noor1234

They kissed in Ep. 20? I forwarded a bit of section today & didn't watch Ep. 21. You don't think Cangbei event & some love rival is filler side track when there are so many relevant stories they can develop instead (till truth about past is revealed)?

No one asked for a spoiler tag when everyone in the comment section spoke about grandma & that WAS a real spoiler from an episode, not a preview! I didn't post about it - this is a comment on what trailer shows, maybe trailer is misleading.

It's in the trailer!

Yuan Feng was not important enough to make 'distrust' believable - they came into power together, they got a lot of people killed to get there, they will fall together if one of them goes against the other - they are not friends but they most certainly know they will lose if they fight amongst themselves. I don't like it when enemies are dumbed down.

The thing is these 3 people colluded with each other to get concubine empress & son into power - realistically, the killing of Yuan Feng wouldn't make any difference - because there are plenty of dead bodies that led to the success of these 3 people together. Realistically it would take a LOT more & a LOT of decades & changing circumstances for 'distrust' to seep in, a single act wouldn't cut it. Nothing has really changed in the powerhold of these 3 entities. I don't like it when dramas give simplistic easy tropes to make it seem like bad people are losing.

The edict being kept by consort for blackmail is dumb (because it implicates HER - since FL's dad & uncle gave it to HER, not Marquis or concubine). Unless she plants it in Marquis' household - WHY would she do that?!!!! These 3 people are in power because they supported each other.

Thanks.

I think the legitimate son has a fever of sibling rivalry with the illegitimate one & plays childish mental games with him just to rile him up. He's doted on, so is going to be spoilt and take everything for granted. Guard Qin cannot even think of being carefree, he knows his status & accepted without tantrum when Marquis said he didn't get the security office position (the one that requires a lot of fighting & killing) but also would've taken him away from Marquis' area of influence. Guard Qin is just a tool for this family, while the other son is supposed to be the future lord of the house & own all his father's wealth & property. All that Guard Qin wants is his father's affection but knows he won't get it openly.

And have the FL & ML felt more distant than in the current episodes (20, skipped 21) & upcoming episodes (23,24)? It's one thing to show him as mystified as to what she is hiding & finding those unsent envelopes & her 'loneliness', it's quite another for them to never have a conversation that doesn't revolve around his leg, Prince Li, her disappearing acts, without a genuine husband-wife convo. They have even stopped kissing / being 'handsy'.

I think drama writers don't know what to do with this couple before the big reveal of Gen. Mo & FL's involvement & Lishan stuff, hence the filler trope of scheming love rival & irritating 'Cangebi' male ruler asking for a fighting match! - and that too from a country Cangbei which killed 30K soldiers & overtook and pillaged 3 villages when Gen. Mo came back 8 years ago (with/without the edict) during a coup!!!!!! Seriously?!

Well.....Ep. 23 preview has Guard Qin getting stabbed through the heart......& the 'sibling rival' defending him in front of Marquis - what is going on?

I'm on Team Prince Li. Can anyone tell me what is so different about Prince Li's quest for power from concubine queen to install herself and her son as queen & king? They killed a LOT of people & removed a lot of people, who supported last emperor & legitimate crown prince. The new king - the kid who supports ML - has the benefit of not having ordered anyone's killing himself, because he's young & his mom did all the killing with consort & Marquis as her weapons. I think more people were killed because of Ye Family & FL's grandfather (Lishan Academy)'s foolish mistake to send FL's mom as an emissary to Gen. Mo for the edict. I think FL's grandfather & mom & consort & concubine empress & Marquis directly caused the deaths of Gen. Mo, soldiers, supporters of previous regime, even Lishan Academy's teachers & pupils. Marquis took it a step further by crucifying good officers in the name of 'purging' corruption - like he's doing now - but no one neither concubine queen nor consort stopped him, because it benefited them.

I don't think Prince Li is wrong. He is self-centered yes, & is irritatingly entitled, but I'm put off by FL's continued effort to bring Prince Li down (she told her martial arts bodyguard that 'such a man will create chaos'). How is his chaos any different from chaos that FL's mom created or concubine empress created?

