AleksandraSucur

I also think he is acting. He pretends he fell in Northern Qin's trap making them believe that Beifu Army is now on its way to Jiankang and that they have a free road to invade

It looks like Li Mao fell into Eagle King's trap. Li Mao certainly wanted Beifu Army, it was his second request to XWY when he imprisoned him, more important than the divorce from Yaoyao, which was only his third request, so all the evidences point he imprisoned Xiaos to get Beifu army (=the only power which can restrict his power).

But, there's still a small factor of uncertainty and probablity he is faking he fell in that trap. Li Mao knows the GT's death was staged by the Northern Qin to stop the Northern Expedition of Beifu Army - this was clear from his words during the punishment of YuanJi in the court. Thus, it is still unclear why he wants XWY to pass the army over to him, unless XWY wrote clear instructions how to command it in the esseys he wrote in prison and gave to LM. In such a scenario, he only pretend to fall in Eagle King's trap (he will detain Xiaos, punish YuanJi who'll come to defend them, take JiaYu etc), while the Northern Expedition can secretly continue and take Northern Qin by surprise...

Finally, in ep 24 Li Mao reached the point we were awaiting for so many eps and choose between being committed to good governance (following XWY's vision and reforms) and being the ultimate villain.

Consort An, a biological mother of Li Mao, was his lover. She was executed with her clan. Beside, those two were noble families and he is a paladin of noble families' rights which emperor Wenxi tried to suppress and counter-balance by pushing these two clans under the bus...

Yeah, that's also true.

I think we should take into account that independently of Li Mao's governance abilities and hypocrisy he in a way "inherited" by his father/teacher, Li Mao (and not the emperor, who lacks the necessary strenght and motivation, but is intelligent enough to delegate tasks, dividing power between LM and XWY) is called to decide on heavy unresolved issues of the past generation and in particular on the class clash which erodes Ye from within. In these past issues, nobody is innocent: Lu-An were not guilty of crimes for which they were convicted, but they were still nobles who suppressed and even killed scholars from commoners' class and we have seen even now the nobles protesting against the equal opportunity examination system. Emperor Wenxi and his circle of followers wanted to counter-balance their power bc detrimental for the state, but they've convicted these two families for crimes they did not commit, based on fabricated evidences... These issues are vicious circles which perpetuate(d) injustice and complexity to govern for decades.
When taken into account, these issues are valid reasons for Li Mao's leniency in the court. At the same time, he sided with XWY's pov by aknowledging the old selection system was the main generator of injustice, social tensions and overall weakness of the state and with XWY's "cut the Gordian knot" solution by establishing a permanent selection system on equal footing.
So, yes, the emperor has a better personality than Li Mao, but Li Mao is a better choice for ruling in the exact direction XWY wants

you are welcome 🙂

the emperor knows Li Mao's true identity, his mom sent persons to check on his wet nurse who gave him to the Qi couple when he was a baby. She didn't act and didn't oppose him becoming a CP, thinking she'll get a timely opportunity to expose him (probably when her son, the emperor, dies) establishing her own (He) dynasty.
It was mentioned the emperor knows, but there's another person in the palace who knows but wasn't mentioned: ED's eunuch, used and discarded by Li Mao

Ofc, I agree with you. I think the author initially imagined his character as a flawed person, blinded by his obsession with Lu-An case to the point in which his judgment is clouded. A hypocrite who built up his own soft power as a great scholar, titled as a Grand Tutor not on the grounds of his great academic/scientific achievements but bc he offered some miserable support to poor scholars (only to use them as tools) while being a paladin of noble families who detest those poor scholars... The script offered other examples of his misjudgment of characters: he underestimated his own wife, not to mention how he misjudged things Lejun was capable of when under stress to defend her "brother's" interests. But I also think such a grey character (and basically a villain, despite his just reason) deserved more articulated characterisation of his inner contraddictions, both in terms of time/number of scenes which would better explain his flaws and in terms of performance. I've seen Peter Ho in another "obsessed man" role (🤦‍♀️), he did better in this drama but still underperformed...

Xiao Yao wasn't "banished from Jian Kang", he was only stripped off of his titles. It's a light sentence for a person with executive and supervisor's responsibilities. In any country in any time he'd at least go strait to a jail if the construction collapse he was encharged of caused more than 1000 person to die. Instead, he was given the opportunity to atone for his negligence (he simply ought to be more cautious, this was not the first time Xiaos were framed, preventing set-ups), using the bamboo cage & pebbles method.

Person who was banished was scholar Liu (aka Pei) who forged false letters and ledgers. That sentence is light as well. He was fully conscious of the fact the entire Xiao family would be falsely indicted and executed and that he was using such a nice person as princess He to get handwritings of the family members. He was ready to run away with money given by GT and if GT didn't send his henchman to kill him, he wouldn't confess at all, he'd be on the run.

As for the GT... well, we can't expect Li Mao to condemn his own father, espc. bc Li Mao knew about the set up and could have prevented it if he wanted. But although he has 9 powers, he is still not the emperor... (beside, we've seen the ep 24 trailer and know GT will be indicted...).

