“By the time Bai Ruyi was seven years old, the efforts of the man he knew as his father began to pay off. He first impregnated one of his mistresses, who was from a robust and fertile working-class family, and she managed to give birth to a healthy son.
"Again, this son was illegitimate and could not be considered an heir, but it at least proved something to the Emperor.
“He had long known about the rumors regarding Bai Ruyi’s parentage, and being prideful, he’d never entertained the possibility that there was any truth to them. Now that he’d produced another healthy son, he thought it should erase any doubt from people’s minds that he didn’t also father his firstborn.
"After all, young as he was, that child was already proving very capable and worthy of inheriting the kingdom. How co
