L13

I feel like the ML being the secret love child of the most powerful politician in the realm is already cliche enough. If that circumstance, which is already a scandalous secret, was just a cover for him being a secret legitimate son of the emperor, that would be WAY over the top. Plus, 1. the emperor looks too young to be GQF's father (though I know actors' looks don't always match their characters' ages) and in ep. 20 his son, the crown prince, is said to be 12 years old, so the crown prince can't be GQF's twin, and 2. if GQF was revealed to be a prince, then he would have to enter the palace and become personally embroiled in palace politics. Even if he found a way to renounce his royal heritage and live a humble life in peace, the road to that resolution would be a huge distraction from the main attraction of the drama, which is Zhao Pan'er running a teahouse with her best friends and sharing intimate moments with GQF.

Basically, for dramatic, logical and narratological reasons, this theory doesn't make sense to me.

Qi Mu lowkey kinda sus with how he's been delaying taking down Lei Jing and pushing GQF to focus on Minister Xiao.

I don't think he'll turn out to be as righteous and untouched by corruption as GQF thinks he is.

Celebrity actors with huge cult followings (like Wang Yibo, Dilraba Dilmurat, etc.) whose fans function as unpaid PR agents and are constantly trying to game popularity polls, drama ratings and engagement metrics, spamming comment sections, reporting people who criticise their favourites' dramas, etc. These fans usually detract from online discussions because they don't really watch dramas for the story/characters but for their fantasy boyfriends.

I really like the cast, romantic premise and time period. It would be a shame if this never saw the light of day! Between this drama and Night Wanderer, all the good romance dramas set in the early 20th century are getting shelved.

His father either didn't marry or abandoned Gu Qianfan's mother when GQF was a young child, and to spare him the stigma of growing up without a father in such a patriarchal society, his maternal uncle claimed GQF as his own child. That's why no one knows Minister Xiao is his real father (though I suspect Minister Xiao will offer to recognise him officially before the end of the drama).

Song Yinzhang's status is lower than Pan'er's because she is still registered as a sex worker. In this period of Chinese history, sex work was seen as a threat to public order but also as a social necessity and so the government ran brothels to ensure it happened in a controlled environment. The government recruited workers by pressing female 'criminals' (or relatives of criminals, as in Pan'er's case), debtors, slaves, etc. into service.

Song Yinzhang is one of those women, and as Pan'er pointed out in one of the early episodes, SYZ won't be allowed to buy out her contract and become a free woman until she is 35. She can't have the designation of 'registered musician' removed until then.

That said, as we see from the drama, SYZ's advanced musical skills mean she's more valuable to the government as a pipa player and teacher than as an ordinary sex worker, so she doesn't have to sleep with patrons if she doesn't want to. She's also earning good money for herself, which is going into her savings account. So she's not forced to give up her earnings or to have sex with anybody; she simply can't terminate her contract and stop being a musician. And being a registered musician comes with restrictions on whom she can marry (technically, she can't marry at all until she buys out her contract, but Pan'er argued to the court that Zhou She had kidnapped SYZ, which is why she wasn't punished for running away with him and had her rights as a divorcee recognised) and low social status.

As Zhang (?) Haohao's relationship with the imperial guard guy shows, women in SYZ's line of work do sometimes get male patrons to give them gifts and money in exchange for showing affection (and possibly having sex with them), but SYZ hasn't done that... yet.

This is all quite confusing for a modern person, but sex work in East Asia has historically been related to entertainment and the performing arts. Sleeping with patrons, dancing, playing music, pouring drinks, having witty conversations, and sitting prettily while the men around you dine and talk business were all seen as different aspects of the same job. Not all sex workers did all those things, but doing even just one or two of them was enough to attach the stigma of sex work to you and mark you as unsuitable for traditional courtship and marriage.

If you watch kdramas, you've probably come across modern echoes of this prejudice in derisive references to 'bar girls,' who are hostesses hired to entertain all-male parties in nightclubs and pour drinks for them. Often, that goes hand in hand with being sexually available.

Lastly, I've described all this as an East Asian phenomenon, but the same blurred line between sex work, service work, and the entertainment industry exists and has historically existed in other parts of the world too, including western Europe. Famous female actresses and singers were basically considered glorified prostitutes in Europe in the 19th century. It's just that the prejudice against them was not based on bureaucratic arrangements by the government like in Song China. (Although government-run brothels also existed in various parts of Europe in the Middle Ages, for example, and probably in other time periods I'm less familiar with.)

OK.

I had some sympathy for him initially, but the way he let his nasty manservant (I hate that guy) influence him and kept making the situation worse and worse instead of dealing with Pan'er honestly after she made her three demands, and the way he started to scheme and manipulate the Gao family's daughter when his advantageous marriage fell through was really low.

I think he may get a redemption arc in the end, but it looks like he'll become a villain first.

(That said, I gotta say I admire his quick thinking in realising as soon as he met the emperor that he was into a bunch of Taoist woo-woo, expertly getting into his good graces by pretending to be a fervent Taoist, and getting a position that, while it put him at odds with most scholar-officials, who despise the emperor's entourage of eunuchs, shamans, and assorted toadies, made him a favourite of the emperor's.)

