In Chapter 63, the ML admits that if the true wife hadn't attempted to poison him that day, he would still respect her and even hold her in higher regard than the MC, who freaking went to war and sacrificed himself multiple times for the ML and even figures out some court intrigue for the benefit of the ML. And this is right after the true wife slapped the MC so hard his face puffed up, even after the MC attempted to save the true wife from the ML's beating. Honestly, this made my opinion go down the drain for the ML.

ends up adopting the ML's kids

I love the struggle ML had to overcome to make Little Qi his empress. I got bored with 'I'm the emperor, so you can just be my empress', with no regard to tradition etc.

the ML spent the night with the MC and right the next night he was with the legal wife!!

The consorts are like any other consorts in this type of story, always fighting to the death to get the prince attention and strive to have sons, consort Ji is arrogant and domineering, consort Wei is introvert but she's the smartest of the bunch, I always think she's a bit of hypocrite, she say she rather marry ordinary man, but gets really happy when ML visit her courtyard, I think she also has a hand regarding the eunuch incident at the first 20 chp that resulting in MC getting hurt, tertiary consort Li I think is just a simple minded person, opportunistic but not malicious.

In the end she died because of her own doing, she give birth to 2 daughters, after that, she drinks many medicine from 'doctors' that 'supposedly' can conceive a son, the ML at that point already hate her because she doesn't assign proper care for ML eldest daughter, the one he has with tertiary consirt Li, qi niqun depict immense hate to children from illegitimate line you see, so she attempt to drug ML with aphrodisiac to make ML sleep with her, ML resist and kick her away, MC also come to save him, since then ML never touch her again, some months or years (?) later the medicines effect accumulate and counteract against each other making her seriously ill, the doctor called by MC were a bit late because he was obstruct by ML enemies on the way (ML was frame by his brothers and his brothers army surround ML estate), in her death bed she never repent nor does she realize her situation was because of her own greed, she just lament to ML why she doesn't give birth to a son while consort Ji and consort Wei have a son on their first try, geez 😒