PeachBlossomGoddess

In all of the flashbacks so far only Lu Yuanbao has shown up. His younger brother Lu Jinxin, his son Lu Buyou and his wife and daughter are supposed to have died in the fire. But no one seems to have any memory that contains any of them.

I think it is very odd that Lu Jinxin and his son have still not shown up yet. Did they even exist?

Could be but Lu Zhong hasn't been seen alive in the present yet. The bottom of the well scenes took place in 1589 or 20 years ago.

I think Siniang either killed herself or she was killed by someone else. The murderer killed Zhao to send the message he didn't kill Siniang.

And poor Siniang and Captain Leng. What a sad story.

Gui'er has such a big heart!

Following @Freefoxx super scientific methods, I screenshot the bearded fisherman and was able to confirm he is indeed Mr Xue. So you are right, they are just meeting outside bc he likes to fish. So the question is who was Mr Xue? Lu Zhi or Lu Jinxin? TBD.

The only reason I don't think Mr Xue is the fisherman is he doesn't need to meet with Butler Zhang secretly like that. They can meet at home. I think this is villains vs villains. So we know Camp 1 is Mr Xue, Fisherman 2, Butler Zhang, Cook Yue''er, Dr Cheng,, Captain Leng and Siniang. And Camp 2 is Magistrate Wei. The 3 unknown people are Mr Xue, Fisherman 2 and Magistrate Wei.
EITHER Mr Xue is Lu Zhi, Fisherman 2 is Turtle and Magistrate Wei is Lu Buyou revenging his family.
OR Mr Xue is Lu Jinxin, Fisherman 2 is Lu Buyou and Magistrate Wei is Lu Zhi. Poor Turtle is dead, he was killed to take the place of Lu Buyou's corpse. The big misdirect also could be Lu Zhi is actually dead and Magistrate Wei is Turtle.

I believe the fisherman is Magistrate Wei who was once Lu Zhi - he is the help from within the yamen. He learned how to fish from old Zhong. And butler Zhang lives with Mr Xue so he doesn’t need to meet him secretly outside the household. Mr Xue should be Lu Jinxin or his son. It is also possible that the fat magistrate is Lu Jinxin’s son. Either the real Lu Zhi or the fat Turtle boy was used to fake his corpse.

I think Lu Yuanbao made a lot of enemies and was murdered by his brother, aided by his servants except old Zhong who was loyal to Lu Yuanbao. The fire was to cover up the poisoning and to help Lu Jinxin assume new identity as Mr Xue to evade Lu Yuanbao’ s enemies. Old Zhong was left to die in the fire but he survived. He is helping Mr Zhao come after Lu Jinxin and everyone who helped him.

It could be that Housekeeper Zhong wrote everything before the fire or he somehow survived it. Nonetheless his testimony about the household being solely male should be more reliable than that of the witnesses that don’t live there. Thus I guess Lu Jinxin moved in later most likely when Lu Yuanbao fell sick.

I think the flashback episodes are not chronological and 20 years was a long time ago so not all the witness testimony is that reliable. I think ep 4 is based on the mute housekeeper Zhong testimony which should be more reliable bc he was the housekeeper who knew everything. At the time Lu Zhi was already there (so Lu Yuanbao saved him) but there were no women or children in the mansion. So Lu Jinxin and family moved in later, possibly when Lu Yuanbao fell sick or after he died. And clearly in the narrative so far Lu Zhi is not an attendant to any boy but to Lu Yuanbao himself. So my guess is all of what the witness said happened later when Lu Jinxin moved in. Of course Lu Zhi was not evicted he was already a member of the household and was probably simply reassigned to Lu Jinxin’s son after Lu Yuanbao died. There is also witness testimony that the master did a terrible thing and poisoned his brother. And the fire was a Taoist masters punishment on master Lu. They are ramblings of peasants but contain grains of truth.

Ty - I am told that in the novel, CX and XY are first cousins - his father and her mother are half siblings (same father, different mother). But in the drama, her mother was adopted by the Xiyan King so they are not really related by blood. She calls CX gege which is also used for cousin brothers. In ancient China cousins with different surnames (which is what they are) can marry. And yes, I have also been tempted to stop at Part 1 and just call it a day.

You are right, it is not yet shown that Lu Zhi confided in Turtle about Mr. Wang. I also thought about Turkey, his name is a suggestive homonym. But I assume Mr Wang would know whether he is really his nephew and he seems to live with his mother. If you freeze some of Magistrate Wei's hand scenes you can see the extra long fingernail on the 5th finger - ie. he is the other fisherman.

I think that was Lu Yuanbao. Lu Jinxin has not appeared yet. The actor playing him is in a lot of support roles - that is not his face. And he is not a round guy. I think its the other way around - Lu Jinxin bribed Dr Cheng to poison his brother so that he could inherit all his money. He only moved into the mansion after Lu Yuanbao died (before the fire).

Turtle (Siniang's chubby attendant) and Old Zhong also know what Lu Zhi knew. If he became friends with Lu Buyou (Lu Jinxin's son), that boy also may know things. Lu Zhi is also my top suspect at the moment (and I think he is Magistrate Wei) but I think it is a bit too early and too obvious. There may be a twist.
I also think Siniang's current attendant is not grown up Turtle. He is too thin. Some things like loving food never change. In fact if he weren't uneducated, I would suspect Turtle is Magistrate Wei, just from his figure.

Yes, I think we will see the Lu Jinxin arc soon. The bushy beard guy with the hat that bought the millstone and lured the monkey thief seems like the murderer in the present moment. He could be a surviving member of Lu Jinxin's family back for revenge.

My guess is Lu Jinxin only moved into the mansion after Lu Yuanbao died of poisoning. Because in the ep 4 testimony, the faceless man with the bad handwriting (whom I guess is the mute Lao Zhong), there were no women or children or female servants in the Lu mansion. That means Lu Jinxin and his family were not living there. They probably only moved in after Lu Jinxin inherited Lu Yuanbao's wealth and they are the ones that died in the fire.

Ty for reading and your comments. I bought the novel but I haven't had time to read it yet but book readers have said that the drama closely follows the novel. I suspect the character is supposed to be strong but too kind and somehow that has come across as weak in the portrayal. I don't believe the novel has been translated unfortunately.

Yes I just finished the latest ep 7. When the prescriptions are combined certain herbs react with each other and it becomes a poison.
So now we know:
1. Butler Zhang was Guard Zhang Gui and his senior is Li Shiqi, an assassin;
2. They were watching the next two targets Dr Cheng (dead) and who - the chef? or Siniang?
3. The guy writing the confession in bad writing is most likely the mute Zhong.
4. The second fisherman is Magistrate Wei - he has a long fingernail on the 5th finger - if you freeze his scenes you can see it. He was most likely Lu Zhi.

I think the murderer has to be either old Zhong, Lu Zhi or Siniang's assistant the fat boy Baozhi. Because of the way Captain Leng (strangled like he tried to strangle Lu Zhi), Master Wang (head buried/cut off?) and Dr Cheng (poisoned by his own meds) were killed. Probably Chen Wang also. Only those 3 know those details so it has to be one of them.

I am not 100pct sure but I think Sangeng figured out that Captain Xia intended to pin all the unsolved cases on the demon monkey thief. In order to do so, they needed to get him out of the way so that they could take Captain Leng's badge and plant it among the items confiscated from the demon monkey thief. So he just went along with their plan to goad him into doing something that would enable them to toss him in jail. And took the opportunity to hurt Captain Xia bad at the same time.🤣🤣🤣