The Empress Dowager now lives in grandeur, but if it weren't for the powerful backing of her natal family outside the palace, serving as her support, allowing her and her biological son to keep their proper place and lead an honest and peaceful life, one would hardly expect any prospects, even for her descendants.
This is also why the Empress Dowager desperately wants the Emperor to adopt her biological grandson as the Crown Prince; if it's not her own son or grandson on the throne, the Empress Dowager feels aggrieved.
The Emperor detests daughters of high officials entering the palace as concubines, precisely because of the Empress Dowager; the Emperor feels that if it weren't for the powerful influence of the Empress Dowager's family, making it difficult for even him to act against them, he would have already had the Empress Dowager living a life worse than death, in revenge for her several attempts to almost have him deposed as Crown Prince.
