Review of a Chinese novel: Reborn as a poisonous consort

(As generic as the title sounds, this novel hasn't been translated into English yet because it's a ride and a 
half. Major props to anyone who would actually translate this and not censor it haha.)

Associated Names

重生之毒妃 - Chong Sheng Zhi Du Fei

Reborn as a poisonous consort

Author

梅果 Mei Guo (Plum fruit) 

Word count: 5,196,000 Chinese characters

Status: Completed in 2016

Final chapter: Epilogue 27 The passing of calm years 

Long synopsis that turned into a summary of the first quarter of the novel 

I’m putting the review/synopsis first because the description is super cheesy. It’s a rebirth novel, with the female lead propping up the man that she loved to become an emperor before being thrown away. However, this time, the female lead had actually turned her back on the man that she married, to help another man become emperor. She even gave birth to children with her husband before throwing away everything for another man. One of the early scenes that made me nearly cry was when her former husband burned the humble wedding gift that he’d made for the female lead when he heard the news of her death. 

The male lead in the past life, had held onto that humble wedding knot, despite knowing that the female lead had turned her back on him and his children, schemed against everyone and done everything to help another man on the throne. He held onto that wedding knot despite knowing that she’d probably slept with another man and he hadn’t strayed away from her at all, raising their child despite how despicable the female lead was. It’s only when the female lead is escorted to the afterlife, that she turns her head back one more time, to see the male lead finally burn that wedding knot for her. 

So in the next life, she decides to treasure him and live humbly, just hoping to grow old with him. The male lead’s just a poor soldier who grows to become a general, after spending his years on the battlefield. He’s someone that the female lead looked down on, as well as everyone else, because even if she was concubine-born, she was still a noble girl. 

But as she’s trying to actively avoid the prince, and make amends with her estranged brother, she accidentally catches the eye of the emperor who came to her residence along with the male lead - who is now engaged to her. The emperor sees her in her courtyard, getting slapped by her step sister as she protects her brother and how pitifully and beautifully she cries. The female lead’s a total snake because that was what she did best in her past lifetime. The male lead is not a match for her at all. 

Anyways, the emperor is struck by her beauty and the embroidery that her step-sister tried to pass off as her own. He frames the embroidery in his imperial study room, looking at it frequently and wistfully. His eunuch notices his longing for the female lead and tells her other step-sister who is the crown prince’s consort. The crown prince and the step sister hatch a plan to lure the female lead to a temple at the same time as the emperor. 

At this time, the female lead is finally marrying the male lead. The male lead is a bumbling gentle giant, a little tan because he’s spent his years training and fighting, but also muscled (yum). The novel’s also a bit raunchy because there are some very vivid and descriptive bed scenes. 

The male lead presents her with his humble wedding knot that he begged for at a wedding temple, which would’ve been awfully embarrassing because it’s something that only women would’ve done. This time, the female lead understands that it’s all he can afford for her, after spending money on the wedding, and that it was something he’d put his heart into. Instead of just throwing it on the ground like she did in her past lifetime, she carefully places it underneath her pillow and treasures it, shocking the male lead. <insert raunchy scene> 

Some invaders from the north come and pillage villages, prompting a response from the emperor. Despite being at the wedding the day before, the emperor decides to send the male lead out to war because he’s petty and jealous and thinks the female lead deserves better. The leads part as the female lead waves her wedding knot from afar, catching the emperor’s eye again. 

The male lead leaves for over a year to fight. Four months in, he receives a letter from the female lead who’s just found out she’s pregnant. The female lead lives in the male lead’s house with his younger brother and much younger baby siister who adore her. All is good. 

The female lead’s step sister who is also the crown prince’s consort, invites her and her mother to the temple to pray for something. She goes along, and gets drugged. The emperor goes hunting and is given a bowl of deer’s blood to drink, for his virility, which is also drugged with an aphrodisiac. The female lead’s mother finds out in time and tears away the emperor who was just about to force himself on the female lead. Instead, the female lead’s mother gets caught by the emperor and takes her daughter’s place. 

Afterwards, her mother tells her nothing happened and the female lead is distraught that this would happen. She also finds out that the male lead’s house is burnt down, alongside with her child, the male lead’s sister and brother too. The female lead connects the dots and figures that someone wants to harm her. She’s disappointed her male lead and can’t do anything now, so she decides to go with the flow and pretend that she was the one who slept with the emperor. Her mother sneaks out as the emperor wakes to a ‘sleeping’ female lead. 

The female lead is a total snake and cries pitifully to the emperor, saying she deserves to die for disgracing the emperor. The emperor loves her and pities her, deciding to hide her at the temple as his little love den. Her mother kills herself because she’s been dirtied and feels like she’s disappointed her husband, also making sure that no one will ever find out that she was the one who slept with the emperor. 

