Your Majesty, the Empress Has Ascended the Throne!

After being reborn, she chose to settle for a modest, comfortable life. She never expected her world to start collapsing because of that choice. Her mother was gravely ill, and her father lay unconscious. Her clan drove her into the mountains. She had to treat her father and struggle to provide for their family of three. Immersed in hardship, she saw the suffering women endured everywhere. Even women knew to target other women. In this world, everyone taught girls how to sacrifice their individuality and become virtuous wives, good mothers, and supportive helpmeets. The Women's Classic and the Admonitions for Women told them what they could and couldn't do. Yet no one ever taught them how to live as people. When poverty strikes, women are the first to be exploited. When false accusations became her nourishment and framing others became her means of support, she returned to the capital one day. She was going to turn this world upside down. She raised her banner and cried out: When did it become the case that, when we hear of great writings or of men going to battle to defend the people, not a single woman comes to mind? How much of the credit was stolen by others? While women were forever trapped behind the walls of the inner chambers, their bodies confined and their voices silenced. Why should a woman's excellence be nothing more than a bargaining chip? Why must women be gentle and pleasing? Why can't women be fierce? Rule from behind the curtain. Behind a curtain? Why should there be a curtain at all? As she spoke, Yan Rujin tore down the beaded curtain in front of her face. From this moment on, I, the sovereign, ascend the throne!