaohua's soul was shattered outside Encheng Temple. She died full of resentment, all because of Qi Zhiyin.
When she opened her eyes again, Gu Yaohua had returned to the year her fate first began to fracture.
///
"I hope Your Highness is well."
Beneath the deep twilight of a late-spring night, Gu Yaohua shot a discreet glare at Qi Zhiyin, who blocked her path. Her wrist turned, and her riding crop sliced through the spring breeze. "If you hadn't stood in my way, Eunuch, I would naturally be in good spirits."
At her words, the delight in Qi Zhiyin's eyes vanished. "Are you leaving, Your Highness?"
"What does that have to do with you?"
The bright red figure receded into the distance. Qi Zhiyin slowly clenched his fingers.
///
Gu Yaohua got her wish and left the palace. But after traveling thousands of miles and seeing with her own eyes how all the land meant for growing grain had fallen into the hands of the powerful, while ordinary people suffered unbearably, she suddenly realized that in her previous life she had been living a lie.
Cicadas rasped in the height of summer. Gu Yaohua walked in the shadows. Someone came toward her carrying a lantern. She lowered her head in shame. "Qi Zhiyin, I think I was wrong."
Qi Zhiyin held up the lantern to light her way. Moonlight bathed his pale fingertips. After a long silence, he sighed. "You finally managed to be smart for once."
Gu Yaohua stared at him, stunned.
"But Qi Zhiyin, you shouldn't be like this."
To repair the Great Wall, a hundred thousand able-bodied men were used as stones, their bones buried in its foundations.
When plague struck, all the medicine in the clinics was requisitioned, leaving the afflicted to pay exorbitant prices for a chance at survival.
The many atrocities made one's heart tremble.
He curved his lips in a faint smile. "History calls me a wolf with ambition, while Your Highness becomes a wise ruler for the ages." He suddenly brought the lantern close to Gu Yaohua. She instinctively stepped back, but he pressed closer. "Since Your Highness is so good at keeping accounts, why not calculate what kind of person I ought to be?"
*
Both leads are reborn, and both remember their previous lives. There will be an extra chapter with an open ending. There are no absolutely righteous characters in the story. The male lead suffers a little. He is a fake eunuch and hopelessly love-struck.
Mostly serious, with a touch of melodrama. Specific content warnings are in the author's note in Chapter One.
An alternate-universe Tang dynasty.
Theme: She'll fight with all her might to help her face the dead end and live toward the light.
