AleksandraSucur

I am glad you're admitting 👌
Now, don't complain I'm manipulative, too 😂
There's nothing wrong in being manipulative, humankind is like that since they are born: even a newborn baby is capable of manipulating his/her mother with a cry, it's one of the first things we learn in life: if I cry, my dear slave mother will appear. Because babies don't cry only when they are hungry or sleepy or they feel too hot or too cold, they cry whenever they are bored and want attention.
Are you not manipulative, writing here everyday and seeking attention in the same way?

Indeed, when I saw the dream scene... I was: oh, no, that was just a dream (cause I saw it in a teaser before and thought "wow, they are moving fast") 😍. And then started to sing REM's Loosing My Religion, lol.
Gu guy is not a bad person I think, he lost his family in some set-up, probably by the same people who brought disaster to CY and WY's family. He was just not open with the FL about his reasons for choosing to enter that duke's family.
As for the assassin... no. It wasn't CY or WY plan. They've clearly split their tasks: she was to block that Yao general from leaving the banquet as WY can search for evidences in his mansion. If they had that plan, she would simply await for that arrow and the general would be blocked to go out.
Btw, that arrow was actually directed towards her, she was a target to be killed. With a crossbow. Maybe the same type that the traitors gave to Beiqi. Who wants her dead? I suspect the wife of Gu guy, who is a daughter of the traitor duke. Otherwise, why would she follow the FL and see she hurted herself? Maybe she told her father she can't stand her and the father organised the assassin.
There's also a slight probability that the assassin was sent by the Yao general, who may have left instructions to his people in the case so. barged into his study, he also managed to send a word to his mansion before it was impossible to leave the banquet.

you did 😂😂😂👌

I see Story of Minglan and Blossoms in Adversity among your 12 all time favs... so, I bet you'll enjoy this one, because this story has many interesting elements present in those two dramas: political intrigue, family struggle, strong female characters and a romance which challenges the norms (and in a very original way)

People who are mostly downrating this drama are either totally ignorant of history or have no patience to learn smth about it, or trully can't relate with the plot and characters subject to the real(istic) customs and societal norms of the past. I can't understand why these people watch a drama indicated as of historical genre, continuously complaining in this section about smth (like patriarchal norms) they see in the drama (and which are even softened to be digestible to the nowadays audience) but was percieved as completely "normal" at the time.

Then, there's a minority which complains about the age gap between the leads and finally there's an individual who dropped it a long ago after rating it 1, but remains in this section writing every single day at any time, complaining that the FL is too manipulative

I don't know (and don't care) about the novel, but in the drama the reason why certain sisters decided to leave Wei family is different.

They chose to go back to their birth families NOT to remarry but to preserve Wei family from "decline". A family, considered as an "enlarged family" because sons continue to live in the same houshold with their wives, is "in decline" when there's only one single man (who still has to enter his marriage contract) left (sorrounded by just widows), because it is way weaker than a patriarcal family with bunch of healthy married men (and supported by that vast net of affiliations), as the Weis were before the tragedy.

That's why they remain supporting his noble status claim and office. After he achieved that, it's fine if one widow remains as a matriarch to look after the household and children but the whole bunch of widows around an unmarried (and still unaffiliated) man doesn't work in favour of their "chastity" either.
By returning to their birth family, they think they can influence/pressure their birth family to maintain good relations/alliance with WY even at the cost of returning to be "expandable pawns" (as women were considered at the times), sent to fulfill some new marriage alliance. It's a simple feudal logic and morals of the time

Oh no, that was just his dream! Poor boy 😂😂😂

I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream...

That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight, losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no, I've said too much
I haven't said enough
But that was just a dream... lalalala

I am not sure about that... Both the levirate marriage and woman's chastity (even as a widow) were known concepts and practices in history of "western" (read: European) countries, too.

Levirate: Although we can't say it was a custom, we know it existed also because it was banned in ancient Rome with the spread of Christianity, why would anyone prohibit smth. which doesn't exist? Certain cities, like Athens in Ancient Greece had even stranger costums, like epikleros, obliging a daughter of a man without male descendants to marry her father's closest male relative (ie. her uncle, or her father's cousin), even if she was already married (she ought to divorce in that case, leaving eventual children behind ofc). Throughout medieaval and renessaince times there were such cases all over the Europe, btw. everybody heard of Shakespeare, why would Hamlet question the morality of his mother's and his uncle's marriage like some Neo-Confucianist "in the rotten kingdom of Denmark"?

Woman's chastity: girls were mostly considered pawns in their birth families, ready to be sacrificed for political purposes and "family interests". This was a norm in all feudal societies. And when they were remarried, they were viewed as "bi***es" (seductress, witches etc) by the society. The most notable case is Lucrezia Borgia, the pope's daughter, which was married three times (the first time at the age of 12) in her father's and brother's interest, the second husband was even killed by her brother and she was separated from her son who was sent to his paternal aunt. How the society viewed her and how she passed down in history? She was vilified for her "derranged morals" for centuries.

