Yue

You're still at the beginning. This drama is Terrible at flashbacks and almost no foreshadowing.

The drama hints at QQ being from our modern day world. If you pay attention, you'll hear the clues dropped in a few episodes.

Actually, QQ and QM were both victims of his nanny. Her loyalty is to the imperial lineage and not to him. She drugged him then threw QQ in there so she can breed QM and get a son out of him. She, and her son who also works for QM, planned to put the child on the throne and kill QM. Hence QM disliking his son because it means his own death. It's no wonder QM has trusts issues.

I've liked DK for years as he pops up in small roles in various dramas. It's nice that he's finally getting recognition for his work.

Thanks!

I can't wait now that it's finally here. The trailers have been great.

We needed a better script writer/script

- QM's complex character and Deng Kai's acting is what I'll remember about this drama years from now. His AU ending was appropriate too because his love for QQ can't erase her multiple betrayals of him hence his instinctive reaction of finding her repulsive.
- QQ is a modern day woman. She sees their relationship as a one-night stand gone wrong and she definitely humiliates him on purpose at times to get even at all the fear and intimidation he practices on her. I'm not blaming her by the way. Theirs is an ill-fated romance of a modern woman with a man from an Imperial family, they can't understand each other much less agree on anything.
-Wei Yan's character was so rich and had so much to offer. From his unfulfilled love affair, his manipulation by the previous emperor into becoming a villain, and then having to shoulder it all for family and country. His guilt toward his nephew which makes him stay his hand. This character needed more than a 5 minute info dump in the last ep.

Overall, it was an enjoyable drama but the weak script ruined the second half.

Thoughts on the ending. Spoilers below.

The context in the drama is different from the novel. In the drama, ML says he'll take the whipping as a debt he pays to his uncle for raising him. It's a thin excuse but I guess they couldn't frame it another way.

The second half of the drama was carried by QM and WY. Both became villains through circumstances and fate. The ending was a bit underwhelming except for them.

I think he should have suffered more XD

Yes, he's really tragic .

Wei Yan looks great in a general's armour XD

Nope.

Ep.39: Pot calling the kettle black. XZ would have done the same thing per his characterization in this drama.

The other comments are right. It's annoying that XZ is shifting his quest for revenge for his parents to defending FCY instead. It's like he has no story line in the plot except for being her accessory.

QM truly loves QQ but he doesn't know how to express it at all. Due to his childhood and the absence of anyone who loved him or showed him any affection, he just does what he thinks a woman would like. Shower her with gifts and prestige and honour and hope she'll stay with him. He really is pitiful and QQ as a modern woman sees it more clearly than these people in ancient times.

Their story and doomed romance was a main draw for me. They're both complex characters.

LOVE the way Wei Yan handled things in the last scene of Ep.37. Cut from the same cloth indeed.

I read the novel and it wasn't like this. They reduced his role and his character's complexity. I like FCY but her story shouldn't have been the focus because it's frankly not as interesting as his trauma and 17 years of pain and endurance for revenge.

LOL! I thought she'd drag him into the lotus pool at least. There's no way the guards didn't see them sitting there XD

I hope he gets offered more roles after this. He's such a versatile actor