Lin Feilu calmly asked Xiao Lan, "Mother, why doesn't Father like us?"
Xiao Lan answered without putting much thought to her words, "Because I am not favored, therefore His Majesty doesn't like you either."
Lin Feilu asked again, "But Mother is so beautiful, more so than Imperial Concubine Jing. Why doesn't Father like you?"
Xiao Lan was momentarily taken aback as she recollected her memories of the past. She did not realize that her daughter was prodding her for information. She thought her daughter was just feeling frightened and wronged tonight. After a while, she answered in a small whisper, "I shouldn't be telling you these things but there is nothing to hide now. I married His Majesty because of my family. After entering the Imperial Harem, I was not good at putting up acts to please His Majesty. Soon, I began to regularly fall sick. His Majesty was not pleased with my dull and apathetic character, so he gradually stopped visiting Mingyue Palace. Later…"
Later, she gave birth to Lin Zhanyuan and was promoted from a Pure Lady to an Honourable Lady. However, as her son grew up, his abnormality gradually became more apparent. The Emperor could not bear to acknowledge that he had a fool of a son, thus he directed his displeasure at Xiao Lan and blamed her for the child's condition.
(T/N: There were as many as 300-1000 female candidates selected to enter the Imperial Harem in service to the Emperor. While the top 20-50 were bestowed with higher ranking titles, the rest of the candidates who passed the selection exams were generally given the title of "Lady", eg: "Selected Lady", "Precious Lady", "Cultivated Lady", etc. Hierarchical order in the Imperial Harem was very important, so each of these titles were also ranked. However, there are simply too many titles to count; furthermore every dynasty had their own different rankings, so it is difficult to list and rank every single title in this novel. Please bear in mind that for translation purposes, we will be focusing on the following titles: Honorable Lady, Concubine, Imperial Concubine, Consort, Noble Consort, Empress.)
Before Lin Zhanyuan's abnormality was apparent, even though Xiao Lan was not favored by the Emperor, he liked her beautiful appearance so he would still occasionally visit Mingyue Palace. Her life back then was not as bad as it was now.
However, Xiao Lan completely fell out of favor after that incident. The Emperor wished that he did not have this son, so he simply forgot the existence of both mother and son.
At that time, Xiao Lan was already pregnant with the Fifth Princess. After she gave birth, the imperial doctor had informed the Emperor, but he did not even bother to take a look. After all, the son was a fool, so it was highly likely that the daughter was not much better. These children were birthed in vain and would only smear the prestige of the imperial bloodline.
Xiao Lan fell out of favor and became a joke in the Imperial Harem because of her defective children. Even the Xiao clan, whom she belonged to, had abandoned her.
Originally, they sent her to the Imperial Palace to seek a better future for their family. Now that all prospects seemed to have been lost, they only sent a letter to warn her that there was nothing else she could do, and that she must not cause any further problems that would imperil the Xiao clan.
That was why Xiao Lan had been discreetly living through her life thus far. Even if her clan had abandoned her, she still had to be mindful for the sake of her parents, who were also a part of the clan.
Today's events were severely frightening for Xiao Lan. At first she was just simply answering Lin Feilu's question, then it gradually became a trip down memory lane. She had lived such a hard life in the palace all these years. How could she not feel aggrieved? She just had no choice but to bear them all in silence.
After listening to her story, Lin Feilu was not at all disturbed by her mother's past. In fact, she felt like whistling.
This game of life was starting to look much tougher than she expected. It seemed that before she could defeat the boss, she must capture a few key characters to obtain some life-saving buffs.
Everyone knows that the final boss in the Imperial Palace must be the Emperor.
Looking at the current situation, it would be quite difficult to go on the offensive against the Emperor right now.
Then, let's take a step back and capture the Emperor's sons first.
She wondered to herself, since Lin Zhanyuan was the sixth son, would that not mean she still had several other older brothers?
I wonder if these older half-brothers are good-looking.
Ah well, that's not important.