absurd

I think GL and JNZ is a definite thing, some snippets I saw made it pretty obvious. But the GYY part, I am still hoping they'll chop out the widow thing and change it.

Maybe they changed it? There's only one picture, maybe it was just a picture, there's a picture of XZ with Elain Zhong and a child too after all. Not in a sense that it's their kid, but they just took a picture. Maybe it's the same situation.
Making excuses now LOL hope never dies

I don't know which episode you are up to, so I'll try not to be very spoilery. My biggest problem actually is not Gao Liang himself. While I think he is overdoing it with trying to sabotage JNZ and GYY's relationship, I chalk it up to screenwriter's bad attempt at comedy, imo, those parts were written horribly. My biggest problem is that I am constantly being told that GL is amazing and army needs more people like him, while they fail to actually show me what exactly makes him so amazing. If being an honest and good person is an achievement now, then I'm scared to imagine what kind of people were those army officers interacting with throughout their whole career.
As for why GYY decided to split the fault, you missed the point. He knew that, if he tried to take the full blame, GL wouldn't take it and will definitely take the full blame himself. So instead he decided to give him an option to split the blame, hoping that their commander will be able to convince GL and therefore soften the punishment. He gave him an out. Yes it did not look good, but that's what his father said "it's more important to do the right thing, than look good"

Bai Lu is amazing, I love her since Arsenal military academy. I also wish she would be the one he ends up with, not this weird "married his commander's widow or daughter", who even knows. It just sound creepy, if it's actually a widow. Wouldn't she be twice his age?

Wow, it's like the screenwriter got changed in episode 14. Suddenly Gao Liang is talking like an adult, rather than a hyperactive child. Wtf was that in ep 13? Who wrote that, seriously? Did they actually hate the character or something? He was acting like a complete ass and an idiot, and it looked like it was all for comedic purposes.
And then with GYY and JNZ, we just go from "I won't give up on him" to "sorry, we have to break up" for no apparent reason whatsoever. Yes, I knew that they would break up eventually, but I was expecting something more reasonable, than decision to listen to your superior's dumb advice two months later. "Love is destroying yourself", what an idiot. No adult with any relationship experience will ever say that. Love is mutual respect and support, not this childish self sacrificing crap. And who won from that? The 9th lost in the exercise, JNZ lost in the competition. Yes, thank you it was an amazing idea to break them up.
Also Zheng Yuan is a hypocrite. Mr "Soldier puts duty first, decided to play daddy 18 years too late". So it's ok for him to be partial to his pity-favorite and use his authority, to mess his daughter's relationship, but "one person got emotional" and suddenly it's all his fault? There was a whole damn division, what are they chopped liver? And they lost because Gao Liang used his inside knowledge to tell Zheng Yuan what they are planning to do, not because once in million years Gu Yiye "got emotional". Seriously, those two episodes were really upsetting. The only bright spot was Bai Lu.

LOL we're on the same wavelength apparently 😁

Well, if he doesn't grow up that would be one very disappointing lead. I think I can like him, if the drama will stop explicitly telling me that I should, cause he's so amazing, apparently.

Am I the only one that thinks that the training scenes music sounds like Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack?

I agree, that moment was a little disturbing, even though it was exactly what Gu Yiye planned for, when he offered to share the blame.
I also agree that SJS is a lot more cynical and selfish, when it comes to managing soldiers, which is not actually a bad quality for an army commander, but in an idealistic setting, where everyone is self-sacralizing, it stands out.
Tbh, I'm starting to really dislike Zhang Yuan. His pity-favoritism to Gao Liang is based on One! conversation. You're absolutely right, that making him a civil servant is practically a reward, it also doesn't look like it upset him all that much to become one (Gu Yiye would have been devastated probably). He also seemed to not like Gu Yiye all that much, even though in terms of ambition they are actually pretty similar.
I just don't really understand why they find Gao Liang so inspiring. I saw a lot of somewhat dumb heroes, while watching anime, but all of them had some other qualities, making them special and it was not just "being a good person". It's not that he's useless, he's just kind of... a little better than average when it comes to skills, dumb as a rock when it comes to brains and wouldn't know subtle if it hit him in the face. He'll make a good soldier, but to say that "army needs people like him" is a little too much at this point, maybe when he grows up...

