Aqua

"At least RSB's family is not plotting, abusing or killing each other"
RSB's family is not plotting?......................................................... 😲🤨
And no abuse? What about the whips and slaps she and her grandma gave left and right to family and out.
Also, the blind girl actually tried to kill her grandma, she even had a grand, long term revenge plan (understandably so, considering what happened to her parents and how they were treated).
And aren’t all the sisters fighting in there to become the next leader= power, benefits, and status? And, more in general, for the sake of power, benefits, and status as a merchant family, they’ve done quite a few questionable things.

As for the rest of her family, even if they didn’t actually use knives to kill each other, they were certainly close to it, thanks to grandma’s upbringing. So the killing intent in her family is just as strong as in his. It is just that we had the entire series to see her terrible family placed in a barely decent situation, and RSB managed to do that thanks to LJL, who even encouraged her to be more kind and understanding toward her family instead of using a heavy hand which she was much more inclined to do (whips and slaps).
With what remained of his family instead, he had no time and no help from her to even try to put them in a barely decent situation, on the contrary, she even forced him to leave them with the threat of losing her.

So no, that wasn’t a good choice, going from the frying pan into the fire. But my point is that she had no right to coerce him into that choice. And she should have been ready to give up the same for him or at least compromise. A relationship isn’t a one-way street where he does everything while she only thinks of herself and her business.
She clearly doesn’t deserve him, for this and so many other reasons.

He is "free" to choose on her term and under her threat of leaving him. Lucky for him she granted him that small kindness, otherwise, he might have actually been able to make his own choice with her support, instead of having her decide for him what he is allowed to decide for himself. 😕

I thought we had already agreed to disagree.
Anyway, I actually liked the first eps (most of what you mention is in there). He cared about her and used his genius to help both her and himself. She cared about him too. We saw her show emotion toward him: anger when she pushed the money onto the floor, worry when she ran to him sweating, care when she assigned guards to protect him. And it was only for him, which, for a reserved character like her, was a meaningful way to show how important he was.

But all of that disappeared once he returned to his official position.
There is no more push and pull in this relationship. Only her pushing him into the mud and kicking him in the stomach over and over while he tries to hold on to her, figuratively speaking, but still very accurate. She lies to him, uses him, deceives him, mistreats him, abuses him, disrespects him, dismisses him, and shows no regard for his feelings or for his family and work situation.

She does too many harmful things to him all at once, and she never reflects, never apologizes, never grows. Throughout the drama, she remains cold and cruel toward him. That’s far too much to excuse with “that’s just her character,” as if a stagnant, emotionally abusive, cold character who never evolves should automatically be appreciated simply for being consistent.

As for his supposed desire for a family, someone already answered:
-That is not the only defining trait of his character.
-No desire for a family justifies being treated abusively.
Reducing him to “a man who wants a family” diminishes his personality. Even if the story eventually makes it seem like his only role is to sustain the relationship at any cost, it’s offensive to reduce such a complex and interesting character to a simple family man willing to be trampled on in every way just because of that supposed desire.
And that interpretation doesn’t even align with what the drama shows. He already had a loving, even if poor, family. So the idea that he is desperately clinging to her solely because he wants a family feels more like something people want to project onto him to justify the way his role was undercut in the drama.

Honestly, i cannot overlook all that unfairness and mistreatment when it is so one sided and there is nothing positive to balance it out.
It can’t even be justified in the name of love (especially when there is none), nor can it be excused simply because she is a businesswoman, as if being strong or career driven means a woman cannot respect her partner. This is an unhealthy, troubling dynamic in a relationship, one that is unsettling even to watch.

I have to admit that, as someone who values equilibrated, natural storytelling and balanced relationships, or at least something vaguely, remotely fair, Neo's dramas like Litc and Glory are a slow, painful knockout that lasts for the entire runtime. It hurts all the way through.
But even with all the pain I feel while watching the unfairness unfold, I love watching this man act. I skip almost everything, throw the story and the entire relationship in the trash where they belong, and just focus on him being the fantastic, exceptional, multi-expressive, fabulous, handsome actor that he is, especially with his amazing ost playing in the background.
I can’t enjoy the story or the deeply unfairness his character is put through, but I love watching his performance. I really hope he soon will get a drama where both he and his character are treated with the fairness and respect they deserve.

