I paid to read chapters 20-40, and now I'm on Chapter 902 as I'm paying to read the Mandarin online version of this book (pay using WeChat). I think the reviews that dismiss the book based on events in the first 10/20 free chapters are biased. Here's why:
The book starts with a typical trope, but it's misleading. I think you'll find that this book is for a specific type of reader who enjoys independent female characters. The FL has interests that are in no way related to the ML. Women in the book have conversations that are not about men. The women in the book are named, and each has a distinct character arc and personality. There are strong female friendships in this book. There's a bit of bromance, too - but that's a staple in historical novels. The ML actually grows emotionally, so that's a pleasant change from the tsundere blockhead we see in the beginning. If you're watching the US TV drama, 'The Great', this book is for you.
If you think FLs are stupid if they 'provoke' the ML by not being a willing vessel in bed for the ML's passion/anger/inability to use his words, or failing to stand prettily wherever the ML tells them to stand, or if you think FL's who don't follow the ML's unreasonable rules are dumb, drop this book now. If you hate FL's who pay no attention to the ML's tantrums, don't read this book. You won't like it.
Don't read the first few chapters and think that the FL is an idiot who must constantly be saved. This is a transmigration story, and the vapid victim is the original owner of the body, NOT the FL.
Let's address the original owner (OO), Gu Yundai. She isn't stupid. She's a neglected and emotionally abused 15 year old who does her best to stay off everyone's radar. That doesn't work because her father treats her as trash because she 'killed her mother' when she was born. This gives everyone in their mansion free rein to heap scorn on her every day of her life. You could say that she should have done this or she should have slapped that one, but if you are abused from birth by everyone, how likely would you REALLY be to slap faces without a single soul anywhere watching your back or helping you scheme? She gets set up. She is dragged into a side street and she ends up pregnant at 15 and on the receiving end of even more abuse. Her father disinherits her and threatens to drown her son, and her brother and step-sister just watch the show. It's here that the transmigration kicks in.
The men in the OO's life are lousy, and most of them remain lousy once the FL is in Gu Yundai's body. The FL has zero patience for the OO's father, the ML/prince, or the emperor. She thinks they're all greedy, moody, unreliable morons - except for the OO's brother. The FL thinks the OO's brother is an extremely gullible idiot who believes every passing white lotus...and he is. He's a special kind of stupid wastrel. Dog racing, dog fighting, gambling, compensated dating, drugs, cardinal sins... If there's a downfall in life, the idiot brother treats it as a friend and buys it a drink.
This isn't your typical story where the FL is delivering face slaps using the wealth and clout of the ML to get revenge on bullies. If anything, this FL puts people in their place when she's had enough, and the ML hears about it later from the palace gossip of his eunuch or the guards. He doesn't get mad. He doesn't want any woman but her because he LOVES her. He is glad that she can put people in their place without his help because a royal should be confident and powerful in their own right.
If you prefer historical romances with intrigues where the arc can last for a dozen chapters (as opposed modern face slapping scenes every 7 pages) then this book is for you. Much like the FLs in 'Eight Treasures Trousseau', 'Chongfei Manual', 'Chu Wang Fei', 'Xiao Qi, Wait' (search titles on Novel Updates) or 'My Consort Has Gone Mad!' (Webnovel/historical/completed) or 'Evil Natured Husband: Don't Tease!' (Webnovel/modern/hiatus), this FL did not have a great opinion of men before she transmigrated.
The transmigrated FL isn't stupid or self-sabotaging. She just has no respect for the mood swings of royalty. She thinks they must earn respect like everyone else. She's funny, but mostly when she's in her palace with her servants and her eunuch. She lets them dine with her, and she treats them well, often gifting them things. If she gets something good, she shares with her servants. She's a foodie, and her servants prep meals like sous chefs. The FL then cooks for her servants and herself. The FL was a Michelin level gourmet restaurant reviewer in her past life. Everyone in her palace clique ends up a foodie.
The FL doesn't trust the ML because he groped her on 2 different occasions when he met her, and he creates a situation where she has no choice but to enter his harem. He also frequently ignores or punishes her due to his insecurities and jealousy. The ML falls in love first, but jealousy rules his actions. Every time the FL suffers it is because of his ego. This is bad for him because the FL didn't have much trust in men in her old life, and even less trust in the men in the palace.
This FL says and does what she wants because she has already died once, so SHE DOESN'T CARE if the ML or anyone else kills her because she hates palace life. She wouldn't care if she died as she would either be dead again - or she would transmigrate to a different life. She would have been more than happy to have never met the prince. Her plan was to serve well as a maid, save her money, open a restaurant, and raise her son well.
The prince falls in love first, and he falls hard. When they figure out that they were drugged by different people and got together, and that the prince is the father of the baby she has stashed at her old nanny's house, he keeps giving her titles and things and power - but all she wants is to hang out with her servant friends from the kitchen, another concubine who has no interest in the prince either, the eunuchs, and her older, married sister. That's her clique.
There are romantic moments, but these occur when Gu Yundai is 'feeling okay', meaning when the prince isn't losing his mind because she talked to a guy and is punishing her emotionally. It's sad. He really loves her, but time and again his jealousy causes him to hurt her emotionally or do do things that make her leery of him and that make her keep him at arm's length.
Yes, there's another man, but that man happens to be someone that the prince greatly loves and respects. The prince, in some ways, feels inferior to this guy. It's this man's attraction to Gu Yundai that causes problems. The guy knows she is taken, and doesn't want to like her - but he does. Sadly, he is one of Gu Yundai's first friends in the palace. Because he's attracted to her, it makes the prince jealous, it causes the guy to be punished, and Yundai loses one of the few palace friends she has that aren't from her days as a kitchen maid.
This idiot prince makes so many assumptions about the FL and the guy he looks up to that his jealousy almost kills the FL. He recants the punishments and tries to make it up to her, but she never buys into it because he's fickle. Later, he gives their son and newborn daughters to others in the Royal family to care for while he locks her up, alone, in her palace for six weeks. He won't even send food. She's eating bamboo from the ornamental garden in her palace/prison.
I'm at the part where he sticks her in a Buddhist temple for 3 months in winter. Gu Yundai, her servants, and her eunuch get their hands on some charcoal. They sit around the fire together, have amazing vegan Buddhist temple food, embroider, and party. She puts a pretty face on it, but the prince hasn't let her see her son or newborns for weeks. He's no longer mad, but he also has no idea to back down as royals are never wrong...
There are 3799 chapters as of 6 April and it's ongoing. It has a pretty big following on the Chinese sites. If you're looking for the raw it's 皇后是朕的黑月光 .
