THE PAST THE TIME WHEN OUR MC GOT TRANSMIGRATED :)

The scent of blood and ozone was thick enough to taste. It was the first sensation that registered, a brutal assault on the senses after the deafening screech of tires and the shattering of glass.
Wait. Tires?

Xue Lian or rather, the consciousness that would become her jerked upright. A wave of nausea and a pounding, soul deep agony made her vision swim. She wasn't in a hospital. She wasn't on a street. She was kneeling on cold, obsidian flagstones in a vast, torch lit hall. Her body… it was wrong. Taller. Lithe and powerful in a way her overworked, caffeine fueled form from her past life had never been. And it hurt.

She looked down. Her hands were slender, pale, and stained with fresh blood that was not her own. They were tipped with sharp, black nails. She wore robes of exquisite black silk, torn and singed. The body thrummed with a terrifying, depleted energy, like a reactor on the verge of meltdown.
What the hell? Is this a dream? A really, really intense D&D LARP gone wrong?

Panic began to rise, a cold tide in her chest. Then, the world flickered.
Not the torches, not the hall. The very air in front of her eyes shimmered, and words, etched in light as if by an unseen hand, materialized. They were in a simple, modern font, a stark, absurd contrast to the ancient, demonic grandeur surrounding her.

WELCOME TO THE NOVEL: "MOON DESCENDING THE SUN"
STATUS: TRANSMIGRATION SUCCESSFUL.
HOST BODY: XUE LIAN. TITLE: DEMON EMPRESS OF THE NETHERWORLD REALM. BLOODLINE: DEFECTIVE RECESSIVE OMEGA. (LAST OF THE WHITE FOX CLAN)
CAUSE OF PREVIOUS LIFE DEATH: OVERWORKING (ACCOUNTANT, 87 HOURS STRAIGHT) 
> TRUCK SAMA (HIJET MODEL 2020, WHITE).
THE HIGHER BEINGS TOOK PITY. YOU DIED YOUNG, LIFE OF DUTY. A SECOND CHANCE IS GRANTED.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: SECURE YOUR RULE. PRODUCE A LEGITIMATE HEIR TO THE DEMON EMPIRE AND SURVIVE.
(A FEAT THE PREVIOUS OCCUPANT OF THIS BODY FAILED TO ACHIEVE, LEADING TO HER DOWNFALL).
UPON SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION: ONE (1) WISH GRANTED.
GOOD LUCK. YOU'LL NEED IT.

The words hung in the air for a long moment, burning themselves into her retinas and her psyche. She stared, her mind a 21st century Lesbian mind accustomed to spreadsheets and coffee runs completely short circuiting.
Truck sama? Higher Beings? A wish?

A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat, but it came out as a choked, bloody cough. This was insane. This was the plot of the trashy web novel she'd been binge reading to escape her miserable life! "Moon Descending the Sun"! The story of the righteous heroine, Lan Yue, who overthrows the evil, tyrannical Demon Empress Xue Lian!

And she… she was the villain. The one who was supposed to be brutally executed by the female lead in the final chapter.

Memories that were not her own flooded her mind a torrent of pain, ambition, and loneliness. The struggle of a defective RECESSIVE Omega in a world that valued her only for her womb. The ruthless climb to power over the corpses of rivals. The terrifying knowledge that her throne was built on sand, that every smiling courtier was a potential assassin, and that her greatest weakness her inability to produce an heir was an open secret that would be her undoing.

The previous Xue Lian had been cunning and powerful, but she'd been playing by the world's rules. She'd tried to strong arm an Alpha consort, and it had led to a betrayal that left her bleeding out on this very floor, her spirit scattered just as a lonely accountant's spirit was shoved into the vacancy.
The glowing text began to fade.

"Wait!" she croaked, the word foreign in this new, melodious voice. "A wish? Any wish? You can send me home?"

The text flickered one last time, as if the Higher Beings were shrugging.
* TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY. SURVIVE FIRST. *

And then it was gone. Leaving her alone. In a blood soaked gown. On a demon throne. Surrounded by enemies.
The massive doors to the hall began to groan open. Shadows of figures her so called loyal court loomed in the doorway, coming to see if their Empress had survived the coup attempt.

Panic turned into pure, unadulterated adrenaline. Her modern mind, trained for crisis management and thinking outside the box, slammed into the ancient, fox cunning instincts of this body. She couldn't die. Not again. Not before she'd even had a chance to demand a refund from the universe.

She forced herself to stand, her body screaming in protest. She drew on the dregs of the previous Empress's power, weaving an illusion of unshakable calm around herself, masking the pain and the terror. The blood on her robes? A decoration. The weakness in her limbs? A lie.

As the first of the demon lords stepped into the hall, his face a mask of feigned concern, the new Xue Lian met his gaze. Her amber eyes, still swirling with the shock of transmigration, hardened into chips of ice.
"Archduke Jin," she said, her voice not a question but a statement of cold authority, echoing perfectly in the silent hall. She poured every ounce of her will into the performance. "How… convenient of you to arrive. The traitors have been dealt with. The matter is closed."

She saw the surprise flicker in his eyes, the quick reassessment. He had expected a wounded animal. He found a sovereign, standing amidst the ruins of her enemies, seemingly untouched.

Okay, the new voice in her head, a fusion of past and present, whispered. New game. New rules. I'm the final boss now. And the number one rule of being the boss? Never let them see you sweat. The number two rule? HR is a myth. Everyone is trying to steal your job.

And rule number three… She thought of the objective, of the heir she was somehow supposed to produce. A defective Recessive Omega, hated by the entire cultivation world, needed to find a consort powerful enough to secure her throne and give her a child. Her gaze drifted inward, pulling up the memory of the novel's descriptions of the female lead, Lan Yue. Her beauty, her power, her divine grace…

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

A plan, audacious, insane, and born of sheer desperate genius, began to form in her mind. It was a gambit worthy of an Omega with nothing left to lose.

The ghost of a smile, true and sharp and entirely her own, touched her lips.

Archduke Jin saw it and took an involuntary step back.

The game was on.

Within the opulent confines of the guest suite, Empress Xue Lian leaned against the closed door, the cold mask of her persona melting away for a single, private moment. She pressed her forehead against the cool, polished wood, the memory of that first, terrifying day a fresh wound.

She had survived the court. She had consolidated her power through a mix of fear, foresight, and modern corporate restructuring techniques they couldn't comprehend.

And she had set her plan in motion. She will kidnap the heroine.
Now, the most delicate part began. Not conquest. Not intimidation.
Seduction.

And the terrifying, thrilling part was that the objective, the "heir," the "wish"... it all felt secondary now to the woman standing defiantly in the room behind her. The woman who was supposed to kill her.
"Survive first," she whispered to herself, throwing the words of the Higher Beings back into the void. "And maybe, just maybe, get the girl in the process."

She pushed off from the door, the Empress's mantle settling back onto her shoulders. She had a library to stock with carefully selected "light reading," and the first threads of doubt to weave into the heart of a righteous saint.