Drop this, from drunkard to suddenly a reliable mother? Make it make sense,you were the one who torment your child and now you suddenly regressed and in just few days met the emperor,marry and fck him whilst your kid is there waiting for you in those days. So the child was just supposed to normalized those abused just because of some really good food on the table, proper dress and even studying? What an irresponsible Mother, makes me puke actually. This is like a story written for abuser who wants to reflect on their so long violent behavior to turn over a new leaf. It’s rash and the little girl didn’t even have the chance to sort out her feelings.
I appreciate your stance, however it's shown multiple times that the Empress is still struggling to not be controlling and conniving over Lily, while also regularly apologizing to her daughter and having open communication. Lily herself also struggles to come to terms with the fact that her mother is different. I understand you may want Lily to hold a grudge against her mother -- but she is not like that. Saying that this story was written for abusers also doesn't make sense, because a majority of the emotional journey we are seeing is Lily's; we only see the Empress's backstories whenever we (as the readers) need to understand why she is making the decisions she is making. An important thing to remember is that the Empress never JUSTIFIES her formerly horrible decisions, and instead she regularly admonishes herself for being so foolish and ruining her daughter's life.











It has many similarity to The Redemption of Earl Nottingham, anyways I like this genre and the flow is great, will be here for the update .