Aramintai

It’s not graphic, but there are fighting scenes and dead bodies. And there’s little about politics, it’s mostly about crime investigations. And there is romance subplot.

It’s not confirmed and teasers like these often end up nowhere. So don’t get your hopes up.

I think it was FL who wanted to leave that shithole, ML just followed her. The guy, as it turned out, devoted his whole life to solve her problems. It was never her life’s goal to work at the Bureau, more like a means to an end to find the bad guy. And at the end she became very disappointed in the emperor and her inability to enforce the law at the palace. So after dealing with the bad guy there was really no reason to stay, as she didn’t care for life at the palace. Her Bureau friends will be fine with Wuren, consort Shu decided to stay in the cage and her mentor died. But she’s free to live her life however she wants. Maybe she went back to her county.
And I’m not holding my breath for season 2 either, dunno what they’re playing at with that teaser.

Yea, it drops you right at the start of a case. FL’s been working as an investigator for quite some time already. But that case is special because ML appears there and triggers FL’s memory concerning the main plot of her seeking truth about her family murder. It is later nicely explained how he and she became who they were. Character exposition here is gradual and not rushed.

The Chancellor was a dumbass who was outplayed. FL's effort at the poisoned banquet was not in vain. He was forced to confess and lost favor with the emperor. And while in exile he realized his days were numbered after his allies ditched him. It was either sit tight and allow himself and his clan to be framed by the Crown Prince, or die swinging. He decided the latter. He never knew that FL would save consort Shu from CP's schemes.
If he didn't ride with an army to "save" his sister, she would have been dismissed by the emperor, because the emperor is easily swayed by the public opinion. And public opinion was manipulated by bad omens to think that consort Shu is bad luck for him and is plotting to overthrow him with her clan. If she was dismissed and punished, the chancellor would have lost the emperor's backing completely and would become an easy prey for elimination.

Ah, that. Well, he's not the sturdiest of MLs that's for sure, and he's sensitive. It was briefly shown he was already feeling unwell working non-stop for half a month updating that calendar to save FL's ass from being poisoned to death, and then she went ahead and cruelly ditched him shortly after. The guy likely just had a mental breakdown from exhaustion and heartbreak.
It was kinda funny how FL was sneaking him gifts and medicine through her friends later though, even though she wouldn't face him herself to apologize.

I can't recall some of the scenes here:

https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5266360226480224?from=old_pc_videoshow

Especially the one where she lays the decree on the ground and walks away, wearing red princess clothes. Is this something that was deleted again?

Lol, he was anything but timid in that scene, it was his most emotional speech in the whole drama. And he was right to stop her, she realizes it later too. She had no evidence other than the bad guy's oral testimony. If she killed him, the emperor would not have believed her, she already was on his bad side. For murdering a high ranking official in cold blood she would have been severly punished and her father's honor would not be restored.
She'll later still get her revenge, but with the emperor's full permission. It'll take some cunning effort though, not blind rage to take him down for good.

The story's good. FL's character is very cool here.
But it's not a romance focused drama, just to be clear. It's present, but the drama is mainly about investigations and revenge.

Yea, not only is her character concept ridiculous, especially the fugly mask, FL's delivery is absolutely cringe. No way she could have been a general commanding armies with that demeanor, unless she got some serious personality disorder after falling into the river to excuse this cutesy, girly, childish prancing around. Only blind deaf old farts won't realize it's a woman at first sight. Aegyo, kawaii genki, whatever they call this acting in China - it looks completely out of place here. And isn't this type of acting got out of vogue ages ago?

I think they wanted to make this something akin to reincarnation story first, where a character goes back to the past to start over again with all skills and knowledge retained, but I heard these stories got banned in China so as not to promote suicides or whatever. Still, that doesn't excuse this cringefest.

And let's be glad that she did realize that in the end. If ML wasn't there for her, I think she actually would have died for her revenge. It's not in your face, but they came a long way together through that year and he gently influenced her a lot. But it's understandable that it was hard for her to let go and took some time to reflect, she's been living hellbent on revenge for most of her life.

Well, again, this drama's is mostly about investigations and revenge. Romance does play an important part in the main plot and greatly affected FL's character in the end, but it's not the main focus. And the leads had just one big spat here, it was logical and was bound to happen.

Here it's not like it often happens in rom-coms where's there's an obligatory break-up because of the dumbest of reasons for the sake inserting this trope.

It's hard to explain without spoilers, but their behavior was all in-character, even the argument, it was bound to happen at some point. And in any case, they made up in the end.

It was all rather fast paced. The last big case started in episode 30 involving the emperor himself, and the focus was mostly on it, the leads didn't have much time to continue sulking around after that. And FL, after cooling down and realizing she was in the wrong, was quietly working behind the scenes to nail the villain in a clever way through subterfuge, but didn't want to get any of her friends hurt, so didn't let them in on her plan. They even started suspecting her turning evil at some point, lol.

She was reductuve in seeking justice, and she didn't really care about protecting herself if she got it. ML even had to tell her to stop ruining her own health to solve cases and trust her friends and colleagues, instead of doing everything alone. But she still did send them away that time, because she knew they'd disapprove of her methods and may get hurt themselves. Besides getting revenge, she really didn't want anybody else she cared about to get hurt because of her.

The villain will start to get increasingly more active after that first assassination attempt.
And I strongly disagree about your opinion about the romance, it's quite believable here, maybe you weren't paying attention to their small scenes throughout the episodes that started pretty early.

She knew that the villain was one of the ranking high officials, but when she went to the emperor to ask him about it he grounded her to her family's mansion. And even after ML saved her from being poisoned to death he still refused to help her. So it was just the final straw for her, she realized the emperor is covering whomever it was. Increasingly frustrated and without any other leads she had no choice but invent something drastic to lure out the villain. So she used the wedding as an opportunity to stage that poisoned banquet. It wasn't dumb, just reckless and ruthless, which is not out of character for her.
Was there perhaps another way to find out who it was? Perhaps not in time before he finally succeeded in assassinating her.
The only dumb thing here is the villain not assassinating FL back when she was a kid. She grew up absolutely hellbent on revenge.

If you watched until the end and seen the post credits scene - better to have the devil you know.

Yea, FL does something that leads to a big argument. She then cools down and reflects about it for a couple of episodes, while poor ML suffers and waits for her to come around.

2. Episode 28.
3. Episode 29. Up to episode 34.
3. No.
4. Yes. But after the credits there's a teaser for possible season 2 with a new villain who means to do harm to the leads.
5. There is romance here and it's important to the main plot, but it's not the main focus of the drama.
6. Depends on what you mean by that. But there's a few of these scenes here.