Ep18: SML has been hounding FL to marry. Neither Li or Xie family approves of the marriage, and FL agrees to play along with the setup by SML’s mother and Madam Hu, pretending to go through with it while the actual marriage is between Li Congxin and Qingru.

Ep19: She realises the full extent of Shen Run’s power.

Ep20: Shen Run drops the bomb that he’ll protect Xie Shu.

Our girl is already grieving her eldest brother, and now she is feeling abandoned and betrayed too. She is at her most vulnerable. She has to plan how to avenge her mother against powerful people...the perpetrator is Madam Hu and Xie Shu and now Shen Run , also powerful, has to protect him. Our girl has her work cut out for her.

Then, in Ep20, she shares her past with Li Congxin, and he promises to help her with her revenge.

The number of people who have been genuinely kind to FL has always been so small, and she has spent her life being guarded because of it. This is perhaps the first time she really stops and pays attention to Li Congxin and realises that he is actually a genuine person.

Who wouldn't be moved by that, especially when you are already at your lowest and carrying a lifetime of betrayals?

And yet she still says, “Thank you. But this marriage is...” and pauses. I read that pause as her feeling guilty and sad, perhaps trying to decide whether she should tell him that the marriage isn't actually going to happen. There is just so much for her to process at that moment.

Then Ep21 begins with SML promising to help FL with her revenge. Again, FL reminds SML that the Li family’s choice of bride is not her. After his persuasion, she eventually nods, but even then it feels more like she is reluctantly playing along with Madam Hu and the Li ladies’ arrangement than genuinely agreeing to the marriage.

This is where I find Zhao Ye’s acting lacking. There are so many emotions and layers to FL at this point, and I don't feel that complexity coming through as convincingly as I would have liked.

And those flashbacks, where SML is promising to help her with her revenge, made me think of her memories of her eldest brother promising to bring her persimmons and her memories of young Shen Run. This girl has had so few genuinely kind people in her life. Of course she would hold on to those precious moments when someone was simply there for her.