Twenty Years to Forge a God

[Main story complete; bonus chapters updated from time to time] Li Xingruo was never granted a long life. She died on the road as her army marched home. The histories written afterward told different tales in their careful script. They said she had cut off her hair and disfigured herself, uncivilized as a savage. They said she slaughtered prisoners and razed cities, cruel and unfit to be called human. Yes, Li Xingruo shaved her head once. At the time, word spread through the army that she was heartbroken and had renounced the world. The truth was that lice had infested her hair on the march, and she had scratched her scalp raw. Later, when she let her hair grow, rumors claimed she had found someone she loved and was growing it out for her wedding. Li Xingruo touched the old callus on the back of her neck, worn there by her helmet, and decided that not everyone had a mind as sharp as hers. When historians assess famous figures, they often say that someone lived an honorable life, blemished by only one thing. For Li Xingruo, they said, "Only in giving birth did she prove herself a woman." Her bandit father could barely recognize a single character, yet somehow managed to write a book teaching her how to be a woman. It was utter nonsense, but Li Xingruo loved reading it. Whenever her heart softened, she would read the whole book, then beat every last member of the Li family. Such was the woman who spent ten years amid the dust of war and won half the realm. Her enemies hated her for her savage brutality, scholars loathed her fearsome reputation, commoners feared her countless killings, her kin avoided speaking of her because she recognized no family ties, her peers envied her immense military power, and the emperor resented her disregard for imperial authority. Her admirers lamented, "The sun and moon hang in the sky, always in sight, yet never within reach." A three-hundred-word biography of the lords and nobles summed up Li Xingruo's entire life, leaving her with a reputation for wanton cruelty. In the twenty years after her death, the dynasty crumbled and foreign forces invaded again. Even then, the fearsome name she had made for herself once more protected the people of the imperial capital. * On a stormy night in the twentieth spring after Li Xingruo's death, she heard her grandniece's last words: "I have made peace with death. I wish to give the years I have left to Marquis Wuzhao." Her descendant's blood spilled before her memorial, and her dream of the crane began anew. In this life, she would reclaim her broken sword, turn back the tide when all seemed lost, shore up the collapsing realm, become the sky above the emperors of generations to come, and haunt enemy nations in their nightmares. [Reader's Notes] * The claims in the blurb that the protagonist slaughtered prisoners and razed cities are rumors and slander. Don't judge her based on the blurb. * The heroine's name means "gentle yet firm, using softness to become strong." * From a powerful minister to an emperor. Premise: Return to the twentieth year after her death