AleksandraSucur

I've said it myself that the first arc was highly enjoyable.
Ofc. no drama is perfect, but the 2nd arc offended my intelligence, so it wasn't "a minor flaw".
Some people go with a first impression (which was good for both of us) but other people remain focused on the story as it progress

Ad 1. Ok, I can go along with your interpretation: he is not a saint.
He definitely had his own agenda when he was convicted for disobeying the court policy (ie. his goal was to be punished by 1000 flesh cuts) and didn't pay much attention to the immortality tax as it was not so harsh in that county, but in that case... why did he react so madly as he did when he discovered it?
Ad 2. Yes, you're right - that was actually the first time, but it doesn't change my point and I'm glad you acknowledge the issue wasn't explained well.
Ad 3. The word "investigate" was my bad. But remaining there just to lecture her fellow practioners without questioning who did the crime of murder and find out the murderer is somehow off of such a righteous character, don't you think?

Yeah, the FL is inherently kind, I agree with you on that, but these shifts in her behaviour aren't so logical if we don't know what triggers her fight for justice, or at least, lacks some depth. I've just mentioned it en passant awaiting the drama to give us some details about it. There are plenty of similar side-issues, I could have mentioned their marriage bond/curse as well, it isn't clear when she feels his pain and when she doesn't, bc sometimes we see it on the screen and sometimes we don't.

While the first arc was highly enjoyable with several surprises which caught us off guard (the wedding, his "death" and her subsequent "vendetta" for what she preceived as injustice unaware he was undergoing his first "human tribulation", the (wo)manhunt and thrilling fights...), I can't say the same thing for the 2nd arc. Not only the medicine valley plot was underwhelming (that was even expected to a certain degree, as her memory of him was erased), it contained several inconsistencies, disconnections from the first arc and/or chopping leftovers.
1. In the 2nd arc, the ML appears as a master of the head of the valley, but he is still the same person (Lu Huai) who was a public officer, a governor of a region, for many years and convicted for disobeying a bad state policy to alieviate the consequences of a draught. How is it possible that such a high officer, tasked to implement court decisions (including tax collection), knew nothing about the "immortality tax", which was collected for so many years, burdening the commoners in such a harsh way? This inconsistency could have been easily avoided, by just adding to his indictment that he disobeyed to collect this tax and it would avoid this feeling of disjoint between the two arcs.
2. This tax - as a core issue in the medicine valley plotline - wasn't properly introduced in general, we've heard of it for the first time from a dying Li Si and what followed were just words, dialogues, monologues, philosophical and math explanations, We've never seen or sensed the consequences of this tax on the screen, no display of people's sufference or any significant impact on this drama's world-building. The issue was simply dismissed with an abstract "what is good and what is right?", and the accountable people (greedy sect masters and the emperor's envoy) went home with tails between their legs after the FL's lecturing. 🤦‍♀️
3. Who killed the scammer-boatman? As far as we know, the FL, who was on her way back home, remained in the valley just to investigate his death! If he and his death were not so important, why this man was in the plot at all? To distract our attention from the fact this entire arc was just... badly written?

There are also other unconvincing or unexplained things (eg. FL's switches from a meek, good and proper girl to a badass fighter for justice) which - I hope - will be explained later. The arcs are evidently structured around a precise "human tribulation" path of the ML (1st being the flesh change, 2nd the bone change) and now we are in the 3rd arc (blood change) which seems will gather other characters listed as "leads" (it was a high time, we've almost seen a half of the drama). And I've already sensed few problems in the storytelling...

The director is fine, but MLC is written waaay better

Hahaha, don't worry, it happens not to think about zodiac signs... 😁

Girl, watch Mr. Lu's face and you'll see your "Bai Shixiong this, Bai Shixiong that..." is becoming annoying...

The baby will be born in 2026, the Year of the Horse.

the things must be more complicated than this.
The mute girl doesn't convince me, the "local guy" who knows everything while milking money....

It looks like Bai Zong is the main sus for the stolen tablets. But...

Me too, but could it be so simple? There's smth off with that "curse"🤔

It looks like the FL has some anger control issues. Her initial meek, respectful and rule-abiding behaviour was probably a sort of self-imposed way to keep her unresistible justice-seeking-at-all-costs drive in check. I like this trait of hers.
And I suppose she'll be very angry at the ML, lol. I wonder why she wanted so badly to get rid of the "prophecy"... well, I suppose I'm hooked on this story. 😇

I've thought the same thing when they were leaving the city gates: she could have bought them clean clothes and made them look tidy. But then I've thought she haven't done that because her purpose to leave the capital was to entrust them to someone who would take them to the safeplace as she could go back and take down the last man who framed Lu. She also purposefully left her traces in the capital as to make her hunters think she was seriously wounded and left the city for good.
Lu Huai left the kids living in his mansion simply bc. they were little beggars and he evidently has his reasons for treating well all beggars, he never adopted them. They've made him a sort of foster father after he died.

