Buried Alive by My Trash Husband, I Turned Around and Seized the Emperor’s Heart and Phoenix Throne

[Palace intrigue and cathartic revenge + not both sexually inexperienced + doted on exclusively later + a clear-eyed heroine]

Everyone in the capital says Lord Gu loves his wife more than any other man could.

Xu Qingzhi is his wife, the woman who stood by him through hardship. A lonely country girl, she sees her husband as her whole world.

Everyone is waiting for Gu Beichen to divorce this useless wife, including Xu Qingzhi herself. She, too, is waiting for those divorce papers.

Then one day, she "accidentally" catches her husband in an affair with a princess.

The haughty princess says, "Only the dead can keep a secret. Kill her, and I'll get you promoted!"

Her husband says, "Qingzhi, a day as husband and wife is worth a hundred days of kindness. Do this one last favor for my career, and sacrifice yourself."

Who says she's useless?

Look, she's become a stepping stone on his road to success!

Her scumbag husband buries her alive with his own hands, but the King of Hell refuses to take her!

The heaviest rain in three years lets her claw her way out of hell!

Xu Qingzhi finally sees things clearly: true love lasts for a moment, but power lasts a lifetime!

So she sets her sights on the most exalted man in the land: the emperor himself.

If she's going to do it, she'll become the most exalted woman in all the world!

She'll be empress, then empress dowager!

From now on, men and women alike will be stepping stones for her rise to power.

But gradually, things start taking a strange turn.

Her scumbag ex-husband is crushed beneath her heel, yet clings to her leg and won't let go?

The women in the harem aren't competing for the emperor's favor. Instead, they keep coming to her.

And the emperor's gaze grows more and more unsettling, as if he wants to devour her!