No. You’re missing my point.
The problem isn’t how romantic that letter was, left so cowardly for him at her convenience, without any warning, after they had slept together, without even confessing her love when he asked so desperately. Nor is it that she wanted to leave to take care of her own business. Of course she can. Even if she had 50 relatives to handle things, so even without her superpower, each of them could manage one duty at a time. So the urgency to return wasn’t truly necessary.

The problem is that she broke up with him, not just left, but broke up. That forced him into making a decision under the threat of losing her forever.
That was subtle emotional and psychological manipulation. “You either stay and lose me, or you leave to have me.” He was clearly pressured by her breaking up with him. And yet, she was ready to take him back if he abandoned everything for her, on her terms, not his. That is manipulation and coercion.

It honestly baffles me how people can romanticize such behavior, ignoring everything she did and focusing only on selective, convenient facts. She claimed she acted to prevent him from turning out like his father, yet she herself is becoming like her grandmother. It’s hypocritical. He never showed any sign of becoming like his father, but she changed, looking more and more like her granma. There’s zero self-awareness.
She had sex with him but never intended to stay, left when it suited her and showed no regard for his feelings by being clear on her intention of breaking up with him from the start. Love? More like personal toyboy care.

And what if he had decided to stay? She would have abandoned him, i mean respected his decision? No compromise. No support. No attempt to help him navigate things on his own terms. Why bother, when she could just find another toyboy, i mean, man.
On top of that, she have her baseless claim that he would surely turn into his father if he didn’t do exactly what she wanted. No room for discussion. No room for doubt. And certainly no meeting halfway. She was, of course, unquestionably right, certainly not driven by her grandmother’s prejudice. Why trust him, or even what she herself could plainly see in him?
It was her way or nothing. That was the maximum “help” she was willing to offer to the one she love. Love… the more I think about it, the more he looks like nothing more than a convenient toyboy to her, absolutely nothing more. That also explains her lack of respect for him, and how little she valued him.

Just to let you know , the definition of treat is any action or behavior that pressures someone to act a certain way by creating fear of loss or negative consequences.
Coercion is when someone pressures another person to act against their free will, often using threats, manipulation, or fear of loss.
Free will means being able to make a decision without undue pressure or manipulation.

She broke up with him and set a situation where the only way to get what he wanted (being with her) was to sacrifice the rest. Any choice he makes is influenced by fear of losing her forever, not purely by his own desires.
She engineered that cost, his decision was coerced.
You find this romantic? Fine. Agree to disagree. Big time!

Clearly, when it suited her to leave, it is not the best moment for him. She even wanted to leave him with a letter when things were still terrible, in fact he received the news of his brother’s death at that moment. She only act according to her own convenience, uncaring of his needs, not even the most desperate ones.

But the problem is not even that she left, it is that she broke up with him. If she loved him, she could have waited for him. Or, if she had no intention of staying with him, she should have been clear from the start and avoided deepening his emotional involvement. Instead, she chose to have fun with him and then break up with him at her own convenience and when he still needed her. That is cruel and manipulative. A threat.
Because you do not have the freedom to choose when you are under the pressure of losing someone you care about if you do not make that one specific choice.
Just one last act of disrespect toward him, until the very end.

That was not a smile but a smirk, expressing quiet contempt rather than warmth.
And that’s not a free choice but coercion. His free choice was to stay, possibly even only to resolve the most urgent matter, and he wanted her to be with him. But she didn’t want to stay there for him, not even when he was clearly in need of support. So instead of helping him, trusting him and his choice or leaving and waiting for him, she broke up with him.

It was a clear, unspoken threat, either you stay here and lose me, or you abandon this and stay with me. There was no middle ground for him if he didn’t want to be abandoned by the woman he had fallen for.
He was forced to choose on her terms, not his.

