Ashes of the Past, Sparks of the Throne

He Xiujun married Qu Jinshu and then handed her to the enemy, and she spent her last months as a prisoner of war being worked over by people who wanted information. He came to her at the end and told her why: the marriage had only ever been a way to get at her family and settle a score for Qu Ya. Then he shot her. She opens her eyes at eighteen, on the day she puts on her brother Qu Zhao's clothes and rides out in his place to pull Prince Jing out of an ambush. Everything is where she remembers it, except that He Xiujun has come back too. He proves it by abandoning Prince Jing on the road to go save Qu Ya, and Qu Jinshu shoots him through the leg for it. She reaches Prince Jing herself, and the emperor rewards Qu Zhao for the rescue, which means Qu Jinshu now has to keep being her brother in public. She uses the position: she gets the emperor to betroth Qu Zhao to the Princess of Hening, and she lets it be known what He Xiujun did on the road, which costs him his post and a beating. At home her own family is still the family that raised Qu Ya.