...hmmm that's a good theory, I didn't think about that. I knew how the people were acting but that's a great way of thinking. Since it's not like the novel in all aspects but that makes total sense.

Plague or I think, rabies. We see later that Ye Li carried a big bite scar on her arm. Had her wound quickly been cauterized to stop the deadly viral infection by the bite (not a fool proof method at the time, before Pasteur invented the method of series of injections using attenuated rabies virus from infected rabbit spinal cords), or was she fortunate that the monkey that bit her was not a rabies carrier?

The masked (disciples or guards) told young Ye Li that Master healer He Lai was treating those inside the stockade. The mist or smoke could be because the soldiers down the mountain were aware of the threat of disease and had started burning the mountain to eliminate the monkeys and perhaps cover up their crime. Everybody did not die since senior brother Wei Zhuang escaped, even if his leg was badly injured, and got back to his family in the city. Ye Li went to spill a cup in memory of the "7 martyrs of Lishan" together with Li Feibai who had stayed in the Ye family for "3 years" "for her". Was the murderous fire 3 years before she got back to the city? Ye Li punished Lu Changfu by fire in retaliation for his killing of Lishan disciples by fire.

There were no monkeys when Ye Li reached the guards at the foot of the mountain and asked for money to travel to the city where she was to be be wed. If they were still guarding access to or from the mountain, it may be because a few people did remain in the ruined and isolated Academy. But Qingshuang who went on board the cart before her was probably already dead: at the gates of Ding mansion, nothing was served for her and she "went away" before Ye Li somehow traveled back to the Ye Li family where she was treated for illness for some time before she could prepare for the wedding.

I was puzzled about the white dove (which she brought in a cage from Lishan) and the grain spilled on the ground for it in ep.1. Doves can carry messages so was that the means she had to communicate with the possible remaining people on Lishan? Were carrier pigeons the way Ye Li got her pass to escape the mountain through marriage imperial order? Her fellow disciple He Minghui was supposed to have stayed and to have asked her to cut down the tree in his father's courtyard ; the father asked her to send a message to his son, but Ye Li just put the letter in a box already filled with letters, and closed it. Was He Minghui really alive or did Ye Li also have a trauma of having witnessed his violent death?

There are still a lot of questions hanging after a dozen episodes. What is sure is that the script veers drastically away from the novel, so we can only guess at what is afoot.

It cannot be rabies. It will not make sense that the Soldiers stationed near the forest are perfectly healthy and fine, if it was rabies, then the infected one goes completely mad, they would have come down the mountain, roamed around and even bit those soldiers. So the people in that palace would have also come to know about it. It has to be something else, may be some other cause and she ran away, since she was lonely and in hiding in that mountain, some aggressive monkeys might have attacked her if she had something with her to eat.

YCC:

I think someone had mentioned that "There were no monkeys in Lishan"

That may be because they were eliminated? Whatever bit Ye Li, she did have a pathological terror regarding monkeys, that need to have had a cause. Reading horror stories or watching horror flicks was probably not her thing although classic Chinese ghost stories can be ... something 🤣 There's a feel of hidden horror in that drama ! But she does seem untrustworthy about some of her statements, and to be unaware that she is seeing ghosts or illusions.

autumnfilm:

It cannot be rabies. It will not make sense that the Soldiers stationed near the forest are perfectly healthy and fine, if it was rabies, then the infected one goes completely mad, they would have come down the mountain, roamed around and even bit those soldiers. So the people in that palace would have also come to know about it. It has to be something else, may be some other cause and she ran away, since she was lonely and in hiding in that mountain, some aggressive monkeys might have attacked her if she had something with her to eat.

I still hold with rabies. The event in the drama happened at least three years before Ye Li came out of the mountain, so drastic measures to eliminate the monkeys had time to be implemented. There were several layers of confinement with armed forces down the mountain and the stockade (or more) up near the academy. Scorch-burning part of the forest would have driven the animals to pockets where they could be shot or trapped to death. Rabies would probably not have affected all monkeys but recognizing the threat through encountering a few infected animals would have triggered the highest alert in the "protection" ordered by the Dowager, even without needing to inform her.

