all-in-mdl

On another occasion, Second Sister walked in on them. They just can't catch a break.

I am convinced the author has a fetish for exhibitionism/voyeurism. They're always on edge of being caught. There's the intimacy in the bamboo grove with maids walking close and much later at the military camp with the patrols passing by...

I like the courtesy name that he chose later on. Both their names fit really well with their characters.

A Yu, Yu as in embrace virtue and hold jade - noble virtue.
Huai Jin, Jin as in embrace jade and hold gem - beautiful jade.

She embodies noblesse oblige and he's a beautiful soul who went through so much but still chooses righteousness.

If the drama follows even a portion of the novel, there should be quite a few spicy scenes. You can look forward to that.

If you want to read the novel, it's a bit frustrating. The flow of the narrative is often non-linear. There's a lot of POV switching, flashbacks, callbacks, you name it.

My one sentence summary: Traumatized autists hurt each other, hurt others, and eventually heal with lots and lots of spicy moments in between.

And chronologically, there's a period of over a year that the leads don't even meet. They're like 1000 miles apart.

Same here. I think this will be a case of drama overshadowing source novel. It's very frustrating to read. I swear I read the same information/sentence like 10 times in a row.

You're welcome. Indeed, the drama was a let down for me when the source is not even that hard to understand. With a little creativity they could've adapted the material better.

Sounds like he kills Jin Yuanbao. In the novel, Jin Yuanbao and Yang Yucheng were the 2 other points of ZL's triangle of support. Drama already killed off Yang Yucheng so next up is Jin.

I had high hopes for this drama. So disappointed.

The differences are too vast. They shifted the timelines and changed several key characters. I didn't mind most of that but I was hoping they keep the core elements of the novel in the drama. While ZL did plan ahead and sent TY to capital prior to the coup, he would never avoid her. They communicated well and they would resolve the issues together. They were separated often but their marriage was blessed with children vs the despair of the Yu's search for an heir. In the end, the main CP never let another person between their love while YJX and FYK went against their honor and struggle with concubines, infidelity, etc.

Are you serious? God, these changes from the novel make no sense. The whole point was to show the main CP rise as a blessed couple vs the fall of the Yu's. Main couple was supposed to have like 2 kids by now while the Yus have trouble conceiving.

Up to ep 18, this noble idiocy is dumb and destroys the character. I can't believe the writer/director went with this direction. It's so different from the novel.

They marry about halfway into the novel and he goes off to war often. Each time he gets a break and come back, they make up for lost time intimately. They have 4 kids at the end.

In the novel, Zhao Ling is much more patient. He is as vindictive as the drama when it comes to Tingyun and his family, but the actions that he takes play out over years instead of immediately for momentary gratification.

Against golden pillars adorned with soaring phoenixes and coiling dragons, he turned sideways to gaze at her, his profound eyes filled with deep affection, his low voice tinged with solitary coldness: "Have you ever feared how future historians would write of you?"

Only then did she shift her gaze from him, lowering her head with a faint smile: "My only fear is failing to earn eternal glory—why should your servant dread leaving infamy for ten thousand years... My sole wish remains—long live Your Majesty, long live, eternally long live."

- Excerpt from the novel

At its core, it's a romance novel. It's not female empowerment, though there is that, nor is it politics, war, etc. The character herself reminds us that her sole wish is him. Everything that she does is for him...and he knows it. There's no "betrayal". She wouldn't even harm a single hair of his let alone what happened in the drama.

The issues of the drama start with the script and the cast. No shade to either leads. Individually, they are phenomenal, but they didn't have the best chemistry for this. They needed to be shameless and unconstrained in their affections. There are ways to do it without breaking censorship laws or changing the rating. But the way the script is written and how the drama is directed, it just broke away from the novel core very early on.

Anyways, you can read it on readthedrama dot com. Translation is pretty good as far as I can tell.

I recommend reading the novel it's based on. It's so much better. Obviously, there's quite a lot that can't be adapted from the novel (it's pretty much R18+) but the screenwriter definitely fucked this one up by removing a core theme of the source.

Thank you for putting this feeling into words. This is what I felt as well when I finished ep 6. Essentially, the FL is perpetuating the cycle of abuse unto the ML. Her grandmother and family took away her agency and made decisions for her and now she's doing it to the ML. It's super icky to me.

Raise your hand if you're a simp and want to be volun-told to join a dangerous enterprise, go undercover and root out dangerous corrupt officials...

I have problems with the FL unilaterally making decisions on behalf of the ML, no matter how good her intentions were.

Was she not a victim when she lost her own agency? Her grandmother and everyone else made decisions for her. Why is she doing it to the ML?

There's a lot of suspension of belief. Additionally, if it's that easy to blackmail and ruin their reputation, there's no way the chastity arches stayed up that long. Someone would've done it long ago.

I'm up to ep 6. The main FL is pissing me off. Are we supposed to be sympathetic to her plight? Raised with a silver spoon, spoiled beyond belief, and now instead of reflecting on her situation, she continues to make it worse for herself and the ML? And the drama is making the ML into a simp instead of an independent, world-wise person by going through fire to save her again and again. The characterization's so much different from the novel.

Fu family needs to be annihilated or exiled. They just murder maids and servants like nothing.