PeachBlossomGoddess

I don’t think her pay is that hard to find out since it’s a source of gossip among the servants. I do hope Bai ends up a good guy. He and HZ partnering up eventually is more believable to me than HZ suddenly becoming a genius restauranteur as well.

All true and good comments but I am only making a very simple point really not worthy of so much debate- if she is worth 3x more to someone else, she's not being paid enough. Put it this way - I would tell my worst enemy they need to change jobs at that kind of pay gap. But maybe its just bad writing they should have made the gap smaller.

Much appreciate your constructive thoughts. I am not minimising HZ's contribution but I guess I am lucky and have high expectations bc I have always benefitted from bosses who properly valued my contribution even when I didn't know how to. HZ is definitely good at smelling out good business opportunities and capitalizing on them. And yes of course everyone is replaceable but the offer Boss Bai made to FD marks to "market" what FD is worth - and 3X is no small sum! That difference is the price of FD's "loyalty". We can of course all have different opinions about whether that difference is too much or too little...

All true but as someone who runs a business I can tell you talent retention is key to business success and it is just my observation that HZ hasn’t done enough on that front and I would say given two other characters have commented on that as well that the drama is telling us that too.

I would have loved to see her rub it in her father and Boss Bai's face that she actually has profit share or something!!!

Yes of course. Its not possible to run a successful business without many people. But some are worth more than others.

Yes indeed what you describe would be a balanced and fair arrangement. But we are not there yet at this point in time. And the process of it becoming balanced may result in Fudong's departure. I think its ok, HZ has had few real challenges and has made few mistakes so far. I think loss of a terrific chef would be a big challenge, one that could put her business at risk.

That is my point - she should have been raised in payment long ago. When HZ was fighting HJ to keep her, she clearly already knew her worth and could articulate it but she never really did much to elevate her further. I don't mean she should be an equal partner but I have lots of friends who own and run restaurants and all of their chefs get a decent share of the profits they are not just paid employees.

Agree completely, you won't get it.

Yups I am indeed a closed minded person that pays my employees what they are worth and who is also super grateful I never worked for someone like you that thinks its ok to use my timidity and lack of exposure as an excuse to shortchange me!

Yes of course Fudong couldn't have done it alone without HZ/s business acumen either. But I guess its good its not a fair exchange so Fudong won't be tied down by loyalty to stick around either and can go make her own future instead.

I hope so!

Poor Fudong. Always under valued and exploited even by the Hua family. Hua Zhi can't cook to save her life. Her useless dad is right. The only reason HZ was able to achieve her success is bc of Fudong's unique pastry recipes and her ability as a cook. You would think she is at least a partner in their business and not just a well paid and freed maid. Its not that I don't think they value her but what she gets from them barely matches her contribution. If it were me I would totally save a bunch of money and take off to open a competing business with them.

It is up to the airing platform to decide when to release the Douban rating. Even though it is based only on 15k votes, the distribution of votes is quite even so Youku probably thinks its not going to change much anymore. 1* votes are only about 5pct so it does not look like its deliberately downvoted by a lot. The novel was only rated 7.1 on Douban so Youku probably thinks 6.7 for the drama is not a bad result.

It could be Prince Xian is doing both those things or maybe Prince Hui is behind one of those activities. Not to mention the allegedly insane eldest prince. And someone seems to have poisoned the emperor as well...

I believe there should be more than one bad guy in this show. As Grandpa Hua points out in the beginning, the emperor's refusal to name an heir is hugely destabilizing bc there is a giant battle for the throne unfolding behind the scenes. So far someone is forging illegal weapons and colluding with an enemy state.

Looking forward to this but really hope Yang Mi gets dubbed bc I can't see her pulling off a good villain with her soft girly voice.

Yes seems so but he is a boy - hard to tell how he is really going to shake out until much later and in the meantime someone has to play regent. I wish they just kept it a story about normal people.

I didn't like this arc either. Without getting into the details, I understand what they were trying to do with the parallel stories but it just came off the wrong way and left a bad taste in the mouth. It was not a good arc.

Well there should be a few villains at least bc it seems the last arc is going to be battle for throne. Idk they always make it about that but in that case, there are 2 or 3 princes that are gonna duke it out...