The monkey which bit Ye Li might only have been scared or driven by hunger, but that does not mean other monkeys were not sick and deadly disease carriers, of a terror and nightmare inspiring disease. Btw rabies infected animals might have been roaming in the countryside and for that matter, Ye Li's mother might also have been infected: "on her way back to Lishan", she was taken in sick at the Zhengyi temple but died anyway . Rabies once infecting is 100% lethal, "death typically occurring within 2 to 10 days of symptom onset." "Most patients die within 5.7 days for furious rabies and 11 days for paralytic rabies after symptoms begin." Same for animals.

Rabies was and still is a threat. Good to be warned : "Monkeys in China are recognized vectors for rabies, particularly in tourist areas like Zhangjiajie National Park, though dogs remain the primary source of human transmission (accounting for 95-99% of cases). While monkey-to-human rabies transmission is less common than dog-bite transmission, the risk is non-zero, and monkeys can be aggressive and carry the virus even before showing clinical signs.

Prevention and Response Protocols:

• Avoidance: Travelers are strongly advised to avoid all physical contact with monkeys, including feeding, touching, or approaching them.

• Post-Exposure: Any bite, scratch, or saliva contact with broken skin/mucous membranes requires immediate medical attention.

• Treatment: China follows the Essen regimen (5 doses over 28 days) for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). Foreigners can access vaccines at designated community health centers or hospitals by presenting a passport and incident report; these are often subsidized and do not require appointments.

• Current Trends: Rabies remains a public health concern in China, with 233 deaths reported in 2025, highlighting the continued necessity for vigilance and vaccination compliance." (AI answer to query)

In fact, rabies is a threat that still exists on most continents (except Antarctica and perhaps Australia and New Zealand) "The disease is enzootic in over 150 countries globally, with the vast majority of human deaths occurring in Asia and Africa." In China, being scratched or bitten by a domestic dog or a cat anywhere most often leads to get the rabies vaccine shots, just to be safe, as reported in several posts on social media.

Last year 2025, a tourist was bitten by a monkey in Zhangjiajie and detailed on social media the procedure even though the skin did not get broken thanks to a double layer of clothes. Other cases chimed in.

Wow! What an intense research. You might be right But I still feel, the monkeys are just her way of seeing the trauma. After loosing everyone around her, may be she sees monkeys as the threat while it might be something else, I had seen a Rabies patient once, They are in a very scary state, their mind is not functional, they might start biting others and infecting virus and they have their mouths foaming. It takes 1-3 weeks for the virus to reach the brain and this is the worst way for someone to die. I feel, that empress consort has something to do with what has happened in the mountain, she might have instigated it, as she wanted them to leave the mountain, that's the only way she can make the empress ascend the throne. I do remember in that scene in the mountain those men who took Ye li said "Don't give in to them", so they know what is happening in the mountain has something to do with people from the palace

"she locks herself in a room and is shown biting her hand and imagining monkeys trying to break in."

Biting one's nails or one's hand in anxiety is not uncommon, devouring one's arm to the point of leaving such big scars as were shown and treated later is very over the top.... Strange : if self harm was her form of PTSD, then why did she not attack her own face or tear out her hair, and how could she be so easily persuaded to leave the itchy patches alone on her upper neck after the doctor diagnosed her rash as some food allergy?

But following the monkey trail (which may indeed be only in her mind) I got reflecting on where that imaginary Da Chu kingdom could have be modeledon, and where could Lishan be?

I was balancing between mount Hua not far from Chang'an and mount Huaguo closer to Luoyang. Both not far from the Wei river or from the mighty Yellow River (which is evoked by the lyrics of the song in the drama, about the mighty Li river. The Li name also evokes that of the famous mighty emperor Li Shimin of the Tang... so Li country could be the Guanzhong valley of Chang'an, now Xi'an).

The first mountain considered, Huashan in the Qinling mountains is very steep, has forests and monasteries, could easily be cordoned off and has no monkeys ; the second Huaguoshan, closer to the Yellow river and with ancient monasteries in the valley, has monkeys and is even said to be (there are several contestants to the title, the most famous is in Jiangsu near the coast) THE Flower and Fruit mountain where the legendary Monkey King was born from a stone and reigned over his monkey people: there are monkeys of course. Also a lot of forests and some fields.

