Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Without mentioning the people from the second branch of the Sun family and the Cheng'en Mansion, they felt like the sky had fallen because of the death of Empress Dowager Wu. They only said that the concubines in the palace were happy to see Empress Dowager Wu die.

Although Empress Dowager Wu later worried about her younger brother, Lord Cheng'en, and her daughter's imprisonment, and rarely cared about the affairs of the harem, she was still the master of the harem after all. As long as she wanted, she could still take care of the affairs in the palace.

Who likes to have an extra leader above their heads? Naturally, the less the better. So, although the concubines in the palace could not smile on the surface because of the passing of Queen Mother Wu, they were actually happy in their hearts. Many of them even clapped their hands in joy when they talked about it privately with their trusted maids.

It's no wonder that everyone wanted Empress Dowager Wu to die soon. In addition to not wanting to have a leader above them, also because, in order to make money for her brother from her natal family, Empress Dowager Wu would celebrate festivals in the palace from time to time and ask the concubines to give her gifts. These gifts could not be too cheap, otherwise Empress Dowager Wu would be unhappy. Such Empress Dowager Wu was no different from Concubine Liu who extorted low-ranking concubines in the palace back then. Therefore, these concubines had long hated Empress Dowager Wu, but because she was their mother-in-law, the empress dowager, they dared not say anything, so they could only endure it.

Now that the other party is finally dead, it would be strange if they were not happy. From now on, they don't have to pay respects, there is one less person to care about them, and they don't have to waste so much money. How great is this? Not to mention anything else, just using the money saved to buy themselves some delicious food is also a wonderful thing.

So Empress Dowager Wu's life was quite a failure, with so many people hoping for her death.

After the death of Queen Mother Wu, the number of high-ranking concubines in the palace was frozen. During this period, no one was promoted to the position of the master of a palace, or even to a slightly higher position but not the position of the master of a palace.

——In this case, it will be even more impossible for Cousin Sun to advance.

Obviously, although the emperor was disgusted with the mess in his mother's family, and was also a little fed up with his mother who always went to her family to fill the bottomless pit, but after all, they were mother and son, so the emperor still maintained some decency towards his mother on the surface.

Of course, it was only superficial decency. In fact, ever since the death of Empress Dowager Wu, the Emperor had been particularly dissatisfied with the Cheng'en Mansion, so he never gave it any special favors again.

Otherwise, Lord Cheng'en was his uncle after all, and even if Empress Dowager Wu passed away, he should have been given some gifts every year.

But no, since the death of Empress Dowager Wu, the emperor has not paid any attention to the Cheng'en Mansion, which shows how much he dislikes it.

That's right. The old man, Duke Cheng'en, had killed so many people, but because he was the emperor's uncle, the emperor couldn't kill him, lest Empress Dowager Wu cry and make a fuss. But in the emperor's heart, he naturally wanted to kill him. After all, he had committed so many crimes, and the news had spread, ruining his reputation. After all, when people talked about him, they would say that he was the emperor's uncle, and then they might think, if the emperor's uncle was so bad, how could the emperor himself be any better.

How could the emperor be happy when he thought about how the people thought of him? The emperor's reputation was bad because of the old man of Cheng'en, so would he be good to Cheng'en Mansion? How could it be possible? It was just that Empress Dowager Wu was still alive, so he couldn't do too badly, lest Empress Dowager Wu make a fuss.

Now that Queen Mother Wu is gone, he can naturally do whatever he wants.

Moreover, it would be better for Old Master Cheng'en to behave himself now. Otherwise, if he continues to kill people like before, the emperor will definitely kill him. After all, Empress Dowager Wu is gone now, and he is not afraid of being troubled by others if he kills Old Master Cheng'en.

The Cheng'en Mansion could also feel that since the death of Empress Dowager Wu, the emperor had become much colder towards his family. They couldn't help but feel sad, thinking that it was true that people were cold when they left, and that even their own uncle could end up like this. The emperor was too cold-blooded. But they didn't think about how many scandals their family had caused and how much the emperor's reputation had suffered.

They just thought that when the empress dowager was alive, she was really stupid. Why didn't she bring more of her own girls into the palace? If they had a favorite concubine, they wouldn't have to worry about the emperor being cold to them. After all, there was the Wu family's favorite concubine in the palace, so what was there to be afraid of?

But in fact, it was not that Empress Dowager Wu was unwilling to send her own daughter into the palace, but that the emperor was unwilling.

Empress Dowager Wu wanted her family to be rich and prosperous for a long time. In fact, not long after her son became emperor and she became empress dowager, she thought about bringing her niece from her mother's family into the palace to be a noble concubine or even a royal concubine. The empress was still in power at that time, so it would definitely not be possible to let her niece be the empress. If her family had a niece who was a noble concubine or a royal concubine in the palace, they would be able to maintain their wealth and prosperity forever.

But the emperor refused at that time.

On the surface, it was that they were too familiar with each other and he couldn't treat her as his concubine. In fact, the emperor didn't want to have anything to do with the Wu family at all. He had already thought about it and would treat the Wu family coldly after Empress Dowager Wu passed away.

Because at that time, the Cheng'en Mansion had already shown a rampant look.

The empress dowager was so arrogant. If he favored the girl in their family again, how arrogant would she become? So the emperor refused.

In fact, the emperor made the right move. Otherwise, with the empress dowager and the favorite concubine in the palace, the Cheng'en Mansion would have become extremely rampant. You know, even without the favorite concubine and only the empress dowager, the Cheng'en Mansion had already become extremely rampant, with the blood of so many people on his hands.

In this case, how could the emperor possibly favor the girl from the Wu family? Even if Empress Dowager Wu sent her here, the emperor would immediately ignore her once she passed away.

Although promotions in the harem were almost frozen due to the passing of Empress Dowager Wu, it did not affect the infighting among the concubines in the palace.

However, the internal strife now is not about who is favored or who to target, but about who to fight against the princes. In other words, the princes' concubines have become the target of public criticism.

It is normal for the concubines who have princes to fight against each other - seeing that there will be no new people entering the palace for three years, the emperor does not particularly like the old ones. The ones he really likes are Concubine Li and Linlang, and these two people cannot be defeated. In this case, he will not challenge such a difficult one, but will defeat those who have princes first.

Although some of them don't have children yet, it doesn't stop them from wanting to defeat the concubines who have princes. After all, they don't have children now, but what if they have them in the future? Fighting the concubines who have princes now won't help themselves in the future. Anyway, they are idle now, and their positions are frozen and they can't be promoted. They can't please the emperor to upgrade.

Since they cannot be promoted and it is useless to please the emperor, their focus will naturally shift to internal fighting - this is called making trouble out of nothing. (End of this chapter)