She was a performer in a government brothel, which means that technically she was a sex worker, but she notes in episode 1 that she left the brothel at 16 and never provided sexual services.

That said, it was not uncommon for women in that profession to have sex with patrons and she is treated by the public as a former sex worker. Also, as we see in her dealings with Zhou She, she knows how to seduce men, which means that she probably entertained and flirted with patrons as a brothel dancer and musician regardless of whether she had sex with them or not.

In the original Chinese opera, her character is a courtesan or former courtesan (I don't remember exactly) who has definitely slept with patrons, but I suppose the drama would be considered too scandalous for the Chinese public if that detail carried over to the adaptation, so they made sure early on to reassure the viewers that Pan'er is still a virgin. (Personally, I don't think it should matter to the audience if she's a virgin or not and wouldn't have judged her if she had slept with patrons, but as I said, the Chinese public and/or censors are probably too conservative to take that much female empowerment at once.)

Yeah, on the subject of overbearing and meddlesome friends, I'm glad Pan'er's friends are not constantly butting into her business for plot-related reasons. When Sanniang said "if you don't want to talk about you and GQF, I won't make you, but let's talk about our friendship," I really appreciated her maturity and respect for Pan'er's privacy.

Bizarre comment.

I agree superficial, backwards and offensive commentary abounds on MDL, but most of the people you're criticising are not American, so I don't know why you expect them to comment on TV shows like Americans. This is a very international platform.

But he’s really handsome? Why would anyone even pretend otherwise lmao

I agree with you that his concern for Qianfan is somewhat understandable, but I don’t think he has the right to meddle in his son’s affairs so ignorantly when he can’t even acknowledge they’re related in public. He has no right to act like a concerned patriarch after abandoning GQF and his mother.

Also he seems to be a corrupt and dangerous puppet master in the political arena, and GQF is on a secret mission to take him down.

I think they’ll be reconciled in the end, but there’s more that lies between them than just the issue of GQF’s marriage; it’s also Minister Xiao’s treatment of GQF’s mother, his refusal to acknowledge GQF, and his unprincipled political machinations. So I expect it will take a lot for GQF to forgive him and make peace with him. If I had to guess, I’d say Minister Xiao will see the error of his ways late in the game, die in a noble sacrifice for GQF, and leave GQF as his heir.

Officially, she was a courtesan even though she never had sex with clients. All women condemned to work in the government brothels have the same official designation. The fact that there are different duties one may perform in that profession and that Pan’er was still quite young when she was pardoned make it kind of obvious to anyone familiar with her history that she was not a sex worker, just like Yinzhang’s high level of musical proficiency marks her our as an artist rather than a sex worker, but again, it’s all the same profession in the eyes of the public. As you recall, Pan’er didn’t try to explain to GQF when they met that she never slept with a client; it was unnecessary because, while that was important to her pride, it was not something she could prove or get a certificate for. All that mattered was that she’d worked in the government brothels. That’s enough to taint a woman’s reputation for life because of the general presumption of sexual availability surrounding those institutions.

Now she’s a free woman because she received an official pardon, which is legally the same thing as her father’s name being cleared (although I’m sure it’s not going to be as simple as that once his identity comes to light). She can, in theory, marry anyone she likes. But her past is a mark against her if she wants to marry a member of the gentry/government official and her father’s status no longer has much bearing on that.

Of course, these are only obstacles if the man she likes is a coward like Ouyang Xu.

Because they're dancing around each other, but he's refusing to declare his interest in her. She's afraid the fact she's a former government courtesan and a woman in trade will mean a man like him (a promising young official from a good family--and she doesn't even know his real father is one of the most powerful men in the country yet) stands to lose his reputation by courting her properly, so their relationship will remain at the level of flirtatious friendship forever/she can never hope for a marriage.

This is a very reasonable fear on her part and I'm sure that GQF is thinking similar thoughts. Now that Ouyang Xu, who was originally his reason for not approaching Pan'er romantically, is out of the picture, GQF and ZP's relationship is suddenly ambiguous and full of potential that is both exciting and dangerous. Marrying ZP would be kind of a disaster for GQF career-wise, and now that we know he went into the Capital Security Office in order to take down Lei Jing and Minister Xiao, it's clear he is driven by a personal mission that I can't imagine him throwing away for love very easily. That said, I'm sure once GQF makes up his mind to pursue Pan'er, he won't waver like OYX did.

Yeah, we'll find out the full situation soon, I guess.

I get the sense this guy doesn't know Qianfan is Minister Xiao's son, which is a big gap in his knowledge given that they're scheming against Minister Xiao!

The preview for ep. 16 where Pan'er overhears GQF talking to his boss looks pretty worrisome.

Uh oh, I'm starting to suspect after the end of ep. 12 that Yinzhang will become a royal concubine. (There's a shot in the opening credits where she is wearing very elaborate clothes, possibly wedding robes, in something that looks like a palace.) If that happens, it will be a relief for me that her character is not being used as an obstacle to the main couple's relationship, but it probably bring her a lot of unhappiness. Especially if she develops feelings for the young scholar she saw at the music department.