After the governator case, when they were in the carriage, did you see his indignant, offended look when he was complaining about her and how poorly she treated him, and she just smirked at him instead? As if he were a child whining for a candy.
HMH did a fantastic job with his expression in that moment, I could really see how shoked, hurt, offended, and indignant he was when she reacted with that smirk instead of addressing him and treating his complaint as more than justified. Him stopping the carriage to get out was the most natural reaction to her defiant and dismissive behavior. But instead, they resolved the situation with a kiss on the cheek. It was just so unbelievable.

But he decided to stay and even asked for her help, and she broke up with him.
Why didn’t she respect his decision, trust him, and, if she loved him, wait for him to leave that family on his own terms, when he was ready?

He couldn’t stay because she broke up with him, forcing him to make a decision on her terms, not his. On top of that, a choice made under emotional upheaval is coercive and not a real choice.
Support, not manipulation, is what shows love. And she never compromised to support him. It was always him helping her, and proving his love, she never did.

Not everything has to revolve around the female lead for the male lead, even if the drama tries to frame it that way.

He was already living in that house before she ever came there, so he wouldn’t be staying because of her. He asked her to stay because he needed her there, and because it’s normal to want the person you love by your side, not to abandon them at your convenience with no respect for the other need.
He has a nephew and clearly cares about him. And even if he was under the influence of drugs, it was obvious that he was interested in getting to know his brother. He despises his father, but he was still his father. As his interest in his brother grew over time, a chance could have been a possibility even with his father, especially now, when he was weakened and would have shown far more vulnerability than before. He deserved the chance to choose for himself on what to do.

But it’s clear that he loves her more than that terrible family, so when she broke up with him, she unfairly forced him to choose, when she could have simply waited for him and let him decide freely. You expect support from someone you love, like he always gave her, not abandonment.
Even new, broken families carry emotional gravity and he has the right to make his decision without subtle threats or manipulation from her side.


And if she is so strong, what is wrong with leaving her house and starting a new life of her own? Is she so weak and codependent on them that she can’t do the bare minimum that he was willing to do for her? Since she lived there her whole life, she would still have their affection even after leaving, a possibility she completely denied to the male lead to even start to create, through her manipulative ultimatum. That was genuinely cruel.

If this was an exact reversal ml wouldn't have been trated like this. Fl at least have the love of their ml.

The sex and ditch part happened before the final arc, though. And that was insensate and disprectfull. Honestly, her character was ruined after her vow.

They are a merchant family, not nobility. What they needed most was someone with great ability, not someone with status. Status was a plus in the selection, but it wasn’t fundamental, it’s just that someone without status usually wouldn’t have the exceptional capabilities that LJL has.

I noticed something was wrong because he kept looking at them.
I realized it. RSB realized it. And he didn’t? 😅

Even when he was staggering, I thought, now he’s surely realized it. As an official, he’s used to being in a lion’s den. Even if he had lowered his guard, he should still know the difference between being drunk and being drugged. He even looked surprised by how he felt that night. But nothing. The fl realized it. 🤦‍♀️

All you say make so much sense.
If only writers realized that too it would have been better.

You should watch until he returns to his official position. The beginning is good, it’s just that after that, the story and the characters change too much, and everything becomes one-sided.

Those that like reciprocity will only get hurt by this drama. 😥

🤞🧡

He never wanted to stay, but it was clear that some things had to be done first. Like finding someone he could rely on to watch his nephew in his place, and even if his father was a monster, he still deserved some time with him. Maybe there was even a chance to make that family a little less terrible than it was, like Rsb had done with hers. She had been given time to mend a little her terrible family. Why shouldn’t he have the same chance?
Why give everything up immediately to be with her? She could have waited for him, instead of forcing him into a choice, abandoning one terrible family only to be absorbed into another.

When they were together, I don’t think anyone interfered because they were a merchant family, not nobility. What they needed most was someone with great ability, not someone with status. Status was a plus in the selection, but it wasn’t fundamental, it’s just that someone without status usually wouldn’t have the exceptional capabilities that LJL has, lol.

And I do agree that the beginning was very good. Maybe that’s exactly why it hurt so much to see it ruined like this. Once the frustration over the ending fades, I’ll probably watch them again too.
I really hate that she forced him into that choice and never compromised, nor showed him clear love, not even when he needed it most, right until the end. I really wanted them leave both their family and start anew. So frustrating.