beta
I like dont understand one thing. Like the empress want her son in power to have control and his literal only opponent is the ml, like yes hes pretending to be a beta but she could still force them to marry (beta and alphas can marry) and have control over the mc and get her way so easily. Or on the flip side for the dad who want the mc in charge. Like they dont need to run against each other they could run together. The empress even said like two chapters ago that the head of the house had to be a dominate alpha like the ml.