Before the Real Heroine Steps In

"Once bitten, twice shy" becomes Anastasia’s guiding principle after she wakes up to a second life as the empress of her favorite novel. Convinced that even genuine love cannot alter fate, she resolves to steer her husband, the emperor, toward the happiness he is meant to find with the story’s true female lead. Yet the emperor clearly has his own ideas. Though Anastasia keeps pushing him away in hopes of saving them both, he finds himself uncertain whether life without his queen is a life worth living at all.