Shattered Lock, Broken Vows

The imperial house was afraid of the Mo clan's mechanical craft, so they took the clan's daughter as a child and raised her inside the palace where they could watch her. Marrying her to the crown prince was the way to bind the clan, and the betrothal was all but settled. One condition remained. In the throne hall, before the court, he had to open the wild goose lock she brought, and then the marriage could be granted. In her first life she quietly told him how the lock worked. He opened it, they married, and after he took the throne he charged the Mo clan with treason and had every one of them buried alive. She opens her eyes on the day the marriage is to be granted, back at the beginning. This time the crown prince claims illness and does not appear, having gone instead to the entertainers' bureau to make private promises to Lin Chaochao, a woman held there as a convict. So she marries his worst enemy, with a bridal procession ten li long, and takes her place as empress. The crown prince finds he cannot bear watching it.