Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1718 The Country Girl Looked Down Upon 39
Currently, the King has eight sons. The first and third wives are the sons of the Queen, the second wife is the son of Consort Zhang, the fourth wife is the son of the deceased Consort Wu, the mothers of the sixth and seventh wives were originally consorts, the eighth wife is the son of the deceased Consort Liu (who recently took over the position of the deceased Consort Wu), and the mother of the fifth wife is not a consort.

Logically, it should have been a foregone conclusion that Consort Song, the mother of the fifth wife, should have been promoted to the position of concubine.

But... the last time the fourth wife's mother, Consort Wu, passed away, it was the eighth wife's mother who took her place, not the fifth wife's, which speaks volumes—it shows that in the King's heart, the fifth wife's family was not favored.

Indeed, the fifth wife is not favored.

In fact, when Consort Song was young, she was very popular for a period of time because of her beauty. However, as Consort Song got older, the Prince of Ying naturally stopped liking her. Just like Consort Zhang, it was normal for her to fall out of favor.

Four years ago, a concubine passed away. In order to prevent the then-concubine Liu from rising to the position, the Princess hesitated between Concubine Song and Concubine Zhang when recommending a concubine. After all, neither of them was favored and they were suitable candidates. In the end, she chose Concubine Zhang, who was older and safer.

After all, Consort Song was younger than Consort Zhang, and because of her younger age, the Prince of Ying still had some affection for her, so it was not safe for her. Therefore, the Princess of Ying chose Consort Zhang.

But now, four or five years have passed, and Consort Song is getting older and older, so the affection between them is naturally waning. So now that Consort Liu has died, the position is vacant again, and it's hard to say whether Consort Song can take it.

Although the position of Consort Liu seems unlucky, after all, Consort Wu died and Consort Liu took over, but Consort Liu died not long after taking over, which is not very auspicious.

But no matter how unlucky it is, it's still the position of a concubine, a position with a salary from the court, the chance to be listed in the imperial genealogy, and the ability to manage household affairs and make money. Who wouldn't want that position?

So it wasn't just Consort Song who was eyeing the position; the other consorts were also watching. Among these consorts, some were quite favored, making it uncertain whether Consort Song could rise to the top.

It's important to know that the King of England didn't grant the position of concubine based on who gave birth to a son, but rather on two factors: giving birth to a son and being favored by the king.

For example, the concubine who passed away four years ago only gave birth to one daughter, but she still became a concubine because the other woman was favored.

Given such precedents, it's truly impossible to predict whether a favored concubine or an unfavored concubine who has given birth to a son will rise in rank.

In fact, the King of Ying did want to make his favorite concubine a secondary consort, but looking at the concubines who had given birth to sons, only Consort Song did not become a secondary consort. In the end, the King of Ying gave up and gave the position of secondary consort to Consort Song, thinking that she was getting old and would pass away in a few years, and the vacant position could be given to the concubines he liked.

After all, the speed at which the women in his backyard died was not something he was just imagining.

I don't know why, but too many women in the backyard have died in recent years.

Leaving aside the low-ranking or even unranked concubines, just those above the rank of secondary consort have died so many times. In the past few years alone, four have died, which is almost one per year. That's far too many.

Adding to the number of deaths among concubines and lower-ranking officials, the mortality rate clearly exceeds that of normal humans. Could it be that the feng shui of his harem is bad? How could the death toll be so high? Thinking of this, the Prince of Ying still harbored some resentment towards his wife, thinking that if it weren't for the fact that his wife had caused the death of Concubine Liu, and then he himself had died, resulting in the deaths of two people at once, it would have led to such a high mortality rate in his harem.

The reason the King of England was so concerned about the death rate in his backyard was because too many deaths would damage his reputation and affect his ability to take new concubines. After all, if new concubines heard that people were dying frequently in his backyard, they would be terrified. Unless he forced them, who would dare to enter his backyard? Even if you want wealth and honor, you have to be alive to enjoy it. There are relatively few people who would risk their lives for wealth and honor.

Although he was in his fifties or sixties, he was still in good health and needed to recruit new women. Naturally, he didn't want to have a bad reputation that would make it difficult for anyone to be with him. After all, he was getting old and had a bad reputation, so it would be much harder to find good beauties.

Leaving aside the fact that the Prince of Ying was upset because too many women in his harem had died, fearing it would affect his reputation and prevent him from taking in the new women he wanted, let's just say that after these events occurred at the Prince of Ying's residence, the people of the Duke of Zhenguo's residence also heard about them. Immediately, the Duke of Zhenguo and others couldn't help but worry about Linlang's situation, so the Duke of Zhenguo's wife and the original owner's mother came to the residence to inquire about Linlang's condition.

It just so happened that the Princess of England had passed away, and as in-laws, they were also coming to pay their respects. So, they took this opportunity to inquire about Linlang's situation.

"How could Consort Liu and Princess Ying just disappear like that?" the original owner's mother asked in surprise.

Outsiders may not know about the power struggle within the Prince's Palace, but they find it quite suspicious. After all, two people died at once, and they were people of such high status. Who would believe there wasn't some inside story?

But Linlang certainly couldn't tell the truth. After all, family scandals shouldn't be aired in public. Some well-informed families in the capital would definitely know why. Even if she tried to hide it, it wouldn't make a difference. But at least on the surface, she couldn't tell anyone, lest the Prince of Ying find out. She would be unhappy if she told her family about this shameful matter. So Linlang shook her head and said, "I don't know why either."

Anyway, the Prince's mansion is very large, and she is a granddaughter-in-law. It's quite normal that she wouldn't know about her grandfather's concubines.
The Duchess of Zhenguo and the original owner's mother did not know that Linlang knew the truth, and only thought that Linlang really did not know. They immediately instructed Linlang: "I don't know if there is any epidemic in the manor. You must be careful and not catch it."

Linlang readily agreed, assuring them that nothing would happen and that they shouldn't worry.

In fact, while the two women were worried about her, she was also worried about them. After some time had passed, the two aunts had recovered from the incident of their great-aunt's exile and were starting to cause trouble again, trying to make things difficult for the Zhou family.

It's no wonder they still want to cause trouble for the Zhou family. The better the Zhou family does, the less they can accept it and the more they want to cause trouble for them.

After all, the thought that the Zhou family used to be just peasants from the countryside, but now they were living better than these young ladies from noble families was something no one could stand, so naturally they wanted to cause trouble.

In their view, the Zhou family was clearly not entitled to live better than them, so they had been trying to sabotage them.

Sure enough, in the original world, the original sister was manipulated and turned bad by them. In this world, it's the same. These people want to get close to the original sister and make her cause trouble.

Although Linlang knew about this, she only observed and did not stop it, because she wanted to see what kind of character her original sister was. If she was inherently bad, she would not save her, but would deal with her when she turned bad and caused her trouble; but if her original sister was of good character and had just done something wrong, and her aunt had a handle to threaten her into doing bad things, then she could help her.