Aramintai

Ugh, I wouldn't call a childhood connection teenage crush "love" in any drama. And she barely saw the guy back then. This here is doubly ambiguous because it's mixed with FL's kindness towards ML out of guilt and want to get close to him to help him. But they've tried showing her feelings more clearly in later episodes. However, they are also mixed with her trauma and abandonment issues. It's complex here with FL.

One episode per day. Express with the last episodes on Sunday.

She is allowed to come back because her family, namely grandpa is there. It was mentioned, but not shown. But outsiders can't come in.

They didn't want to ask a for help because they said it would be bowing down to rebels (the dowager's faction). They basically died for their principles like idiots and dragged unwilling FL into it as well.

I don't think she ever came down before setting off to get married. The scholars forbade her from coming down and she was living in lalaland all those years, thinking they're still alive. Also, she didn't have any money.

It's still around half a year after she married ML, was mentioned recently.

She couldn't buy anything, the mountain was sealed off by the army below. Max what she could have done was growing food herself, but the rice patch was found out to be abandoned.

How long those products can last before rotting? When ML came there everything was in scarce amount and rotted away.
Judging by what they ate with ML that was her staple food for some time. Btw, I didn't know that bamboo shoots are edible.
Not sure what she was eating in winter.

Exactly. The irony here is that he hated her for feeling sorry for him, but then immediately felt sorry for her and ran off to find her after finding out about her situation. He would still be sitting in his house getting drunk and wallowing in self pity if he didn't stumble upon those letters.

-FL was living on and off the mountain before she was 13 years old. Her grandpa was the headmaster there.
-FL left her father's mansion to return to the mountain one last time with her dying mother when she was around 13 years old. It was 8 years ago.
-Some time later on the mountain the illness outbreak happened. Since they showed FL there looking as an adult she must have been around 16 minimum. So the outbreak happened around 5 years ago.
-She was the only survivor of the outbreak and lost her sanity by witnessing all those deaths and having to bury all of those people. Those high minded scholars didn't want to ask for help from the army below and FL couldn't reach them because other scholars caught her running off for help and forbade her.
-She lived alone on the mountain for those 5 years or so, foraging for food, and learned a lot of things by herself from books.
-In present time she somehow got the edict (prob. a guard came by the gates) from the empress dowager commanding her to come back to her father's home to get married to ML.

Ok then. I'm thinking FL's mother was just dumb af, tbh. She shouldn't have involved herself in this.

Which episode is it? I don't recall this.

Exactly, gross overreaction.

No, he still didn't apologize properly to FL, his limp "I'm sorry" didn't cut it for me. FL is too forgiving here.

1. The late emperor, just before his death, writes the edict commaning ML's brother's army to return and safeguard the throne, namely his successor, the crown prince.

2. Before ML's brother can arrive, the emperor dies and the empress dowager stages a coup against the crown prince and burns his whole palace down. She wants her own son to sit on the throne.

3. ML's brother arrives back to the capital with his army, learns of the situation and decides to hide the edict instead of showing it publicly.
Reasons are unclear, but the most probable one:
He gets afraid the edict will be deemed fake and his army alone won't be able to defend the crown prince's faction. So he stashes it, hoping another army, led by duke Hua, will arrive shortly and that duke Hua will be able to authenticate the edict.

4. Since ML's brother doesn't have the edict on him, he and his whole army get arrested.

5. During his time in prison, FL's mother comes to him with her bleeding heart, asking him to give her the edict. FL's mother is certain that her father, the headmaster, and the scholars will come down from the mountain as Lishan faction, and with their authority and respect held in court will be able to vouch that the edict is genuine.
But they never come down from the mountain. Instead, in protest of the political upheaval and current regime, they announce they're closing their doors and are not getting involved. The empress dowager gets angry with their decision and orders an army to be stationed at the base of the mountain, not allowing anyone to get in or out. Her order still stands even after 8 years.
Why ML's brother decided to accept FL's mother's offer instead of proceeding with his initial plan is unknown, probably was just being a dumbass.

6. FL's mother takes the edict with her to her husband's house to wait for the Lishan faction. But her husband's shitty family gets wind of her having it and, not wanting to be implicated with having ties to Lishan faction (their protest is already publicly known), they force the edict out of FL's mother, torture her and then eventually kill her with FL being the sole witness.
All in all, FL's mother was dumb af and it's majorly her fault the edict got lost.

7. FL's father gets tricked by the consort dowager to give her the edict. She takes it as a potential leverage for herself if the need arises against the empress dowager and the marquis. She forges the fake edict and gives it to marquis. Marquis destroys the fake edict.

7. Since the edict is lost, ML's brother and his men are tried by the corrupt marquis and executed on charges of treason for abandoning their post and entering the capital without persmission.

8. Duke Hua's army doesn't arrive in time, they are fighting off the rival country's army and ML is in his army at the time. ML gets crippled in that battle and then moved to the capital for his own trial. But since he was in a different army, in the end he is proclaimed innocent of his brother's crimes and gets released, but his family's name is tarnished.

9. FL witnesses everything about the edict and her mother's mistreatement in her father's mansion. Suffering from guilt over what happened to ML's family because of her own family, she harbors plans to help ML. After marrying him, she gets wind of who could have taken the edict and then successfully concocts a scheme to trick the edict out of the consort dowager.

10. FL then presents the edict publicly in court and it gets authenticated as genuine. Since there are many witnesses, the empress dowager and marquis have no other way but to exonerate ML's brother and his army.

I'm compiling a comprehensive "edict" plot device explanation, help me out if there are mistakes:

Yea, I'm still holding high hopes it's not just to prolong that character's angst and they're really cooking a surpise comeback.

Oh, so she was going back to the city when she saved the assassin? I really thought she saved him going back to the mountain.

I'm having a hard time believing she mastered medicine and martial arts by studying alone without practice, but whatever. She turned into a polymath genius just to keep her sanity, I'm gonna close my eyes on this.

Judging by all the info FL is around 21-22 years old. And ML still has not reached 30 according to the recent info.

-SFL told SML that FL lived with Ye family until 13 years old. We're shown her teenage self when her mother died, when they were on their way back to the mountain.
-Then we're shown FL going back to the mountain, saving the assassin guy as her adult self.
-Flashbacks of the plague also show her as an adult.
-The eunuch said that the plowfield looks like it was abandoned 6-7 years. But FL returned only 8 years ago.

Something's off. The eunuch is guesstimating? How much time passed before the plague?

Guys, so what's the timeline of events with FL and Lishan mountain?

Alright. Maybe they're making it more confusing than it should be. You must have the app downloaded on TV and on mobile and have the same account; then initiate buying express on TV, which will send you to the mobile app (or do it straight on the mobile app like you did); then after you buy it on the mobile app it synchronizes with TV app and you're good to go to watch it on TV.