I don't remember this point in the novel at all, maybe I did read it superficially! But I think Yan's empire's…
Shanyi isn't the cp's mother. The Yan emperor sent her as a gift, supposedly to dance and then sleep with Dan, who was the emperor already, but really to assassinate him. In the novel it says Dan saw her as a young, sweet or naive girl, and wasn't on guard against her, when she told him she'd been sent to sleep with him, he told her to just sleep. And then during the night she tried to kill him, and his body reacted faster than his mind, by the time he realized he'd already killed her. I think it kind of pushed him over the edge, iirc she reminded him of the first girl he killed, and after that he stopped counting the people he killed. I think he also used it as an excuse not to sleep with his concubines, pretending he was traumatized by women. I don't remember who the crown prince's mother is, or even if the novel mentions who she was, I think that wasn't important cause she was just someone the empress dowager picked to rape Dan and have the cp:(
And then during the night she tried to kill him, and his body reacted faster than his mind, by the time he realized he'd already killed her.
I think it kind of pushed him over the edge, iirc she reminded him of the first girl he killed, and after that he stopped counting the people he killed.
I think he also used it as an excuse not to sleep with his concubines, pretending he was traumatized by women.
I don't remember who the crown prince's mother is, or even if the novel mentions who she was, I think that wasn't important cause she was just someone the empress dowager picked to rape Dan and have the cp:(