Those are all pretty good guesses, also not mutually exclusive. Also, I just thought about something else, after reading your ideas. Considering that Nanzheng grew up without a father because he chose military over her mom, that might be her breaking point when it comes to Gu Yiye, as you said, he is dead set on growing in ranks. But if the synopsis is correct, than she and GL only get married in 2003 (20 years from now), so I still think she'll only fall for him after he (hopefully) grows up.

I get your point, though I thought SJS's motivation was that he didn't want Lu Pingfan to take all the blame and get demoted again. They are friends after all. He wanted to smooth it out without big loss and maybe he was wrong, but I don't feel like his reasons were bad actually.
To me the worst in this situation was Zheng Yuan. He was all: "everyone else survives on rations perfectly well, but you don't?". And then he found out Gao Liang was involved and all of a sudden it's "give to officers what soldiers usually eat". SJS was scared of his other superior, it's not the most noble, yes, but putting all the blame on him like Zheng Yuan did and acting all righteous is unfair. He's playing favorites, cause GL told him his sob story and that's the worst you can do as a commanding officer. I'll bet you there are a lot of new recruits that have it as bad GL, but he's singling out this one guy, that never ends well.

Maybe, I'm starting to think there's a lot of cultural differences when it comes to the army. I didn't even understand why it became such a big deal all of a sudden. Sure, it was forbidden, but she literally spent more time with GL in front of her superiors and no one said anything. She comes to help GY in the hospital and bam. "I forbid you from even exchanging letters". What is she, her mother?

To be fair it's been like couple of months, half a year max. People don't grow up that fast. He is pretty dumb though, I think they overdid it a little.

I think, I'm starting to get an idea of how Nanzheng might end up with Gao Liang (according to synopsis). It seems like they are going the "realistic" route and making her and Yiye into "high school sweethearts" that grow out of it as they grow up. She and GL will likely get together after a time skip, when they are older. This is just a guess, but so far seems like the only way for GL/JNZ to be plausible.

Well, we had another instance where Gu Yiye wanted to be honest and take the blame (when GL and JNZ were caught with his book of poetry) and their other commanding officer, whose name I forgot (the one that got demoted) told him not to. Which was actually worse, because that was literally letting someone take the fall for you.
I think in this instance, SJS thought that them sharing the blame (he even added himself to it and the demoted guy) will lessen the punishment. So did GYY, since he did not take the full blame (like he initially wanted to), but gave GL the option of sharing it. They knew GL will get kicked out and has nowhere to go. So while there are some parts where them patronizing GL is annoying, this one actually felt pretty rational to me. They did do it together, no one dragged the other guys at the gun point.
I did like that we finally got some GYY insight, with this dialog with his father. I am really hoping that he will grow very high in ranks, he deserves it.

I see what you mean, but I also think that it's an idiotic way to treat subordinates. If you treat them like children, they are going to behave like children. And they are going to be stubborn about it and sneak around. While a reasonable conversation about how it would impact their careers, might have a much better effect. Especially if they are each told about the other, not themselves.

It's not as bad as it sounds. I would say it's more that Gao Liang is kind of treated with kid gloves by his superiors from time to time, while Gu Yiye gets the "of course he'll do well, it's expected" treatment. No one's putting him down, though. More like they feel he's so well rounded (good family, education, smarts etc.) that he doesn't need help.

Am I the only one who doesn't understand why GY and JNZ can't have a relationship? I mean they are old enough to join the army, but not old enough to know what they want? Why are the officers treating them like kids? And it's not like they are having sex or running away to get married, they are exchanging letters!

Haha, I said exactly the same thing somewhere under the spoiler yesterday. You read my mind! And it wasn't even a compliment, like he literally said no one else will take you, but we are running a charity here, so we got you LOL How does that even work? We don't need smart, well trained soldiers, they don't make us feel as good about ourselves? wtf

Yeah, the rags to riches trope is a bit convoluted here. Maybe it's a cultural thing? Idk, here's hoping it gets better. And god forbid, they make Gao Liang Gu Yiye's superior officer, I would be so mad.