PeachBlossomGoddess

Moron Jinghe!!!😅😂😂
I don't recall the novel as well as you do. It wasn't even the best of novels so I have to be quite impressed that they actually managed to make the adaptation worst!

She has exceptional screen presence.

It is a deliberate misdirect. Duanwu's mother is from the Liu clan and she was known as Lady Yan; Yan should be her given name. It is a different character from the ML's surname.

Well in history both princes were scheming. The smarter or more vicious one won and went on to be arguably the greatest Tang emperor. In the character chart, Prince Tan's identity is said to be a secret. So there is still some mystery there.

I believe Prince Ying and Prince Tan's character designs are based on Li Shimin and Li Jiancheng. What I don't know is who is supposed to be Li Shimin and who is Li Jiancheng. But I don't think YZJ will get his "revenge" on them directly. More likely one will kill off the other, following history and there will be "justice" bc the one that gets killed off is the one behind all the mess involving the Yan family.

I am not surprised. I expected it to open around 6.5.

I think Kunwu is not someone super high up. If he is Uncle Yang or Ke Jingping, he need not go to all this trouble to plant fake intelligence about the Japanese plan of attack. Nor would they have to try to steal the information about Changsha's defenses as they (esp Ke Jingping) would have easy access to it already. I suspect Kunwu is more likely someone mid-level like Ling Han or Li Liang. I also think Uncle Yang's secretary is also still a suspect for the same reason. I think its better to pay attention to the actions of these 3 people going forward.

Rating the episodes only help marginally when the drama is airing. In the end, if you just rate the drama in its entirety and mark it as complete, your final rating overrides the average of your episode ratings. Its a waste of time bc in the end, every user only gets to rate each drama once.

I believe Milan's mission is to plant misinformation with Hongshen that will lead to the downfall of Changsha. But there seems to be divisions within the Japanese faction on how to deal with Hongshen, with the other faction wanting to kill him. Milan most likely reports to/works with Kunwu.

The interesting roles in c-dramas are usually the second/support roles. The leads always somehow have to be seen to be role models and ultimately heroic so everyone that starts out nice and grey inevitably gets whitewashed way too soon or get killed off or don't get a HEA.

Totally. In fact that is when the story kind of lost me and it still hasn't quite recovered, for me anyway.

So many posts praising ZLS amazing crying skills that I am quite sure I didn't imagine the many crying scenes.
I am more surprised after thinking YZJ killed the convoy, that the FL didn't want to kill him. I guess CSJ could take a lesson about forgiveness and moving on from her. Poor Shrimpy.

She falls into more or less the same trap again.🤦🏻‍♀️

Yeah her reaction to the entire convoy disaster seemed out of character. I needed to see her either get really angry and actively hate YZJ bc she believed he did it OR demand an explanation instead of coldly co-existing and snubbing him in the same city and half heartedly joining CSJ's revenge. But as you said, it was to move the plot along so I kind of accept it. I just wish they wrote it better and without compromising the FL's character like that.

There were lots of tears and most of it left me smh.

Well in that case I don't see why the guy would cure him but hopefully he does find a cure.

Indeed idol drama threads tend to be extra toxic and focused on trivial matters.

If you grow up reading Chinese mythology and folk tales, you will know that they all have sad endings. It is cultural. The whole xianxia genre grew out of a countless number of century old stories and legends. It is more unusual to have a happy ending than a sad one. In fact, the recent spate of HEs is more a reflection of the Walt Disney influence. I guess bc I grew up on this stuff, the SEs never bother me. I think the journey is more important than the ending. As long as it makes sense for the characters and the plot I am ok with it. To me a bad happy ending is a lot worse than a good sad ending.

I actually don't care of YZJ gets cured. Drinking that poison knowing it was poison is stupidity and hubris to me. So if the character dies, he kind of deserves it. I am not rooting for him to die, but I think actions have to have consequences so in this case, if that is how they choose to end it, I won't be upset.

Couldn't agree more. I understand the hate posts are annoying but they are not all hate posts and it is important to not descend into ganging up and cyber bullying anyone and any post that is critical. Diversity of opinions is what makes a drama thread fun. MDL threads have recently lost a lot of posters that I used to chat with to other blog sits like redditt etc where there are actually much better discussions of many recent dramas bc of this kind of behavior on this site. There are many posts on other sites about how much bullying there is on here and how people can't make negative comments. I haven't migrated away yet bc I have posted all my reviews here and bc some old Jewish lady with super ugly dogs literally stole my handle and profile so I refuse to post there. That said, the discussions here used to be a lot better and more diverse. Now its all mostly whining about so called haters and why the rating for every drama is not 10/10 and is it a HE? Ridiculous and it is the same for every drama - it is like a cut and paste of the same comments over and over again. I end up scrolling past more posts than I actually stop to read.