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One-on-one / Both leads reborn / The husband pursues his wife to win her back / Happy ending
In her previous life, Ling Shunsheng was sentenced to death.
As the highest-ranking of the nine concubines, she was confined to a remote, cold courtyard with a leaky roof. The palace servants slighted her, the concubines mocked her, and even the lowliest eunuchs tasked with sweeping dared to trample on her.
Only when the poison burned through her insides did she see the truth:
The emperor, who loathed her to the bone, looked at her body lying in a pool of blood with disgust and relief in his eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, she had returned to ten years earlier, still a lady-in-waiting by the empress dowager's side.
*
Remembering her brutal death in her previous life, Ling Shunsheng felt nothing but hatred.
Born into a prestigious family and the empress dowager's own niece, she had a timid nature and ended up at the mercy of fate.
Reborn, she decided to live differently.
On the first day of her new life, she shoved the noble consort who had bullied her most into the lotus pond.
On the second day, she slashed the sycophantic face of the eunuch serving before the emperor with her gold hairpin, leaving it bloodied and mangled.
On the third day, she "accidentally" knocked over the imperial desk, shattering the emperor's beloved white jade vase.
The palace was in an uproar. Everyone said Lady Ling had failed to climb into the emperor's bed and had gone mad instead.
Who didn't know that the emperor had always despised the women of the Ling family? Facing his fury, she was surely doomed!
But the emperor acted as though he hadn't seen a thing and issued an edict transferring Lady Ling to serve before him, where they would face each other day and night.
Just as everyone thought the Ling family's daughter was about to bask in boundless imperial favor, rumors spread through the palace that Lady Ling had flouted the rules and become involved with another man!
Everyone waited gleefully for her to fall from grace so they could trample her. But then an imperial decree of investiture arrived: Ling Shunsheng, the legitimate daughter of the Ling family, was wise and virtuous, and would be made empress, mother of the realm.
In the Golden Throne Hall, Ling Shunsheng looked straight at the emperor seated on the dragon throne, regal and imposing, and smiled sweetly.
"Pei Wangzhou," she said, her red lips parting, her gaze icy. "You came back too?"
*
The male lead's perspective:
Reborn, Pei Wangzhou still despised the women of the Ling family.
She was cowardly and cunning, constantly causing trouble, and entirely unfit for polite society.
He transferred her to serve before him, ostensibly as a promotion but really to keep her under watch, waiting for a chance to have her executed and eliminate the threat for good.
Until one day, he accidentally discovered a pair of old sachets in Ling Shunsheng's makeup box.
Pei Wangzhou scoffed to himself. Just as in their previous life, she still harbored improper feelings for him.
He picked up a sachet with his fingertips and turned it over nonchalantly.
Another man's name was embroidered clearly on the back.
In that moment, the emperor, usually so cold and unfeeling, had only one thought:
He would grind the owner of that name to dust.
[Bonus scene]
With the past behind her, Ling Shunsheng no longer wanted to humor the emperor. She wanted only to leave the palace and spend the rest of her life in peace.
On the day she left the palace, torrential rain poured over the imperial city.
As she reached the vermilion palace gates, a dark figure blocked her way, immovable as a rock.
It was the emperor, clad in a black dragon robe and reigning high above all.
The rain soaked his fine clothes. Drenched and disheveled, he fixed his deep-set eyes on her.
He suddenly seized her slender wrist, his hoarse voice cutting through the rain:
"Ling Shunsheng..." His Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty as rain slid down his dark hair. "When did I ever permit you to leave the palace?"
The rain blurred his vision. The beauty, always so gentle, wrenched her hand away, her voice edged with ice:
"Let go. Your touch disgusts me."
[Reading guide]
Both leads are reborn
The leads are unrelated by blood; the empress dowager is the male lead's adoptive mother
The male lead was awful in his previous life, and isn't entirely good in this one either
Theme: Pursuing a beautiful life in harmony and love
