Laurel had been explaining, “Wen Lian was supposed to have been raised like any other highborn girl whose only lot in life was to become someone’s bride. However, while she did receive that kind of upbringing, she had also received the same kind of education as the young men in her family.
“Maybe her family thought that having a higher intelligence would give her an edge over the other women in the harem, and it did, but it also gave her a critical mind that made her want to think for herself, to make her own decisions—not just blindly follow orders.
“She had realized early on in her days in the harem that her family could no longer do anything to her. By that point, only the Emperor had the power to affect her life in any drastic way, so aside from the occasional summons to his chamber
