Okay, so I was wondering what happened between Shen Xihe and the Gu family's daughter, and I have some useful info.

So this drama is not a rebirth. Both souls merged, so she is still Shen Xihe but also has fragments of Gu Xing Zi and her memories. She's not looking for revenge for the Gu family because that was already settled when she died.

She aims to be powerful enough to protect HER family, as they have a lot of military power, and the emperor can decide to do them dirty because of that. So Shen Xihe is still the same, but has fragments of Gu Xing Zi. Her family means a lot to her; we still haven't seen the scenes yet. That's why she's thinking carefully about which prince to marry, who will serve her well.

And we've all watched the dramas and know there's always a rift between the royal family and the military, with the military thinking they might overthrow them. So same thing here.

She knows she is Shen Xihe, and she knows what is at stake now, so she can't be playing around, I think. Can any novel reader shed light on this? thanks!

I have seen Reuters, and there is a lot that hasn't been brought up yet.

From User:

This aspect is not visible in the drama yet...but the emperor wants to the one who wants to go down in the annals of history as a wise ruler and one one who contributed the most to the stability of the empire.
He wants to make sure that the future king is secure therefore he is working upon concentration of power in hands of monarch , curbing the influence of aristocracy like the GU and FAN family, elimination of dissenting eunuchs.
Now, his target are the regional kings holding massive military power and influence in regional areas.
As they might not want to rebel now but their future generations might which is a cancer for monarchy.
This is the bone of contention.

It was not clear to me that she was Shen Xihe when she woke up. It seemed that she was GQZ with some of Shen Xihe's memory. I will rewatch ep 1 before I watch ep 2.

Thank you for this explanation from the author.

"In novel, it was written at start that some celestial phenomena occurred when GQZ died and Shen Xihe had an accident on the mountain, the author explained it in the author notes in something like "due to some attraction or compatibility between Shen Xihe and GQZ souls, when GQZ died, a part of her soul made a connection with the comatose Shen Xihe's soul and after Shen Xihe accepted the extra memories it vanished. So, shen Xihe at first after waking up was a little affected by GQZ memory but slowly she became separate from it and understood that she is Shen Xihe and GQZ is just a memory of another person".