●MJH: spent 10 years planning, we still don't know exactly what (and there are only 8 eps left)?
●Master of Shadow/MJH: MJH's alter ego, the sexiest and most beloved character who had 5 seconds of screen time.?
●LM: the biggest and fastest metamorphosis ever seen in cdramas. ??
●CP: the scoundrel who burned 100 thousand people and tried to kill his own father and MJH, died peacefully, making toasts with LM dressed as a bride: surreal!?
●ML: spent 10 years training to assassinate the person responsible for the fire (the one who died peacefully). She was an independent woman, now she is under the tutelage of YQ, about to get married and dedicate herself to household chores??????????
●Emperor: a complete negligent. No one knows what he was doing for 10 years (besides spending time playing Go). ♟️
●YQ: coming from a kingdom kinda Aztec, kinda Inca, that spends all his time going home and returning to Grand Yan. ?➡️⛩️
●Princess Zi Gu: lives a relationship with the Emperor like Beauty and the Beast, light version. ??
(Is anyone missing? Oh, yes, the Consort: gone with the wind...?)

?Conclusion: in a such scenario, not even surrealism can manage it. HE is unpredictable. ?‍♀️

I can try to answer some of your questions:

●MJH plan: that was all enacted in the first 3episodes. His plan was to get Mei Lin to kill him and then the case will be reopened. He had the whole conversation of his plan with his right hand man in ep2, its on minute 47:44 on kisskh. What we ended up watching after episode 3 was a new plan since Mei Lin had proof it was not him, since she figured it out with that fake plate, which lead them to find all the other players. So the bulk of the story is not the original plan they already did it, just ML did not kill him. 

●Master of Shadow/MJH: I don't think it would have fit in with this new script he used a bit of it, when he killed that fake guard and  was acting out loving Mei Lin over the top lol...

●LM:I think this was a case of bad acting by the actress and directing. I could see the script probably wanted us to see her falling in love from when she went into the room dedicated to her. I mean even when she was supposedly in love with  MJH,  her expressions of love to MJH were more just demands like "go fight your brother, win this hunt and I am going to put your name on this paper you will marry me", her expressions were still just cold. With the CP arc since she was not doing the chasing she couldn't just use words, she has to act  out falling in love, she still just remained cold. She has had the same expression for most of the drama.  She was able to use words with CP to show her change in heart when she said "I would have chosen you" . I think the script had actually done a good thing in placing this arc when MJH, had disappeared. It just wasn’t acted out well.  It was a good placement of that story, as she would then be open to someone else and know what it's like to be loved, than her chasing someone who didn't care. I am actually starting to think she probably wasn't in love with MJH  just maybe more like puppy love, as she did say to CP he should have confessed earlier.

●CP: Agree he should have had a terrible death, a The Double type of death, both main leads being the one to do it lol...

●Emperor: Typical Emperor, we are lucky in any drama to get a good one, they are hard to come by. Especially we now know he knew MJH was framed. He just wanted to keep the so called "peace" and have answers for his subjects quickly.

●YQ: Your comment is funny, lol.. Hostage Princes usually don't get to do much unless they have a great advisor, I have noticed in some c-dramas. They are busy trying to not rock the boat too much and stay alive. They have enemies at home and hostage place.

●Princess Zi Gu: Not much to say here it goes with the time period, but do not care to see it lol...

I think it will be a HE, hopefully lol.....fingers crossed. 

Hahaha great summary of the main points!

 Qwertyuiop:

Hahaha great summary of the main points!

Lol We can't take life so seriously! There isn't life without humor lol