Chapter 1

I'm an operative with the Transmigration Bureau.

To let my best friend Rose experience a domineering-CEO romance, I picked out a story rated 9.8 just for her: The Emperor's Beloved.

Her first day back, she checked into three separate psychiatric ERs.

Then she went and left it one star.

Note: 【This so-called heavenly favor? Even a dog would want no part of it.】

I was so furious I dragged her in front of the display screen.

"You start out as an imperial consort. The emperor dismissed the entire harem for you."

"Even the empress has to watch your mood. What is there to complain about?"

She laughed, and it was uglier than crying.

"Three years in that palace. I was forced to drink ninety-nine bowls of sterility draught, targeted by assassins sixty-six times, and I lost ten pregnancies."

"He'd hold me and say he trusted only me, then turn around and plant forged evidence of treason in my father's study."

"One hundred and twenty-seven people in my family, and the emperor who doted on me most signed the order for their execution himself."

I pulled up the character panel: unmatched beauty, the emperor's exclusive favor, ending marked 【a lifetime of imperial favor】.

"A maxed-out favored-consort script, and you still managed to turn it into a sob story. If you ask me, you just don't have what it takes."

"I'll go in myself and show you how it's done. I'll teach you what it means to have an emperor wrapped around your finger."

The next second, I opened my eyes wearing her face.

……

Empress Edna Rowe was pressing a bowl of pitch-black medicine against my lips.

"Trying the slit-wrists routine again? His Majesty's grown bored of it."

"Or should I give you a hand with it."

I turned my face away and glared at her. "Get your hands off me."

Edna gripped my chin and pushed the bowl half an inch closer.

"Lisa Henson, do you still think you're the grand general's daughter?"

"This is the hundredth bowl. Drink it and we round things off nicely."

I let my head go with the force of her hand and drove my elbow up into the bottom of the bowl.

It smashed at her feet, broken porcelain and dark medicine splashing up across her imperial robe.

Edna's face went cold. "Hold her down."

Before the attendants could lunge, I already had a shard of porcelain up against her throat.

The wound on my wrist tore open, blood sliding down my fingers onto her collar.

"You've lost your mind!"

I pushed the shard a fraction forward, and a thin line of blood welled up along her neck.

"Call your people off."

She froze in place, and at last there was panic in her eyes.

"Lisa Henson, you dare kill an empress? Your family is gone. There's no one left."

"You think His Majesty will still protect—"

"Shut up." I cut her off coldly.

I patted her cheek with my bloody, medicine-slick hand.

"What His Majesty thinks doesn't matter. What matters is that he never ordered you to kill me."

"So this becomes a jealous empress inflicting private punishment."

I stared into her eyes and let a mocking smile curl up.

"Kill me, and you're defying His Majesty's decree to keep me alive."

"An empress the Rowe family raised to defy an imperial decree. The whole clan would share the punishment, wouldn't it?"

Her pupils shrank. I'd struck her most secret nerve.

Just then, hurried footsteps came from beyond the hall doors.

"His Majesty the Emperor—"

A hem of imperial yellow swept in on the late-autumn chill.

Leonard Vance, emperor of the Great Yuan realm, the male lead of this 9.8-rated sweet romance.

He truly did have a magnificent shell: sword-straight brows, bright eyes, a deep-carved face.

"Lisa!"

Leonard strode forward, his face full of tender concern, and slapped Edna across the face.

The blow knocked her head aside, blood at the corner of her mouth, and all she could do was drop to her knees.

"Get out! I told you to look after my consort, and you dared to force her!"

Having spat out the reprimand, Leonard scooped me up off the floor.

He settled me carefully on the bed, cradled my bleeding wrist, and stroked it gently.

"My Lisa has suffered."

He bent his head and tenderly kissed the blood and medicine on my hand.

"Lisa, I can't bear to see you suffer."

He pressed close to my ear, his voice soft and lingering.

"So many women die giving birth. How could I ever let you take that risk?"

Leonard took another bowl of medicine from the attendant and blew on it himself to cool it.

He sat down at the bedside and drew an arm around my shoulders.

"Be good, Lisa. Drink this, and I'll see you every day, and never have to worry about you suffering again."

I shoved him off with one hand, medicine spilling across his imperial robe.

"The evidence that the Henson family colluded with the enemy—you planted it in my father's study, didn't you?"

Leonard wiped at the medicine stain on his robe, unhurried, and gave a soft laugh.

"The Henson family held the military power. They obstructed me again and again. If I hadn't removed them, I might not even have been able to protect you."

"I will never allow anyone in this realm to threaten imperial power."

With that, he seized my jaw, his thumb brushing along my cheek.

"The Hensons are gone. From now on, in all this world, only I will treat you with a true heart."

"From now on I'll be the person who loves you most in this world, and you'll be no one's Lisa but mine."

Just then a mechanical voice sounded in my head:

"Ding. Achievement unlocked: 【Grace for One Alone】."

Right now my mind was perfectly clear, and I wanted nothing more than to slap him across the face.

But my body was frozen, as if pinned in place. I didn't even have the strength to raise my hand.

This was the design bug of diving into a story: whoever enters must conform to the original character setup.

I had to maintain the setting where the heroine loved Leonard Vance to the point of ruin, and this body carried an instinctive obedience and terror toward him.

Leonard seemed very pleased with my compliance.

Like rewarding a pet, he drew a red-stained jade hairpin from his sleeve.

I recognized it. It was my mother's favorite hairpin while she lived.

"If my Lisa is fond of children, I'll issue a decree and have the empress's legitimate son placed under your name to raise."

"With me protecting you and a prince at your side, you'll still be the most honored woman in this palace."

Having said it, Leonard slid the hairpin, stained with the blood of the entire Henson family, into my hair.

"There's a palace banquet tonight."

His thumb traced along my ashen cheek.

"Wear it, and come with me to receive the homage of the court."