Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

These days, Han Gengyi inquired with the old people who knew the situation in the palace. It was said that if one wanted to promote a female official around the empress dowager from a Gengyi to a palace maid, it would cost two hundred taels; and if one wanted to promote a female official from a palace maid to a concubine, it would cost five hundred taels.

If Sun Linlang had purchased her previous two upgrades, then she only spent three hundred taels, and with the addition of the emperor's upgrade, she would have been promoted to a beloved lady.

But if Sun Linlang was favored by the emperor from the beginning and was promoted to the rank of Changyi, she would need 700 taels of silver to buy two more levels from Changyi, which would cost 400 taels more. Even if Sun Linlang was rich, 400 taels would not be a small amount for her. So Sun Linlang was not lucky. She only spent 300 taels to be promoted to a good lady, but she was still staying in Changyi.

This made her feel more and more uncomfortable. She wondered why she was so unlucky. Not only did she have no money, but she also had bad luck. Thinking this way, she disliked Linlang more and more. They came in together, but the gap between them kept getting bigger and bigger. Who could be happy about this?

Linlang could see that Han Gengyi was unhappy, but she pretended not to notice it. After all, she had no obligation to comfort someone who was angry for no reason.

She was not afraid that her level was higher than Han Gengyi's, or what Han Gengyi would do to her. She would only act according to her own plan. If she dared not upgrade because she upgraded faster and made others unhappy, she would be a fool.

Besides, she didn't really want to associate with someone like Han Gengyi.

Just a few days ago, the palace maids around Han Gengyi were whispering with her maids, and she overheard it by accident. After all, she had practiced martial arts, so although they spoke in a low voice, she still heard it.

Yes, although they were of low status, they were also served by a palace maid.

When you are promoted to the seventh rank in the future, there will be one more palace maid to serve you.

That palace maid complained to Linlang's palace maid, saying that Han Gengyi looked weak and easy to bully on the surface, but was actually not a good person. She was very strict with her in private and punished her at any time. Her way of punishing her was simple. Normally, she would not beat her, nor would she make her stand or kneel, but would just fine her. She would be fined fifty cents for each mistake. She said that she was a low-level palace maid and her monthly salary was not much. If she was punished like this, she would often have little money left at the end of the month.

She said that although the palace provided food and accommodation, she really had no use for her money, but she still wanted to save some money so that she could use it as a dowry when she got older and got married, or give some money to her parents' home, or use it for her retirement if she didn't get married. All of these were good. If she continued to follow Han Gengyi, all her money would be confiscated by her, so how could she save any money?

After hearing the complaints from Han Gengyi's maid, Linlang's maid felt a little sympathy for her and said that her master (Linlang) was a very good person and had never done such a thing. Sometimes when she did something wrong, Linlang would just say something and would not do anything to her.

After hearing the complaints from Han Gengyi's maid, Linlang's maid was very grateful. After that, she worked more seriously for Linlang. After all, it was rare to have a master with a friendly attitude in the palace these days.

When Linlang heard this complaint, she immediately understood why Han Gengyi wanted to fine the little palace maid. It was simply that her money was taken away by Concubine Liu, so she followed suit and robbed the little palace maid of her money.

Linlang naturally disliked such a person. After all, who would want to associate with a person who was wronged but dared not resist and only vented her anger on the weaker ones and withheld the monthly wages of the palace maids? Not to mention that Han Gengyi was unhappy and didn't know if he would hurt Linlang, but after hearing the latest news of Linlang's promotion, the second room was completely numb.

When they first heard that Linlang had entered the palace, they were disdainful, thinking that Linlang had no money and was not liked by the emperor - if he liked her, when she entered the palace, she would not have been given only the lowest rank of Cheng'en - there was no possibility of promotion, so there was nothing wrong with Linlang entering the palace.

Later, their repeated promotions broke their guesses. They were shocked and anxious at first, but now they are numb. After all, there have been too many news of promotions. How can they not be numb?
The people in the second house were worried that Linlang would not upgrade before the holidays like before, which would make them have a bad holiday and that she would not upgrade before the New Year, which would make people unhappy.

I don’t know whether Linlang will be upgraded before the New Year, but it has been upgraded now.

It’s only been two months since the Mid-Autumn Festival, and Sun Linlang has already been promoted again. At this rate, she will definitely be promoted once more before the New Year.

How could she be promoted so quickly? According to what they had heard, other concubines of lower rank were not promoted so quickly!
Yes, they had already paid money to inquire about the information. It was a family that Master Sun Er had finally found in the suburbs of Beijing. Someone in the family was a eunuch in the palace. When the eunuch was out of the palace, they contacted the family and paid the other party to inquire about the information.

Palace maids basically could not leave the palace, but eunuchs could leave the palace as long as they had the chance, and they were relatively free. This was why Master Sun Er would ask eunuchs for information.

Although the eunuch was at the bottom of the palace and could not get any confidential information, he could still find out some public information, such as the promotions of low-ranking concubines in the palace this year. Then the people from the second house discovered that among the fifty people who entered the palace this year, some were indeed promoted, but very few were promoted quickly. For example, Linlang had been promoted twice to the eighth-rank palace maid, which was considered fast. Now she has become an eighth-rank consort. The speed of her promotion is definitely among the best among this year's newcomers. After all, there are not many people who have been promoted three levels in just half a year in the palace.

There was no other way. Common girls had no connections and no money to bribe the eunuchs who picked their daughters to get more chances to pick their daughters. It was difficult for them to get ahead. Those who did could only get ahead if they were good-looking and pleasing the emperor. However, it was not easy to please the emperor and get him to help them get promoted to higher positions, because the emperor knew that they were of common origin and thought that he could just give them a random position to get rid of them. This was unlike the daughters of officials. If their father held a high position, the emperor would often give them a good position to show his preferential treatment to the official.

Therefore, for someone like Linlang, who was not very favored, to be promoted three levels in a row was considered extremely fast. No wonder the second wife heard that Linlang was promoted to an eighth-rank consort. Seeing Linlang promoted one level after another, they had become numb to it.

Of course, I became more worried.

They used to think that Linlang could not possibly pose a threat to them, but now seeing how fast Linlang was promoted, they dared not say such things anymore and felt very uneasy.

What made them even more angry was that Old Master Sun and Old Lady Sun, who didn't know much about the palace, only heard the good news from the first wife that Linlang had been promoted to the eighth rank in the palace, and they were very surprised. They thought that the rank in the palace was similar to that of the ministers in the previous dynasty, and said some things that made them angry, such as saying that Linlang was as promising as Master Sun II. (End of this chapter)