Finally in chp.147, she came to realize that she has been s*upid for a long while, as the saying Cleverness may overreach itself goes. Despite being dragged into a mess, she remained aloof, thinking to be above and beyond everything, so she ended up saying too much and attracting malice while refusing to take the step foward. She realizes that what she should have done is doing a lot, saying a lot, who cares, the ML prop her up when she falls. She decides to trust the ML's sincerity, give her heart to him, let go of the past and accept whatever may come in future. She took the final step to letting go of her haunting first life.

time in the palace and both endings too rushed

Ruan-shi introduction, Jinzi's identity reveal, Emperor's back story reveal

For a scheming, manipulative foreigner to take the helm of another country, having a capable army at his beck and call, it felt a little unbelievable for me how he easily and deeply he trusted and fell for other people's scheming. Yes, regardless of the sad backstory, he deserved all the groveling and effort he had to do.

his ex-husband, especially on his own rebirth in the extra chapters

Prior to becoming the Emperor, he was nearly "assassinated" by a particular family (who were war profiteers selling to both sides) and "rescued" by a woman. She schemed and ended up making it look like he had taken her virtue so he prevented her from killing herself by taking her into his harem. Worst mistake of his life as this made him feel guilt-ridden and would often compensate her (and her former husband who she abandoned to climb to the rank of favoured concubine). It is actually because of this woman that he missed out on the MC becoming his concubine (and potential Empress) and had to work towards gaining her back.

He arranged for the concubine who "saved his life" to be sent back to her husband. Which resulted in the divorce between the MC and the First Husband (as the MC was too proud to be an equal wife and the former-concubine also immediately tried to suppress her). After that, he tries to woo the MC and eventually manages to get her to agree. Of course, he almost loses his mind when she nearly gets sent to torture-r*pe mountain (yup, that's a thing, it was a bandit camp where they planned on cutting off her limbs and ears as well as gouging out her eyes and removing her tongue) and their relationship is pretty solid after that.

He's super hung up about his deceased former wife. Often doing things for her that would put him in the Emperor's radar or just making life worse for the MC. It's not until later that he begins to realize that the MC is the best thing that could have happened to his family as she saves them from being executed with the former wife's maternal family. Plus she's been educating his kids into not being terrible wastes. However, this all ends up moot as the Emperor gives him back his former wife and he doesn't have much of a choice.

The scholar father ends up never gaining the traction he had in the previous life as the MC will not allow him to use her grandfather as a stepping stone like he did before. In fact, she downright targets everything this guy does (including the stuff that does not use her grandfather).

The scholar's daughter doesn't end up as Empress and the MC refutes her essay about the rules for women. Even makes it clear that the ideas are dangerous and s*upid if compared from the nobles to the poor.

The Empress Dowager tries to make a plan to send the nephew princes out of the palace so that she could use them to take over the throne later. Unfortunately, the other princes' mothers have bad intentions and child mu*der happens off-screen. She eventually collapses as all her planning has failed. Including giving the Emperor a complex about his mother's death and his birth.

And the favoured Concubine isn't favoured at all but she does get sent back to her husband.

It follows the same beats as the MC's first life but she never became pregnant or died. Instead, she met the ML after her husband gained the memories of the main story's life. The Husband wanted to turn things around and was willing to spend a lifetime of trying to gain her affection but things played out fairly the same as the main story. His former wife schemed against the MC but ended up bringing her to the attention of the ML.

From there, the two interact more. The MC is a much softer person but is still determined while the ML is harsher, almost more beast like in his mannerisms. The MC enters the palace as a concubine but eventually becomes Empress after giving birth to two children for the ML. The prince nephews still die but there is more fighting among the ML's harem this time around which eventually ends with the first Empress being deposed (her brother is responsible for a lot of deaths that her father helped cover up), one concubine sent to the cold palace indefinitely and the third given silk to hang herself.

While the MC and ML end up in fairly the same position as the original story, it's a bit of a harsher happy ending.