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Xie Zhao was originally wearing the teal outfit and the blossom flowers. The servant told Xiuwan that so when she looked down to look at the men, she noticed the older Du brother wearing teal and the blossom flower and mistook him for Xie Zhao.

When we got introduced to Xie Zhao, he was wearing purple with the blossom flower instead and he explained he accidentally got wet when he was washing his hands (when the servant showed up with the red ribbon, we can see the teal outfit that he originally worn also on the tray) . We didn't see the accident but based on inferences, someone probably caused the accident on purpose and caused him to need to change from his teal outfit to the purple outfit. Seems like both the Du siblings want to marry into the Lin family using malicious means.

Older Du brother is scheming too hah (episode 11).

Yup! She is not as smooth as she thought. 👀 The Lin family isn't going to be easily fooled either.

I think it is more so she is clocking her and noticed she is more than what she appears to be. She already noticed something when Du Cuique lowkey looked down on her by not sitting next to her as she was the concubine's daughter when they first met (even though she was the one who offered the seat next to her first).

Yes, the plums were meant to show the parallels between FL and ML looking at the same view and experiencing different emotions.

ML was looking at the snow plums going over the wall which is the Chinese idiom 红杏出墙 and means wife cheated on husband. FL was looking at the snow plums because her mom's name is Xuemei and Xuemei means snow plums (she was thinking about/hugging her mom).

Happy to clarify! There are definitely some scenes in this drama where the viewers have to make their own connections based on the dialogues and the aftermath because they didn't show the scenes explicitly. I saw many comments on C-platforms asking why Baogai apologized because they didn't remember her doing anything wrong at first.

1) Jiugao dressed as a woman to sneak into the woman's side during the banquet and set up the trap to later use the wooden block to block off the window so ZXT and her lover couldn't leave through the window (was originally unlocked/opened).

2) Baogai apologized because back when she said she was going to speak to Qingxiang, it was her going to snitch to ZXT and QX about Jier serving tea to the ML. This led to Jier getting beaten later.

In case anyone missed the context of why:

1) Jiugao dressed as a woman

2) Baogai apologized

Spoilers below because I noticed even some viewers on C-platforms missed it too.

Sometimes villain characters are great for actors/actresses and push their acting. I am sure ZHHZ had a great time acting this kind of character. 😊

I think FL's friends will be fine because there are some preview clips showing her when she became the wife and it seems like her friends are still around and promoted to be her main maids.

I saw some preview clips and can't wait!

Zhao family rose to prominent more in recent times compared to the other families who understood their women should be educated. Patirachy is also one hell of a drug. They don't really care if she can't function, they don't want her to truly function independently and help the Lin household. This is also not something that has not happened in Chinese noble/wealthy families and I am speaking as someone who is Chinese. There have been records of some noble/wealthy families back then who weren't literate especially the new money families.

Yes, if they had filmed the drama like the novel, they would have to remove the romance tag because viewers would not be able to accept the relationship as love and would want a bad ending for the leads. The women were also written to come one after another to get with the ML which would not appeal to a predominantly female viewer base.

I would say most of the noble women can at least read/write (female literacy rate also increased a lot during the Ming dynasty). The Zhao family is just more of a special case because the family itself doesn't think women should even be able to read/write (it is also why Zhao Xingtang hid she couldn't read because it is rare for someone of her status not to be able to read)

Du Cuique is about to be more of a problem than Zhao Xingtang. 🤣 She is legit scary. Cuique is also the delphinium flower (翠雀) which is highly poisonous. Already giving a hint of what kind of character she will be.

The drama already made several changes so the drama ML is pretty much his own person at this point (there won't be spoilers with his character as he is already pretty different). The novel ML was abusive to his wives and concubines and even SA-ed the FL from what I know. Drama ML does not even have concubines and wasn't sleeping around with the maids, so it is very unlikely he will be written the way the novel wrote the ML.

Ancient times are quite different. Noble women will learn the Three Obediences and Four Virtues, embroidery, etc. but they might be limited from learning more/able to learn the same material as the men.

Families like Shen educated their female children and saw education as very important. But families like Zhao probably thought their women would be easier to control if they couldn't read/write and also saw no point in them learning because all they were expected to do was marry and have kids.

Hoping the best for her. 😬 She definitely would be the primary target since she is the first rank maid so if anything happens, she is going down first.

Yes! They are so cute together and a good reminder that these girls are still teenagers.

Drama definitely emphasizing to the viewers why it is so important for women especially to have their own knowledge and skills that no one can take away from them. Lanxiang having the education she gained from her family (and even something like learning divination from her grandfather) have saved her multiple times already. Yuchan is another good example of someone who was able to make it back into the Lin household after her disaster marriage because she was capable enough to have the trust of First Madam and Lin Jinqi.

They are contrasts to someone like Zhao Xingtang who didn't have the education beyond being a "good woman/good wife", got complacent with her high status so relied on her maid, her lover, and now money (which can all be taken away) to try to fight against the established patriarchy/her family.

Yuchan's speech for the girls is great. 🥹 Hope all the girlies make it to the end.