Mount Hua, one of the five sacred Daoist mountains, even became the seat of one of the most influential Daoist schools, but that was very long after the Tang and Wu Zetian that this Quanzhen Daoist "school" or sect appeared, after 1159 AD. It still remains more Daoist country than Buddhist. Daoist temples have existed at the base of the mountain since the 2nd century B.C., and it is associated with the founder of Daoism, Laozi, who is said to have lived and preached there

Wuxia novels following the trend set by novelist Jin Long often include a "Hua Shan sect" and dramatizations abound on screen so this is in a way "familiar territory"! The Mo Li drama seems definitely to be leaning toward Daoism prevalence.

Very different from mount Hua is Huaguoshan, which is more associated with Buddhism (and later, with nearby Shaolin!) : it has an old Guanyin stone pavilion from the Tang Dynasty offering panoramic views, and over 50 ancient stone carvings depicting Buddhist deities, also from the Tang Dynasty, scattered across the mountainside. Buddhism gained a lot of disciples in China in Tang dynasty, after the religion arrived in the country with the mythical journey of monk Xuanzang (whose story was novelized portraying the monk assisted by three "helpers", the famous Monkey King Sun Wukong, the Pig Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing the former general, and the Dragon horse, in "The Journey to the West").

But then, closer still to Luoyang (50km) is another mountain :

"Mount Song 嵩山c Sōngshān, "lofty mountain") is an isolated mountain range in north central China's Henan Province, along the southern bank of the Yellow River. It is known in literary and folk tradition as the central mountain of the Five Great Mountains of China. ... Since at least as early as the early 1st millennium BC, Chinese astronomical mythology had acquired the idea that Mount Song is "the centre of Heaven and Earth." It was respected as such by the successive dynasties of the Chinese Empire" ! "The mountain and its vicinity are populated with Daoist and especially Buddhist monasteries. The Zhongyue Temple located there is one of the earliest Daoist temples in the country, and the nearby Songyang Academy was one of the four great academies of ancient China. The 6th century Songyue Pagoda is also located on the mountain, as well as Tang dynasty (618–907) pagodas within the Fawang Temple. Empress Wu performed the Feng Shan ritual at Mt. Song in 695 CE."

So, despite the drama was filmed in Ningbo, the imaginary kingdom does not look to me like a coastal one -- although... Do we have a maritime official among the ministers ? Mixing times and geography can be as confusing as trying to make sense of Ye Li's hallucinations! But up till now, we have not caught a glimpse of any ship and are only told of some battles with northerner Cangbei people who look modeled on the Xianbei at the times of the Tang empire: these former enemies ended up merging with the Chinese at the time of the Tang dynasty. Btw, in the cast we have a Mùróng Shèn 慕容慎, Chief Imperial Secretary whose Mùróng name is distinctly of Xianbei origin !

Luoyang was the capital of the famous Dowager Wu Zetian who started her life as a neglected concubine. The officials in the drama wear typical Tang or Song wide "eared" hats in court, and the fashion is also modeled on that period. It looks like inspiration comes from there instead of from the lost in time Chu kingdom which disappeared not long after the rather impoverished times of the Western Han empire (Chu kingdom was briefly revived for one of emperor Guangwu's son, Liu Yin, who managed to get on the wrong side of the emperor, so his kingdom was definitively downgraded to commandery.) Of course, emperor and king is almost interchangeable as a notion in dramas.

I like to travel virtually, lol. Did a lot of real travel explorations in the past, but some places are still on my wish list. So many places are tied to interesting historical or literary memories, in China

As for the plot, we have now encountered many villains who have caused harm of grief to talented Ye Li who seems to have had an extraordinary education in both medicine, astronomy, the arts, swordsmanship and much more. Could she really have been self teaching herself all that?

The "vain" prince who wed her sister is now assumed dead? Unbelievable. Not so early on in the drama, surely, so I can see why Ye Li explored the waterways to find his whereabouts now that he can't rest at home. What will happen to Ye Ying : she was blinded by her own illusions of love...