Side note: I felt awful for Kang’s mother because, despite being the least problematic woman in the inner court, the Emperor treated her arguably worse than he treated the others who were killing their daughters to get his attention. Kang’s mom wasn’t angling for Kang to be the Crown Prince or even a prince/king — she acknowledged that she was too unfavored by the Emperor for anything like that to happen. She just wanted Kang to survive (they lived in the worst house with barely enough food and no heat, which meant Kang was malnourished and prone to illness), get a good education, and become a scholar. The Emperor’s one-sided beef with this woman was awful. He treated her worse than an unwanted stray dog, using her for s*x because she looked like Kang before tossing her aside (her options are death or flee). He resented that she had a relationship with Kang despite being his biological mother and the only person who cared for him until the Emperor’s obsession took root when Kang was 4/5. He mocked her for being ‘just a concubine’ while Kang would become consort and Empress, and he never wanted her to be even a lowly concubine in the first place; he only did it because Kang begged him to (she was initially only a ‘lady, ’ the lowest of the low in the harem). He also forced her to attend his and Kang’s wedding ceremony (which includes a public ‘mounting, ’ if you will) so that she could witness them being intimate. He tells Kang she’s not fit to be his mother and calls her ‘merely a vessel for [Kang’s] birth.’ But I also disagreed with her pushing Kang to have an abortion, not because of any religious or political beliefs, but because it was never going to solve the problem and ultimately her son ends up crippled as punishment and pregnant by the Emperor yet again...