After Being Seized by Force, the Concubine Rises to the Empress Dowager's Throne

Gu Mingjiao spent three years as the Prince of Zhennan’s secret mistress, all while bearing the identity of a married woman from the Lin family. One day, after she had dutifully drunk her usual contraceptive soup, the prince suddenly told her it was over. She thought she would never see him again. But six months into her widowhood, at the betrothal banquet where she was to marry the Prince of Anping as the eldest legitimate daughter of the Marquis of Yongchang’s household, she saw him again. She called him, “Uncle Prince.” He pinned her beneath him and demanded, “Who are you, really? I forbid you to marry anyone.” She no longer wanted to be his mistress, but he refused to let her go. Later, when she had become Empress Dowager of Chu, he asked her with bloodshot eyes, “The emperor is my son, isn’t he?”