So, I agree with you that Li Mao isn't worthy to govern, but without an alternative, we can only trust XWY's ability to teach him gradually. As a commander of Beifu army, he can depose him anyways, anytime he wants. XWY has a real, tangible power of his own, he doesn't need a controversial Wenxi CP title. And with a genius wife he married, that army will soon have the most advanced weapons... If I can see any logical flaws in the plot, I can't understand why GT married such a formidable daughter to XWY. GT is highly educated, he couldn't missed this girl's talent... A talent one wants to keep for himself instead of making it a gift for the only power which can rival the imperial (and his own son's) power.

It isn't unfair, it's so called executive responsibility, well known in numerous legal contexts, all over the world, in past and present times. Even today, if a construction collapses, the manager must take both material and moral responsibility - including criminal responsibility if there were human victims (and in the canal collapse more than 1000 persons lost their lives). The concept is also well known through the idiom "the buck stops here"
In charge of construction, he had a supervisor's responsibility as well. He could have "passed the buck" (=responsibility), but he asked for it himself. He could have expected to be set up (when Xiaos were framed before) but evidently wasn't careful enough.
An and Lu families were framed in the same way, while using another technique (bamboo cage + pebbles) which was banished by Wenxi emperor who wanted to get rid of the power prominent noble families and made an example of their execution...

I think WY must be older. According to PBG's reconstruction, 24 y prior to the timeline at the beginning of the drama, CP Wenxi was a child small enough not to remember his biological mom but not exactly a baby when his adoptive father swaped his identity with his own younger son. So, 2 y later, he should be older than 26.
The same goes with JY, she was an orphan when her foster mom adopted her 16 y ago to the initial timeline, but we have no clue how old she was at the time. I think their exact age isn't particularly relevant, the writer simply let us to see their age as we think fit.

I agree, 30 would be just right.
As for Lejun, she killed her benefactor, she must suffer for a very great thing to redeem herself.

yes, there are parts of the story, at least two subplots, I wished extended...
But, on the other hand, the right lenght of this kind of drama should be around 28 eps. So many plots were unnecessarily dragged to meet 40 eps.

After being annoyingly hinted throughout the drama from the very start and I've hoped to see it ended asap, I still didn't expect this Lu-An back story to be closed so abruptly. Although we could have guessed a great deal of it, what we couldn't is still pretty shocking and requiring some follow up as in the trailer for the next ep.
After that, only 4 ep are left to wrap up the fate of Lejun, the Qin kingdom and displaced or inslaved Ye people, to solve the blood clots in Wu Yi's brain as a condition sine qua non for "happily ever after" and to make Li Mao either a good emperor or an unreedemable villain.

It wouldn't have killed them if they've made 3-4 eps more (can't believe I'd ever wished for a drama to last longer)...

Right, I've assumed the emperor dies after issuing the memorial.. being half dead already, that wouldn't be a surprise. I also think Li Mao will be left on the throne, being the emperor of Ye looks like a penance...
Yeah, they gave us slices of that back story from 25 y ago and till now they didn't show anything unimportant...

You're so right about the "victim mindset" which is essential even for such a strong relationship with his "sister" who developed that mindset even deeper than him. What should motivate Li Mao is what XWY said: to regain Qizhou and settle back displaced people who suffered the same tragedies as they did but he is in "frozen state" for the reasons we've discussed above: he can't move in the right direction and concentrate on good governance bc he will feel like XWY's "puppet" as he said. Maybe his sister can influence him and melt his freeze. She isn't bright, but she always believed in him and in his capacities. We'll see how the drama will solve this problem, till this point the plot was mostly well written with puzzle pieces well assembled

"a pretty shitty job that is fitting for a pretty shitty person" 😂😂😂👌
But I doubt he'll get over losing Jiayu, bc it means losing to XWY and he badly wants to win over him at least once in his life. All his steps back were just temporary, while he is permanently convinced (lying to himself) XWY manipulated him into giving up the girl for power.
As for his bloodline... the deception wasn't his fault actually and unfortunatelly ED He assured there are no Li descendants around (except XWY, who doesn't want "a pretty shitty job", lol)... Tricky situation

In that case, Li Mao will probably destroy that emperor's indictment to falsely accuse Xiaos of murder.
But even if Jing'an Duke had legal basis to assassinate GT, the reason why the emperor indicted him could have smth to do with his obstraction of works and that opposition again could be related to the old case GT is so obsessed with, right?

teaser 23: if XWY dies, A'Yao will reveal he's GT's son and not a Li at all.
teaser 24: "who holds the phoenix token will bring peace to Ye" means: upgrade Ye's military supremacy - with superior weapons forged from better minerals in location indicated by token - and you will assure peace for Ye. As JiaYu already cracked its concrete meaning which has nothing to do with the legend told about it, ofc, the token is useless. But JiaYu's importance is pivotal in this context and LM will hardly accept her being at XWY's side.
Finally, the teaser probably intentionally left out what daddy said before GT's "aren't you" and the moment he killed that hypocrite. Those who know Mandarin can tell us what is written on the tablet daddy shows to GT. I guess it has smth to do not only with Lu-An case but also with waterway-land improvement works GT was opposing to in the court.