AleksandraSucur

wow! 👍

oh, thank you for this. I was just asking myself where I had heard it before. 👌Such a pleasing melody

I've understood her disguise, but how her motivation (to support the rebels) could have been a revenge for her father? When we see her for the first time, GPY is still a fugitive convict and Xianfang Emperor is still alive. That means her dad is also alive and will continue to live until Cixi-prince Gong coup against the council of 8 regents

Thanks for this explanation. But why was she supporting the rebels (was she supporting the rebels in the novel, too)?

Yup, it's Cixi, the one who entered the side door with the "effeminate" 😂 (the bampkin never saw a eunuch). They've chosen an actress who actually resembles her.

Indeed, just seeing such a scenary is relaxing. Watching it with a cup of green or black tea is even better.
Btw, I know (younger) people (from ristoration business) who moved (from Italy) several months in various Chinese tea provinces (Hunan, Yunnan, Fujian, Sichuan... not Anhui) working as farm labour workers there just to acquire deeper knowledge and culture of harvesting, processing and preparation of different kinds of teas in these region. There were special visa internships before covid for such (frequently collective) experiences, I don't know if they were reactivated after. If I were younger, I'd love to experience it a lot, too.

yes, I agree with both of you

yes, they gave her character more space and an opportunity to motivate her choice. And I think this change from the novel plot - although a bit stretched (4eps) as PBG said - was the right thing to do, it gave us also some insight on the general situation of the area in which he'll start his tea business.

thank you for your kind words❤️
Yes, the drama is really good, I agree

If you think better, it's better she dumped him than vice versa. This way, he appears a man who keeps his word despite all the odds, and that was also the point in his efforts to "save" her, thing that would be missing if he returned and she was already married to the other guy.
Maybe it would be better if the script showed the support of common people and peasants in the Southeast which (historical) Taiping army enjoyed (bc of a particular egalitarian belief they've spread and of the land redistribution policy). Li Cheng isn't depicted as a brute, on the contrary, but if the creators put just a little bit more effort in showing he had a decent public support, Ms Bai's choice and love would also seem more acceptable.

Ms. Bai's arc exceeded my expectations, I've thought it would be boring...
Gu Pingwen is also an interesting character, he'll give some headache to his bro...

These verses created a sharp contrast (also called juxtaposition in poetry): a gloomy and hostile atmosphere in the first verse is opposed by the extreme joy/splendor evoked in the second in order to elevate the second feeling. A little rhyme may be helpful:
Gloomy winds and rain; roosters crowing in ceaseless strife
Fortunately, having met my dear brought the brightest bliss to my life

😂 as in De Beer's commercial: "A diamond is forever" 😍😂😂😂

The mutual explanation is why we are on MDL.
Glad to be of some help. 😀

Not only. Someone childess like him, traded his potential "adopted son" with money. But that money was somehow special, neither him believed in his existence. I think the reason why he died so happily was bc he learnt it was

It depends on how many eps you've seen. The ML was exiled in the 5th year of the Xianfeng reign (1855). That emperor died in 1861 and with the enthronement of the new emperor (a child under the Cixi regency), as all other convicts, our fugitive ML is also freed around ep 12 and can move freely towards his home in the South, under the rebel Taiping rule.
The Qing dynasty will fall several decades later, in 1912, with Sun Yat Sen's establishment of the Republic, although the last emperor (Puyi) will be used as a puppet later on

As explained above by another commentator, initially, when he wanted Chang Si's house, he did, but - after GPY helped CS with the Mongolian business - he only wanted to steal this talented man from CS.
But I disagree with this commentator's opinion that his switch of mood/attitude towards GPY happened "for no reason". He is indeed odd but not a fool and I think the storyline gave us sufficient depiction of this character: an envious, greedy, unscrupulous, power- and money-thirsty person with a particularly weak point in the fact he is childless. He is locally very powerful, local (corrupted) magistrate is clearly on his payroll, he can even make Chang Si arrested and then improve CS's prison conditions during his "testing" of GPY's reactions. Ofc. such a person can deal personally and through the local magistrate with his pawnshop managers and staff! So, why did he choose to act against them "per interposita persona", ie. through GPY? 1. Because he feels they don't respect him because he has no son to rely upon 2. to verify how will GPY solve this problem for him. The result was: GPY solved his problem and he (naturally) gave him another (even more impossible) task: to enter into 8 families. Maybe, once he learnt he accomplished this "mission impossible", the script could have been more detailed what kind of thoughts passed his mind, especially when Gu and all 8 families' representatives were imprisoned... but no way any thought of killing him could have passed through his head. He wanted him all for himself. The only thing that could rival and be exchanged with this crazy "totalitarian possession" of GPY was ofc... that treasure he longed for so much but not entirely believed in its existence... That's why he died so happy and fulfilled.

In his sinister blackmailing logic, he wants to make Gu his son and to give him his surname, erasing all his past life. Chang Si and his daughter are witnesses of his identity as well as of the fact Gu is a fugitive, he percieves them as a GTY's weakness, that's why he wants to eliminate them. Besides, he knows - if GTY knows smth about the 8 families' treasure - he'll trade that knowledge for their lives exactly bc they are his "weakness".

yup, those subtle, indecipherable glances and expressions (which can only be performed by actors of Huang Zhizhong's caliber...) are definitely pointing to a "connection". I personally prefer to analyse the hints gradually given to us than to build up theories out of nothing. Deductions usually work out better than imagination. Other hints:
1. Beside those significant expressions, Li WT also seemed to lecture him and the lesson he gave him was clearly opposed to the scholarly pov Gu expressed on 8 families' "ominous money": "money is neither bad nor good, there's no money that cannot be used, there's no person that cannot be employed". A utilitarian logic, perfectly fitting to a honed merchant: "money and persons aren't good or bad, they are just tools to achieve your own agenda"
2. LWT definitely has his own agenda, he seems to work with (and against) both the Qing powers and the Taiping rebels, using them both to establish (at least, apparently) his own stronghold in Shanxi province (ie. far from the capital and both conflicting political factions).
3. The story is set in a very turbulent times (two opium wars with disastrous consequences, heavy consequences in terms of concessions to foreign powers, widespread corruption, weakened faith in the rule of a dynasty gasping in front of the foreign military technology, the richest part of the country under control of a rebel Taiping - just this civil strife caused 20-30 mil. casualties...).
If it was LWT to have obstructed Gu's path to the officialdom, as the synopsis suggests, he'd done him only good: why would anybody work for a dying dynasty, what kind of future would rightful scholar have in such a corrupted country? When LWT reproached his own son, it was clear he despises the officialdom.
So, imo, LWT seems to suggest him that the path (=dao) Gu should take is the path of his own wealth creation and independence from any other power.

call them troubles: he fell in the middle of the civil war... literally, from the frying pan into the fire 😱
The next eps will be veeery interesting, because the peace is still far away