Indeed, Jin Guifei was on the verge of madness. She had just received news that the culprit who tried to assassinate the prince had not been apprehended. Plus, unbeknownst to her, the Emperor found out about the prince’s secret departure from the palace. The Emperor, already shattered by the prince’s attack, was deeply disappointed upon finding out that it occurred while the prince was out frolicking and living with opera performers. In addition, the prince’s violent madness had caused the termination of the child in the prince’s wife’s womb, which made the Emperor more displeased with his cherished son.
This news came from Jin Guifei’s spies placed around the Emperor. Upon receiving this news, Jin Guifei’s already ill health worsened significantly, her emotions rocketing.
Originally, she had hoped for the prince’s wife to give birth to a son. She planned to leverage the Emperor’s fondness and pity for the prince, to persuade the Emperor to name the child as his heir. However, the prince’s wife lost her child. A six-to-seven-month-old male fetus, her long-awaited grandson in whom she had placed all her hopes, was now gone. Furthermore, the Emperor’s pity for the prince had also disappeared. What should she do now? Who can she rely on?
"Good for nothing, utterly worthless. He couldn’t even protect his own child!"
Jin Guifei, laying on the intricately carved, gem-inlaid purple sandalwood couch, gasped for breath. She hammered the edge of the bed and cursed in pain. However, she directed her curses not at the prince who caused her grandchild’s demise, but at the prince’s wife who miscarried.
At this moment, Jin Guifei loathed her daughter-in-law, He Lan Xue, to the core. If it hadn’t been for her jealousy, lamenting about the prince providing for the opera performer, asking Jin to intervene, she wouldn’t have forced her son to kill the performer. This wouldn’t have provoked her son to secretly leave the palace at night and fall into a sinister trap. Furthermore, the princess, clinging onto her noble status, insisted that she would give birth to the legitimate eldest son before the other concubines in the mansion were allowed to have children. As a result, although there were many concubines in the mansion, none were pregnant.
If there were another male in the mansion at this point, perhaps she could still seize the opportunity to establish the prince’s heir while the Emperor still had a shred of pity for the prince. But now there were none. When the prince’s future son is born, the new prince would probably already have been determined. What role would they play then?
Li Shanggong, curling her waist, tried to ease Jin while carefully speaking, "Imperial concubine, you must not be too grieved. The prince is still young. Once his health recovers, he will certainly have more children in the future!"
Jin Guifei grumbled, "What good would it do in the future? By the time they have a son, the new prince will have already been appointed. A future son would be useless..."
Hinting, Li Shanggong added, "Ah, indeed. If only you had another prince, even one as old as King Jing or King Xin."
The panting ceased abruptly.
Jin Guifei slowly raised her muddled head. Her eyes, unable to discern, stared at Li Shanggong who quickly bowed her head and addressed her: "Your servant has spoken out of line. Please forgive me, Madam!"
After a long while, she finally heard Jin Guifei’s chilling voice, "Get up. You too, have my interests at heart. How could I blame you? But this decision is too rushed. I need to think about it."
Li Shanggong breathed a sigh of relief. She carefully rose from the ground, assisted Jin Guifei to slowly lay back down on the pillow, and gently addressed her, "Madam, deciding on this matter sooner rather than later would be more profitable. You have to legally adopt him to make the Emperor grant him noble titles. Otherwise, he will not be grateful to you and will always prioritize his biological mother!"
Jin Guifei squinted her eyes and pondered for a while, stating, "Since I’ve decided to raise him, I can’t allow his biological mother to live. However, you tell me, which one seems better - King Xin or King Jing?"