PeachBlossomGoddess

👏👏👏👏 Madam Qin's face....👏👏👏👏 OMG! Her acting!!! Faints!!!

Everyone followed their hearts. Everyone except Lanxiang. But all is fair in love and war, right?

I guess that would be in character.

Its just a guess but that is what happens to the women just like it did with the Shens.

I agree with this. I think Han Liang is a worthy rival - they share a love for opera (can't imagine Jinqi singing in high pitch), they have similar values, their families are neighbors, he was quite resourceful and successful in her rescue and he took out his savings unhesitatingly to help save Ji'er. To me the strongest case against him is I think he is boring, the darned high pitch opera singing drives me crazy and I think that while Lanxiang appreciates his good qualities, she is not really that into him. The only reason to choose him over Jinqi (as main wife) is if she really doesn't want to be part of the nobility anymore. It is too far near the center of power and comes with all the privileges and hazards. They have not yet shown us that she is in love with Jinqi but if she were, that would obviously be the biggest reason to choose him.

Duke is going to get slow slicing for sure - trying to kill a CP is way worse than the Shen family offense.

Manyi for her daddy Duke's high treason.

Some poetic justice - the person who just sent someone to the brothel will soon be headed to the brothel herself.

Or maybe he never was sincere about the marriage with the Lins. He just wanted to make them think he was on the CP side when he had already picked Prince Han.

No the Duke has clearly picked a side so if the CP wins he is dead. Death by slow slicing down to 9 clans kind of dead. As a son-in-law Jinqi would escape but Manyi would be sent to the state brothel.

Yes I previously posted that too about Jinqi.
Emperors usually bestow upward marriages on the person who earned the merit - so if Lanxiang was the one who saved him, she could have asked for Jinqi as her husband. For Jinqi to be bestowed a marriage with a woman at the lowest level of social hierarchy looks more like a punishment than a reward.

Yeah I think I have seen more realistically written stories where the ML just never takes an official wife. So his only concubine is for all intents and purposes the main wife and their kids are legitimatized bc they are his only kids.

More likely Cai Baojie since the opera he and Lanxiang are repeatedly singing is Tale of Pipa. I just posted about it in the Spring of the Blade discussion.
https://mydramalist.com/696675-yi-ou-chun/discussions/155400-the-tale-of-pipa-and-plot-relevance

Yeah if you don't want to be spoiled you just need to stay away from X and Chinese social media in general.

True but he can also find him a humble scholar's daughter where the gap is not so vast. What you said makes sense except this was China's most hierarchical dynasty so its not super realistic. But its fine, I can suspend disbelief.

Here:
https://mydramalist.com/754367-the-story-of-xiang-lan/discussions/155424-ep-20-to-23-duke-xianguo-arc-and-motivations

I think I figured it out and posted in in the Discussion section bc its long.

I finally think I figured out why Duke Xianguo turned:
https://mydramalist.com/754367-the-story-of-xiang-lan/discussions/155424-ep-20-to-23-duke-xianguo-arc-and-motivations

The duke was in on the scheme to assassinate the CP well before his daughter was exposed by Lanxiang. His men surrounded the Yuan mansion making escape impossible were it not for Jinqi's body swap.

Well he did find her and I thought the singing was a pretty smart way to attract her attention without seeming to be looking for her. As opposed to riding around wildly on a speeding horse trying to scan the crowd and stay on at the same time....I still think the SML is boring but you got to give him credit where credit is due.