Brief plot: the FL is sent into the story of a manhua she was reading. She knows details about how the story ends, and who is the real perpetrator, and must navigate the challenges of a palace while doing so.

I love a good, classic transmigration story. In this case, rather than being transported into someone else's body, the FL was transported in as *herself* and seen as a goddess, and treated as such. The humour was also actually very good at the start. Then, it became quite dark in tone surprisingly. I'll talk more about the concept below, but without spoiling anything, I personally think if you see this series as less of a transmigration story, and more of an FL's development story, you'll find the ending less unappealing.

That being said, as a whole, this story could have been executed better.

***[[[SPOILERS START]]]***

Unfortunately, the FL remaining passive right until the end was this story's weakest point. We watch 15 episodes of her struggle passively as events happened to her. Understandably, it's because she did not study in school nor learn about the manhua plot nor pay attention to the palace goings-on. It's almost a cautionary tale, promising that if she had only focussed on something, perhaps she could have changed an event from within rather than after. But we're not here to watch cautionary tales, are we? No matter the moral of the story, it was unsatisfying and frustrating to watch.

What happens is, tragedy strikes over and over, and the ending of the manhua more or less ends the same though it is more "open", and then FL is transported back into her normal life. As promised, she studies hard and ends up writing a sequel to the manhua, hereby allowing the emperor to live. Unfortunately, most of the cast dies in the manhua. FL's friend, the guard, the chef, the chef's friends, the Empress Dowager... at least the Emperor reveals to the antagonist that he knows what she did (because he overheard her) and he poisons himself. This frames the antagonist because to people afar it appears she poisoned the emperor. Furious, the Empress Dowager stabs her and throws her over the edge, along with herself.

FL's sequel allows the emperor to survive, his brother to usurp the Proctor, and the Proctor to be jailed and charged for his crimes. The emperor then appears to have either survived the timeline to the present day or reincarnated (and it appears they may have all reincarnated), where it's revealed that he is FL's classmate all along. This gives some semblance of control to the FL back over the story. Ideally, she should have had tried harder earlier on instead of constantly being irrational.

***[[[SPOILERS END]]]***

While certainly the story was unique in how it went, it was also unfortunately really too frustrating in the second half of the series. It could have been executed so much better. The second half, bar the ending, was really disappointing. At the least, the revelations at the end made the story somewhat worth it.

Overall, a fun way to pass time and started strong, but do consider skipping forward in parts of it.