ta0412:
Thank you. The English translations confused me for a while, took me a long time to untangle 'wangfei' is not really crown princess and so on. Your explanation clears everything up easily.
No worries - Wangfei /王妃 is the title of the wife of a prince, often translated Princess Consort. That should be Wuyi's mother's title and Ah Mao and Lejun's mother's title. Wuyi's wife should be Shìzǐ Fēi/ 世子妃 or Hereditary Princess. But Jiayu is Cèfēi/侧妃 which is Consort or Side Consort. Jiayu's mother was Emperor Wenxi's younger sister - her title should be Gōngzhǔ/公主 (first rank princess) but because she defied an imperial decree to marry the Grand Tutor, she was demoted to Jùnzhǔ/郡主 (second rank princess).
I mostly watch with Chinese subs bc the subtitles often flip the order of the subject with the verbs, which irritates me. But I gathered from the confusion in the comments section that the titles in this drama are not properly translated.
PeachBlossomGoddess:
I think so for sure. She is actually the most evil and scheming character in this story. It was her evil plan that set everything in motion 25 years ago. It’s too bad she is beyond any revenge at this point but maybe her son will lose the throne. Karma.
Agree that Shao Yang is the most evil and scheming character here. She is ruthless. I think the Nanye empress dowager would come in 2nd place.
VelvetLady852:
I think so for sure. She is actually the most evil and scheming character in this story. It was her evil plan that set everything in motion 25 years ago. It’s too bad she is beyond any revenge at this point but maybe her son will lose the throne. Karma.
Agree that Shao Yang is the most evil and scheming character here. She is ruthless. I think the Nanye empress dowager would come in 2nd place.
Indeed. They are both similar women making trouble behind the throne who go to extreme lengths for their sons. I think though that the Nanye ED is hungry for power for herself but the Qin ED was not. Had she married Mulian Ying instead he probably would be Qin emperor now.
Minissa:
I still don't understand who raised Mao and Lejun once they arrived in Jiankiang. Wouldn't they have been around 10? The time line says they established the House of Qi? Also, did Princess Yungzhao consent to marry GT Xie pretty soon after she defied the edict to marry him? I thought I caught that they were married at the time she found FL. And what was his deal? Did he truly love Yungzhao that he fought so hard to keep her body or was it more that the divorce damaged his dignity and reputation?
Qizhou fell 10 years ago so they should have been in their teens - A’Mao should be close to Wuyi’s age and Lejun a few years younger. They are part of the extended imperial family - the Prince Qi Mansion should have just been bestowed and funded by the emperor. But they didn’t have much wealth or power of their own bc their fief Qizhou had fallen to Northern Qin.
As for the Grand Tutor’s feelings for his wife you are supposed to decide for yourself. My impression is he loved her but not enough to let go of his obsession with the past and his ambition for his illegitimate son. That was not enough for her so she left him. They were married 24 years ago - they only found Jiayue about 10 years ago. She was old enough to remember her birth parents.
Was the real Xiao Sheng killed to accommodate Wuyi?
It is possible that this happened but was censored so it was not made explicit. Or it could be that her son may have died of natural causes but since Wuyi assumed his identity, he couldn't be buried properly, i.e., recognized as part of the Xiao family and included in their ancestral hall. When Wuyi discovered this, he rectified it (hence the scene at the real Xiao Sheng's tomb - a proper burial) and discarded his name for Wuyi.
Back to Grand Tutor...Is his obsession with An and Lu case because he was enough in love with Consort An that they risked an affair and conceiving a child under the emperor's nose? Is that his interest, because it was his lover's family? At some point, he clearly knew that Prince Jing'an (Wuyi's dad) had information that would have exonerated them. The idea of revenge being a dish best served cold is supposed to be Sicilian (or Klingon) but he exemplifies the Chinese version of it!
I think Consort An must have been his first love - she probably was executed along with her family. He was probably righteous, a great Confucian scholar - and outraged by the injustice. He also knew it was an attack by the imperial family against the aristocracy, which he was part of. I don't think Prince Jing'an had information that would have exonerated them - he just knew it was an injustice but he followed orders to arrest them for execution anyway. But what could he have done - anything else would have constituted rebellion. I think over time his obsession got the better of him and his motives which were originally for justice became distorted by his ambition for his son.