It's the same surname with different spelling: 宇文 (Yǔwén) is of Xianbei origin, while Zhuge is clearly a mandarinized version through "Juwen"

Oh, haven't checked the discussion topics yet, thank you very much 👍

Is this an original work, who's the scriptwriter?

Yes, I agree, it's still a very watchable/recommendable drama with great direction, overall aesthetics and actors' performances, pity the plot overextended certain parts, rushed or left loopholes in others, loosing its initial balance.

I still think the main problem is the writing. MDL often doesn't list all the writers, because there are also well written scenes, even among those not present in the original novel. There were many unnecessary push and pulls between side couples (lets remember the novel princess never practised as doctor in a military camp, the drama Qian Qian escaped many more times from the freak etc). Those scenes took a lot of time and transformed PoJ in an idol drama, with "more of the same" kind of story.
Drama cut off certain less important scenes from the novel (and that's ok), but it also left out its important focus on political and military strategy (eg. XZ's planning of the battles) and the underlying power conflict which were the only relatively original aspect of the entire story.

think the same. The writing quality dropped with the dam explosion subplot, as the screenwriters forced her Lin'an pig squad and tutor Tao in it, changing the track in a way that didn't make sense.
The direction however remained great all along, it's a feast for the eyes. If you watch the trailers, a scene in the bath is so well shot, the leads wear white and black and their push and pull in circle forms a spectacular yin and yang symbol with their wet clothes☯️I can only imagine how much effort they've put to shoot that scene

You are welcome, I only wanted to confirm you've detected very well the flaws. Ofc., neither do I would ask myself how the princess knew so much about the medicine, if the scriptwriters asked the audience for the suspension of disbelief just on that: there were several scenes in the novel requiring our suspension of disbelief, too, but the storyline was consistent, with clear cause-effect relations and movements of all characters. Although it contained a lot of stereotypes as well, its main value (and originality) was in HZ's strategic reasoning before the battles (and generally on politics and power conflicts), which is almost completely absent in the drama.

Idk, after adding the pig squad, the princess's medical practice, 2-3 side couples' push&pulls etc, I feel as the drama scriptwriters have messed with the main plot and on who was where and how he/she got there having no time or intentionally avoiding to put some light on the backstory of the track they've changed.
Someone said here the production changed the scriptwriter(s) midway... Idk, but the drama storytelling was ok until the dam blowing up - that was the first big loophole. In order to give more importance to her squad and tutor Tao in that sloppily written scene, the scriptwriters resorted to an insane idea of "let them pick the lots" to divide people who would be sacrificed with the dam in the explosion from those who can return home. And it was tutor Tao - a captive and a corvée till that moment - who decided on it, not the Commander in Chief and a person who had the idea of flooding the enemy's army, ie. XZ.

The flows actually started prior to the battle, already in ep. 29 (or maybe even earlier), the drama didn't make clear why it was Marquis Wu'an to rescue Bao'er from the shadow guards sent by Qi Min after his son in order to kill him. In the novel, beside the fact Sui Yuanqing remained Xie Zheng's captive all the time, XZ was "in the right place in the right moment" to save the kid only bc. he was besieging the capital of the rebelled province (and also found Zhao Xun separately from Bao'er), while in the drama it looks like he is constantly somewhere near Lucheng (defended by the old general He) as if he was awaiting THERE the rebel lord to attack and casually found out the fleeing boy with Mr. Zhao. It isn't only unconvincing but it cut out the reason why general He was killed: the rebel lord attacked the city with all his forces, leaving his capital undefended. With the help of Li family (including Li Huaian), Qi Min escaped (after killing Sui YQ's mother and the rest of the family and leaving clues to frame Wei Yan's faction for the escape of the "Lord Changxin's elder son")

In order to give more screentime to certain side characters, the drama changed, left out or introduced certain subplots, eg. the princess acting as an "imperial doctor" or combining two characters, like Li Huaian, who embodies both LH from the novel and junior general Tang, general He's disciple (who was the one FCY knocked off in the novel, when he charged like crazy), but opened important loopholes (why would a princess know so much about the medicine? Why would Li tutor have send his grandson to be a disciple of a general from the Wei's faction?) failing to make these characters and the connected plot fully believable.