Yeah, right? She's not heartless. She still lets people in, she's just very, very careful about who she gave her trust to these days. Sure, it's cathartic to watch her half-sister and other annoying family members get their comeuppance, but I have to admit that I also like seeing her interactions with her grandmother. This is what family should be like.

With all these people always stepping on her, belittling her and trying to make her feel smaller than her actual worth (not that it would work on a mature woman instead of a naive child), it's good to see that there's still people who treat her like _family_.

Because in that era/setting there's no negative views for polygamy, even expected for men of the father's means. Consider that infant mortality was also very high and many children didn't survive to adulthood. It's quite common for servants/ladies in waiting to end up being concubines (and some of the girls wish/aim so because it would elevate their status and fortunes, like Wei Yang's previous servant). For princes/emperors, concubinage was also a political matter. Many in this story take concubines just because the girl is pretty and young though.

Oh. There's also the factor of rigid social status/stratification. If the girl is too 'low born' compared to the man, being a concubine is as good as it could get/considered a solution. And the belief that many children = prosperity/blessing = many wives because there's a limit how many times a woman could give birth in this high infant/mother mortality world.

I'm not excusing Li Xiao Ran. One of the reasons why I love Wei Yang is because how the story/MC handles the whole concubinage thing compared to all the other ancient china novels with emperor/prince love interests (With multiple concubines/wives. Which is a bit of a turn off for my decidedly modern sensibilities!).

Li Xiao Ran's personality and reasoning is actually explained later in the story, though it's not explained for some time, I think. The custom of concubinage doesn't necessarily get explained outright, but the marriage alliances that get built up through it kind of do.

The Li family's circumstances get built up into a complete picture over time, and it's a very dark one but also considered pretty run-of-the-mill familial bickering in context of the story. I'm not sure it's translated very well, but for example, Wei Yang's mother is referred to as 'Qi Yiniang', the seventh concubine. Only two other concubines are referred to as living at the moment, and only Si Yiniang, the fourth concubine, managed to raise children long enough for them to grow into teenagers. There's notably no mention of what happened to the rest of them for the moment.

That said, specifically with regard to why to have more daughters, it's already explained early on with Wei Yang's past life: she was used as a 'stepping stone' for Chang Le to become the empress, along with the rest of her sisters.

Chang Le is worth more on the surface as a marriage partner because because she has two aristocratic families backing her, the Li family and the Jiang family, and she's also incredibly beautiful and accomplished in a woman's education (stuff like music, poetry, leisure/entertainment activities). Marrying her means you get to influence the prime minister Li Xiao Ran AND the Jiang family, which is powerful in a different way.

Meanwhile, Wei Yang, Chang Xiao and Chang Xi don't have mothers from powerful families, so in order to bind an alliance, they're not worth as much; the Jiang family has no interest whatsoever in their well-being. Si Yiniang is pretty devious and able to protect herself and her children, but Qi Yiniang is absolutely not, which is a large part of why Wei Yang starts off in such dire straits.

As daughters of an aristocratic family without a secondary familial backer, their value is low not just because they aren't trueborn but because they are generally automatically considered more 'disposable' by the family they come from. Wei Yang especially didn't come from a mother who was loved by her father; her father has little to no interest in her well-being, which means she has limited power to be a guiding hand behind the scenes, at least from the outside. This makes her an undesirable marriage partner for anyone particularly highborn (like the princes), which for a female in Dali is tantamount to a death sentence.

Having numerous children gives the family more power to make alliances and also gives them more chances to earn merits like Wei Yang's 'An Ping Xianzhu' title. Having additional children is almost always encouraged by the family's dowager/grandmother, even if they're from concubines. It also protects the family against disaster if they lose some chess pieces. This is a period drama. A lot of children don't live long enough to be useful to the family, or die before they can truly be a pillar for their family, like Wei Guo Furen's eldest son.

There is actually an additional reason here other than just favoritism if I remember correctly. The implications actually makes things worse. Wei Yang's mother was originally a servant but Li Xiao Ran was drunk one night and ... well it's basically rape.

Can I be cheeky to ask anyone to just spoil a bit and explain LXR character/reasoning?

I mean, LXR's personality is partly laid out already. Da Furen told Chang Le after the red ginseng incident that LXR was losing faith in her and would be willing to use any of the other daughters or even his niece (Chang Ru) as a marriage pawn to make the Li family the empress' family.

Da Furen was just saying this to scare Chang Le into not being so stupid, but it's also true. Once a woman is married into the royal family, that woman has to be able to protect herself and her children. External family members can only help so much. Chang Le is beautiful and skilled in [琴棋書畫] (direct translation: music/zither, chess/Go, books/calligraphy/handwriting and painting), meaning she's accomplished in terms of a woman's education, but in terms of politics and sabotage, she's obviously far behind her mother. This is mostly because she's been protected from all harm by her parents and spoiled to the point she can't even take the smallest hint of disrespect, leading to her grudge against Wei Yang in the first place. This is a dangerous temperament for an empress to have in an unstable environment, which is what Lao Furen is calling LXR on in this chapter.

In Wei Yang's past life, they kept Chang Le out of the fray while the princes were duking it out (mostly-- that's a long story in and of itself). After Wei Yang destroyed everyone else and was the only threat remaining, they married Chang Le into the royal family. After Chang Le had a son to claim the spot of crown prince, they (along with several others) orchestrated Wei Yang's demise so Chang Le could become the empress instead.

Marrying the Li family into the royal family (whose son subsequently becomes the heir to the throne) is LXR's primary goal. LXR does favor Chang Le, not just because she's his firstborn daughter, but because her incredible beauty and family background make her a very valuable chess piece. However... he does view her as a chess piece. Da Furen is right: if he loses Chang Le for whatever reason, he would just switch her out for another daughter. LXR looks out for number one.

LXR and Wei Yang are actually very similar people but have different goals and methods. Wei Yang was born in the second month, and Dali superstition says that girls born in the second month are a curse to their families. LXR is actually superstitious (as most people in Dali are) and because of this, he threw her out of the house as a baby. Instead of feeling straight up guilty about it, he justifies that to himself and feels self-righteous instead. Since he didn't see her grow up, he has formed no attachment to her whatsoever. He also tends to feel threatened by the reincarnated Wei Yang because of how smart and unpredictable she is. Therefore, his treatment of her is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy and he is blind to her merits.

He doesn't seem to be doing it primarily for the money. That is his wife's reason. The wife is doing it due to greed, jealousy and maybe some other things. Li Xiao Ran is angry over the fact that Wei Yang isn't giving him much respect. His actions does make it difficult to believe how he can be prime minister. Then again things might not be going that well in the country if there is so much corruption based on what Wei Yang said and they was witness by her in the previous life.