I've watched 5 episodes of The Lament of Autumn. I had time to check out a few points; the title had the word "lament," that means it's likely will have bad ending, the novel synopsis told about a man who got everything but felt the emptiness of having the one he love gone forever. So unless there's a big change, I expect it to have bad ending.
Spoiler:
The romance part was pretty cliche for a republican drama or should I said generic; it has enemies to lovers troupe, the damsel in distress met a rich powerful young master who's a fake playboy (I can't imagine Cheng Lei as a playboy seriously, it's not suitable with his public image) but secretly a capable military man, the female lead had a decent studious fiancee who's studying abroad (in Japan? Kinda miss it), the female lead was set-up by the male lead to work for him to reach his goal but otw he fell for female lead because she's strong, kind, smart, different (fresh meat) and compassionate which remind him of his big brother (likely Mingxuan).
(I could mention/spell wrong name so iirc, cmiiw) From political plot, there's two sides fighting for an important position in the government; incumbent prime minister Rui whose image currently bad and third master Cheng. ML and his father supported the third master Cheng. His father tried to ally with Chu because he got a(n empty) promise of a place in Cheng's new cabinet. ML was a master of strategy so he prevent his father to ally with Chu and ally with Yang and also got a promise from Tao to be in neutral when Yu (ML's family) and Mu (Tao's previous ally) in fight by giving Tao many benefit regarding business and profit also promising to not hurting Tao dapughter who like ML very much. And he also tried to take over his father's position.
Suspicious people: ML's third brother in-law and ML's father's favorite concubine seemed suspicious and may have from the same side (spies). ML's third older sister was a typical young mistress who's spoiled and treated her husband like a doormat and may have crush towards a plant shop owner/herbologist? which could also be a suspicious people. I don't believe in coincidence though that coincidence was created by that spoiled third sister.
I hope it won't go downhill, but I now keep my expectation low since the plot was pretty average and the direction of the drama seemed to balance the romance part and the political part. How I wish it leaned more towards one of the two.
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