ShortCircuit

RenQing still has a conscience, even if he can't always speak on it (he does act on it though).

BaoYu is just naive and too inexperienced to deal with someone like RenQing.

Don't worry though. Things get better.

I can't believe it, will Lawyer Cheng really get to save the day?! And here I thought he was the villain when I first saw him LOL.

I was kind of expecting a twist to involve the army controlled by Ma WenCai, so the way the policy was implemented wasn't really surprising. BUT, if they manage to prove the insurrection started with Mr Fan... that's a hanging offense. I hope he gets caught red-handed.

(And I SAW that look BiYu gave Cheng RenQing when he left, don't think I didn't. :D)

PS So I was under the impression that those images they use on the official robes are supposed to be birds for the civil officials, and other animals (not birds) for any military officers. Why does Ma WenCai have a bird on his clothes, too, if he's the head of the armed forces in the province? Or can he direct them even without being an army officer?

Ah, good old malicious compliance LOL.

Just had a look at it - oh, it might be website related. Even in 720 res, it's bad. This isn't how it looks on Viki, LOL. Quite the opposite.

I watched the Viki version, it's similar. I don't think it's something the streaming websites changed by mistake, but who knows...

Mr Fan has his fingers in so many pots, it was inevitable he'd find out about Lawyer Cheng's subversive moves. But that Ma WenCai is so repulsive, he deserves everything (I hope) he's got coming to him.

This was Cheng RenQing's episode to shine in and Wang Yang did a wonderful job of it. I think it's not so far-fetched he and BiYu just might end up together. He lost his first wife, he's not dead yet. There's still hope for them and he is, in the end, a good guy.

And now they have even more reason to put their forces together, LOL. BaoYu is probably going to get the book, Lawyer (ex-Lawyer?) Cheng is going to strategize their approach, JiaMo is going to re-discover that measuring method, the prefect and the inspector are going to get to actually measuring (as they imagine the imperial court wants them to), and even if Mr Fan and Ma WenCai would try to confound things by involving the army (as in, what does the army know about measuring?! These guys will just be bullies to anyone who doesn't get the "right" result, LOL.), I think we'll get a happy ending. Keeping fingers crossed.

Go, team! Let's get them all! Only 4 eps left :(

After ep 10 - dammit, I knew this would happen. But I guess it's for the best in the end.

It's not the resolution. Some scenes do have blurred edges around a focused center (I've noticed it's mostly the throne room - or most other "official" settings). I reasoned to myself that it might be caused by some censorhip (maybe they got things wrong from a historical POV or something was not approved and had to be blurred out a bit). Or maybe they filmed it that way on purpose or by mistake, who knows.

It's not really distracting, though noticeable at times. The parts they did right compensate a lot of the few shortcomings, LOL.

This is the second tabloid article on MDL in as many days... *sigh*.

I get it, the private lives of celebrities/actors are interesting to some people, but I had hoped this kind of clickbait "news" is not what MDL is about.

Is this a sign of new trends on this site?

I sure hope we've learned enough from the previous two WWs NOT to get into another, but it doesn't look good, TBH. It might be I'm a cynic and can't find the light in this all the time... I hope I'm going to be proven wrong.

Re: UTM... it keeps getting more complex as time goes by. But at the same time, there are people who want to clear it all up and they have plenty of power too, so maybe it'll have a good, positive ending.

That Ma WenCai guy is the one who cheated and got the official position in the exam, by blaming Cheng RenQing of cheating and getting him banned from official exams for life! And he turns out to be Mr. Fan's nephew. Curiouser and curiouser!

And then the friendly uncle also turns out to be greased out by Mr. Fan and the land measurement DOES matter a lot - now Mr. Fan has twice the reasons to kill JiaMo's father.

Lawyer Cheng orchestrated the whole thing beautifully, getting BaoYu and JiaMo released by pretending to present a lying witness (that he knew was lying) and "accidentally" getting caught on it. But I am starting to be afraid for him - Mr Fan is on to it, and if JiaMo and BaoYu had a lot of luck, then Lawyer Cheng might not be so lucky.

