the stars are for the empress, the lack of it is because of how annoying the emperor is as well as the slow and almost dilly dallying progress. it's 73 chaps yet almost nothing significant happens besides befriending the fave concubine, escaping death for the nth time w/o progress from the investigation, garnering the emperor's interest (emphasis on cringy blushing and delulus despite having done nothing so helpful for her) and still leaving a lot of gaps as to why she's being targeted or hated by emperor (with this pace, it's going to take 200 chaps to know at least 80% of what's going on)
College Student Empress