I also think it is childish to show 'fissures' between the 3 people who did things to get power together - i.e. Marquis, concubine queen & consort. In real life, these 3 would've been tight, thick as thieves, but since this is a drama where FL has to be shown as the 'master manipulator / puppeteer' pulling strings for justice, ridiculous resentment is being shown between all 3. I hope Prince Li gets the throne (which he won't because this is a faux feminist drama).

Does it really matter who killed who? The end goal was to put concubine as empress & her son as king, while killing the crown prince & his supporters. Marquis was the sword used to kill all. I don't think any discord would occur between such women as the current queen & dowager because these women owe their positions to collaborating with each other & keeping key court officials happy. Just to show FL as 'winning' in the art of manipulation, drama is showing distrust between Marquis & these 2 women which is unrealistic & childish.

Yeah, but that kind of martial fighting skill & having specific knowledge of treating leg partial paralysis, you can't get that only through books - she was very young (14 or so) when her mom died & she got trapped on that mountain. These skills require practice, & for medicine, actual patients. There were many older generations who were Lishan disciples who were already working in different fields in the empire - she cannot possibly have more knowledge than senior trained physicians, but she does. Plus, she even knows the history & background of key people (like that astrologer she got killed early on), how can a 14 year old on a mountain know his background? Unless there's a supernatural element to all this, it is hard to brush it all off as book reading.

Okay, but it's not logical to show that she's s the only person in the empire to know about underground waterways, interconnected holes & possible secret passages - hell, Marquis, concubine empress, ML, etc. all must have secret passages, so I feel it's wrong to show FL as a leader (like an all-seeing omnipresent God) in all things that happen in the show. My guess is that she's supposed to be like that deity she was painting in the temple - the deity who is benevolent but gives justice when wrong is done, & it is an author-backed role so she's given preference over other characters.

Yup.

Thank you for saying this.

That's an interesting theory.

PTSD & something else, maybe even supernatural. I don't know, the drama hasn't disclosed why she thinks dead people are alive & can perform what dead people could do & has superhuman knowledge of every Lishan master's field & still function as a regular person & plot revenge.

Thanks, I do think 'First Jasmine' title doesn't suit this drama & MoLi is unfortunate because though it is the ML+FL abbreviation, it also denotes SML+FL!

He still doesn't really 'know' the true nature or extent of her mental conditon - he thinks she's suffering from a side effect of loneliness.....she's not.

Ep. 19: I hate it when in a drama everyone is dumbed down to make the heroine look intelligent..... it was extremely obvious that there must be a secret passage somewhere in that burnt out building or palace itself & yet FL is the only one who went in to investigate. What's more? She did not take her trusted martial arts bodyguard with her, rather that buffoon assassin with mediocre martial art training. This was weak writing just to get FL to look smart & show off her Master's 'martial skills' that she doesn't know she has (either through ghost possession or memory).

I don't understand why FL went after Prince Li when the enemies she wants revenge from are after Prince Li. What's it to her whether Prince Li lives or dies or takes the throne or not - Lishan Academy, Gen. Mo, 30K soldiers, & countless supporters of crown prince, etc. were not killed by Prince Li. She has put herself & ML in a difficult position by doing so (obvious from trailer of Ep.20). Besides, Prince Li has sealed his fate by getting 4 more people killed (!!!!) whose corpses were used to fake his & his team's death. Still, I don't want him to really die in this drama. I don't think he's that wrong in his quest for power.

I have a bad feeling about Marquis Muyang's sudden interest in that illegitimate Guard Qin - the way he told him to drink & then offered straw & then helped clean up the robe, makes me suspect he took that handkerchief this son was holding on to - & will use it to scare off that girl Qin met. Because Marquis wants to keep this son as a tool on a tight leash.

I also cannot stand FL's 'sister' & her tears for a 'husband' who never gave her a look or kind word. It's wrong to give so much screen time to a lameduck, spineless character (who is disloyal to everyone - she couldn't even keep the husband's last words a secret!) just to show sisterhood between women. This 'sister' has done nothing in her life to deserve so much benevolence from FL or so much screentime.

Yes, this is a rant!