PeachBlossomGoddess

Yups, just keep it simple and let the characters carry the story.

The screenwriter is the same one that mucked up Back from the Brink. So unless the director is also writing the script, less is more imho!!!

I read the book long ago there really was not much plot it was much more about toxic characters. And I am fine with that bc we have actors that can bring them to life the plot can be just vanilla palace politics.

Well in ancient China, a normal lifespan was only about 40 so it was normal for girls to be married off once they hit puberty. People mature earlier. And the age of consent in China today is still 14, which is when my grandma married my grandpa who was 21 or 22 at the time. Times have changed a lot, its very hard to compare what was acceptable then to what it is now.

From his POV, he could have killed her that first time she confronted him in that wheelchair. He just paused her death mission so that he can hit play later.

Yes I agree. The FL in LoN is completely innocent and she was never part of their schemes or had any agenda or skin in the game. This plot looks more straightforward and I think the cast is stronger.

She was the equivalent of a pet suicide bomber to him. To be trained to kill and be killed only.

Well in the 10 years, he was crippled, banished from the capital and reviled by everyone and lots of people wanted him dead. He was plotting his revenge and comeback. Just fixing his legs would have taken years. I don't think love was anywhere on his mind.

Yeah its terrible. I cringed.

I think MRJH groomed Mei Lin to be his suicide assassin quite callously. He had no evidence that the CP was behind the fire and his injury. So he was planning to just assassinate the fucker and take back what was his. But no one kills a member of the royal family and gets away with it - that was the rationale for WZ's death in LON. He figured since Mei Lin showed him she was determined to get her revenge or die trying, he may as well point her in the right direction and help her. She was just his expendable chess piece, an already dead assassin walking. Once she revealed that she had evidence that can help him legitimately clear his name, his strategy changed, bc its much better to do it the right way. The problem is he already poisoned Mei Lin. How the hell is he gonna fix that?

That stupid hairpin is harder to find than any of the rare herbs. After all those wasted episodes on it, it best have some serious magical powers that can revive the FL's obviously dead brain cells.

I read the novel years ago I don't remember fully what happened but it was very short and very dark but the plot was quite straightforward. I am not sure there are that many more twists left but I think as long as they make the confrontations and conflict dramatic, bloody and riveting I think it still works.

Yes it was awesome. I watched both the French and American version.

It looked more like a hate kiss to me. She just wanted to bite him.

Doubtful. This finished shooting in April. If she were pregnant, she'd have given birth by now.

Yes the Taiwanese are obsessed with that kind of voice. Not the mainland Chinese. But some of the HK and Taiwan directors that are now working in China do like it. The main difference between standard Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin is the 5th tone in standard Mandarin is blank and in Taiwanese is a long, irritating and whiny drawl. That's why the female characters in Taiwanese dramas all sound so babyish even though they are grown women.

Well that is how he is "smuggling" her back into the capital with him.

Oops - soft spoken.

Yups and this is not a Yu Zheng drama and it’s already leaving his in the dust!!!

She is a bit on the too spoken side but I found her lines quite easy to follow.