The male lead returns, triumphant but finds out that his whole life has crashed down around him. The female lead’s father is told that the female lead is still alive and is hidden by the emperor, cue shock and guilt. The only upside is that the male lead’s brother managed to escape by not being there that night. The damn prince from the female lead’s past lifetime’s subordinate also happened to save the female lead’s child, the damn prince decides to keep it as a chip for later. 

It’s hard to bear because after the damn prince’s own son dies, he dotes on the female lead’s child even more and more, choosing to replace his own son with the female lead’s son. He ends up killing his own concubine to keep the truth to himself. The damn prince is only just a teeny tiny bit in love with the female lead, and that love only grows as he sees how much of a snake she is, and how she foils everything he does. 

The female lead purposely destroys her body to get out of sleeping with the emperor.She uses her heartbreak at the death of her son as an excuse, and later on, purposely injuring herself too. She also sneaks around and bangs the male lead at the temple on the side, pretty risky move. But the emperor’s rarely there. Lo and behold, she gets pregnant. 

Some fun schemes like purposely agitating the princess with her status as her father’s lover, making her whip the female lead, and letting the emperor see, happen. The female lead drives a wedge between the emperor and his relationship with the rest of his harem. 

Very conveniently, she remembers a slave was previously pregnant with the emperor’s child and schemes to kidnap her first (because she was the damn prince’s tool and purposely seduced the emperor). So the female lead gets pregnant with the male lead’s baby as the emperor thinks it’s his, another excuse for him to not be able to touch her. The slave also grows pregnant and the female lead keeps her by her side. 

D-day approaches as the female lead is about to give birth. The slave grows restless because her beloved damn prince isn’t there to take her away (the female lead said she was on the damn prince’s side) and finally, she’s about to give birth. The female lead goes into labour early because of a bag of powder that induces abortions, is given to her by the slave - who is also paid off by the empress. The emperor is scared and realises how much of a position she holds in his heart. 

The female lead purposely lets the empress’ servant find out that the baby isn’t the emperor’s. The empress cackles and tells the emperor instantly as they march over and the emperor’s going insane with jealousy, instantly declaring for her to get hung and her child killed. Cue pitiful act. The female lead gets kicked around and battered, like days after she gives birth, insane. 

Then the eunuch that the female lead’s paid off, suggests that the emperor do another paternity test. The empress, so confident in herself, agrees to it. Oopsy daisy because the child’s been swapped over and the emperor feels intense guilt as he sees how battered and bruised up the female lead is. 

This summary is getting even longer than a chapter release so I’ll end it here. But you can kinda get a feel of how vicious the female lead is and how angsty the novel is. There’s a scene where the male lead gets drunk and even nearly sleeps with a prostitute that his superior sent him, it’s very descriptive because the male lead is like 2cm away from slipping it in when she says, “remember my name, it’s xx”, because she’s afraid of getting slept with and the male lead not taking responsibility. Luckily, the male lead instantly jumps away and runs away. That woman, however, stays around, gross, because it’s something his superior/teacher gave, and he can’t turn it down. 

Lots of pain and suffering and a lot of other characters enter the fray. In the end, the emperor dies and crowns the female lead’s ‘son’ as emperor. But by then, the ‘son’ finds out that he’s not really the female lead’s son and runs away. The kingdom’s a mess, and everyone’s fighting it out. The damn prince dies after being betrayed, ironic, and as he’s dying in a bog, he looks past the female lead’s son, and remembers how beautiful the female lead was when he first saw her. Sucker. 

The female lead’s two sons end up recognising her as their mother, after a long and tortuous journey, after being told that she was dead. Not exactly okay to point at an emperor’s consort and say that she’s your mother. 

The novel is amazing if you can stomach it. It does get a bit draggy in the middle when lots of other plot lines are introduced. The female lead’s brother becomes a bigger character, he’s quite crass but ends up a contender for the throne. All in all, a good read and I may or may not have just re-read the first half of the novel again. 

Description

The imperial tutor’s concubine-born daughter An Jinxiu, spent her life on the wrong person to love, sparing no efforts or schemes, until her lover became the emperor. But she was left to die in the wild, becoming a person that everyone spat on, as a poisonous wife and evil woman, suffering humiliation until her death. 

When she’s reborn, An Jinxiu just wants to wash away everything and grow old with the person that she had turned her back on in her last lifetime. But she didn’t think that this lifetime would be even more stormy than her last. Love and hate, fighting and giving up, laughing and tears were all things that she had no choice in. As the ruler reigns, who would still remember what the girl behind the pearl screen still looked like when she was first married? They all said that butterflies could not fly over the ocean, cicadas would not survive the first winter, a beauty cannot last more than an instant, but when the flourishing beauty of the world ends, who would hold my hand and share the hardships of my life with me?