Responses
This! I always saw this story with this approach. Plus the current approach actually makes more sense since both the ML and FL are slowly falling in love during this entire thing. It would have been so OOC for ml if from the beginning he started to act all lovey-dovey and everything for FL considering his past and everything.

You guys hate stories where the fl is always waiting for the ml to save her, so here you have a story of a cunning fl that have her own plans and does what she wants. The emperor is not “useless”, he helps when she asks him to, but she wants to do her own things most of the time and he respects her instead of taking her autonomy and forcing her to obey him. And more than that, he trust her and knows shes what she is capable of, hes not following her around without her consent like many ml around do because he knows her, and its HER revenge!
And honestly it makes me glad the story allows her to thrive without or with the ml by her side, many stories will have the fl try do something without the ml, just to be put in a dire situation where she needs to be saved and the ml is there just in time. Here she says she can do it alone SHE WILL DO IT, and if she needs help, her loving husband is just behing doing whatever she wishes