BUT THEN AGAIN. What are the chances Lawyer Cheng was on it from the very beginning?! As in, he's maybe a secret undercover agent of the court, staying close to Mr Fan to catch him in all his cheating and corruption and theft?! I'd LOVE such a twist.

JiaMo remembers quite a lot more than he lets on... I still think he's autistic, but he does have a lot more awareness than he showed before. And strangely, he's guarded against people whom he'd probably instinctively trust.

Are all 7 magistrates (other than Mr Fang) in on it?! Is this such a large conspiracy?! Oh oh...

Uh-oh, the plot thickens!

And are we going to get a chance to redeem a LOT more injustices than what we've learned about so far?

I hear you about protesting in Egypt. I hope the situation improves, and that it does so, soon.

In Europe we have at least the pretense of freedom to protest, but in the end, if there's not a lot of social pressure, people usually give in at the slightest compromise the gov't makes. I am also looking at the France protests now, if anyone can have some results, it'll be the French. For the rest of the continent... it's not looking too good either in the long term. At least we don't end up disappeared or killed if we do protest.

Then again, we all seem to be living in interesting times. I guess we're about due for a new WW, I just wish it wouldn't come in my lifetime because it'll be catastrophic.

Oh well, enough doom and gloom for today :(

Well, that too. Only in those days, they had autocratic rulers and a top-heavy system, so the small fries only got to pay up and shut up. Nowadays we can also protest in the streets, aside from paying up and shutting up eventually LOL.

1. No. Except for a very short period at the end of season 1, that's it.

2. By the second season, they forget everything about magic levels and it won't matter. Don't bother remembering them.

3. Yes.

4. Naksu's body is gone BUT there's a plot switch that allows someone else's body to look like Naksu's original one. She doesn't shift any more.

And geometry battles :D

JiaMo explained it the first time they landed in court with the story of the misplaced tax. 100 years back the emperor introduced a quick tax in kind (silk) to support the army against a Japanese surprise invasion. All the counties contributed to it. But after the war they never removed the tax (because why not?) and then the trail got cold because the registries of the tax bureaus went missing, and those that survived showed the same tax (it kept the name, presumably to keep track of it), but paid in silver taels and relegated to just one county in the prefecture instead to all of them.

That's the original problem, anyway. And then there's the land measurement (measures don't fit the official tallies) and that's a HUGE problem. And JiaMo's parents were probably killed because his father (also a good mathematician) had calculated it all and told somebody, presumably a politician or a landlord with an interest in keeping it secret.

As for the tax system, it was pretty complicated already. They had tax in kind (products of some type, like silk or rice etc), money tax (actual silver), and work tax (the peasants would have to work for free for the empire or nobles - and that's aside the actual slaves or state convicts sentenced to hard labour). China - all the kingdoms and empires that came and went - used to have a wonderfully complex bureaucratic system for taxation, public works, army, and so on and so forth.

BaoYu's heart is in the right place, he's just young and naive (and sheltered), not really stupid. He can improve.

And love is supposed to be blind at that age - she's teasing him about the food, and having heart-to-hearts with him. It's love. :D

A sensible wife will keep him in check and let older sister find her own happiness. I hear Cheng's not married either, and he's digging himself up from the pit. Just sayin'.

Mr. Fan seems much more sinister, and more decided to do away with JiaMo. He grew mad at Lawyer Cheng because he postponed the whole thing until JiaMo and BaoYu managed to escape.

I think Mr. Fan is the culprit, even if it wasn't he, himself, who did it.

But him bringing in the cat was cute (and he's allergic now?! :D LOL).

But oooooh the WHOLE prison shuddered in unison when they learned JiaMo was returning. And they brought out the new straw mats, LOL. I think I like those guys :D

PS And it's definitely love between BaoYu and the girl, I see marriage in their future - what, he gave her his precious jade! They're basically engaged already.