So, I think it doesn't matter where are we from, the history of humankind is actually one, with very few significant differences. The only difference is whether we know it (and learn from it) or not.

The reason why sisters in law chose to go back to their birth families wasn't to remarry but to preserve Wei family from "decline". A family is always considered as an "enlarged family": a single man (who still has to enter his marriage contract), sorrounded by widows, is way weaker than a patriarcal family with bunch of healthy married men, as the Weis were before the tragedy. That's why they remain supporting his noble status claim and office. After that, it's fine if one widow remains as a matriarch to look after the household and children but the whole bunch of widows around an unmarried man doesn't work in favour of their "chastity".
By returning to their birth family, they think they can influence/pressure their birth family to maintain good relations/alliance with WY even at the cost of returning to be "expandable pawns" (as women were considered at the times), sent to fulfill some new marriage alliance.

exactly, I am glad so. else noticed this thing. "Releasing" his sisters-in-law was an act of great generosity from WY. Children belonged to the paternal family in all aspects, so they could have not taken them to their birth family even if they wished... in drama this thing was greatly softened, but for the rest, I am truly amazed how this drama recreated the real geist of the Song under a fictional dynasty name. Way better and more realistic than many other dramas overtly set up in Song.

the fictional dynasty in this drama is greatly inspired by historical Song dynasty, it mimics its costumes, armors and societal norms. Levirate marriages were not uncommon in other periods of times and were very common among all the neigbouring countries of the Song (with the purpose to preserve family alliances or the wealth brough in the family in the form of bridal dowry or, if they had children with their dead husband, to keep mothers along with their children). But the Song public morals and norms were largely influenced by Neo-Confucianism, a philosophy favoring (particularly female) prudery, stood strongly against the levirate practice forbidding such marriages by law (sometimes, even with death punishments for both woman and man).
Therefore, it isn't Chinese censorship, but the existance of such a prohibition in real history to set up such legal/ethical environment in this drama

She may SEEM so, but she is neither hypocrite nor psychopat. Before "taking advantage of a coffin", she was even more brazen when - as a daughter in deep mourning - publicly showed off with a dance to draw attention of Wei Jun.
Such a weird behaviour is indeed due to her personality and "whatever it takes" attitude to achieve her goals. Being determined to uncover the treason which killed her father and defeated his army is not a sign of mental insanity but of her fighting spirit to achieve justice and truth. Besides, she is carefully (=tactically) weighing and is (rationally) aware the costs of these acts before she puts them into practice. And from her pov, the cost of appearing hypocrite & psycho, loosing the reputation etc. is still a small price to pay to uncover the truth.

I agree, we are probably a different, more experienced, generation... Maybe that's also the reason why we understand Chu Yu's "whatever it takes" attitude... as well as why this attitude stirs up admiration in Wei Yun. I agree with you, Ding Yu Xi delivers this character impeccably. He is an actor who can play anything. Generally speaking, today the younger generation of C-actors has more talented and better trained and skilled actors/actresses compared to 10 or 20 years ago.

I've got you don't like this drama and that's perfectly fine with me.
But if you dislike my answer to ZK_LX, why do you attack an unrelated AI (beside, I may use Deepseek) instead of me?

I haven't read the novel but from reading comments of those who've read it in this section, I've got a general idea on certain differences and think that:

1. the screen adaptation actually may have IMPROVED the original story making its characters' actions more logical despite it sharpened (as all drama adaptations and in particular "idol-dramas" do) conflictual issues among them (FL relation with her sister and mother, grumpy maid...). Until the story maintains its intrinsic logic, I personally don't have problems with screen exaggerations... 3 or 10 years of age gap makes no difference to me if the story I watch is convincing and a person can be an "alpha" at any age. If I continue to watch it, it means it still convinces me, otherwise I'd drop it.

2. you've said the FL is "showing off" but I've read that the most showing off scene (her dance scene to grasp the attention of the eldest bro) was taken from the novel. That means her character have certain contradictory traits even in the novel, at least she is capable of taking the initiative. And I am sorry to say, I have problems with that particular scene taken from the novel for several reasons:
i. her sword dancing felt so off, why would a mourning daughter welcome another general in such a "showing off" way? Belonging to the same military class, she and her bro could have had hundreds of other ways to approach Wei bro and show him the stolen crossbow mechanism. Despite the Chu family decline and the fact the emperor dislikes groupings of military families...
ii. this single scene was probably the reason the production (mis)casted Victoria Song, because she is a professional dancer, but as an actress... I remember her only in Luoyang, and I remember her, alas, as a major miscast in that drama: 0 chemistry with the ML, bad in delivering her lines, just looking ok in martial arts moves. Ok, in that one, she was playing side by side with Huang Xuan and Wang Yibo and her underperformance was more noticeable, but in this, less ambitious drama, she has the same stiff face and evidently a wrong idea of how THIS character should be played.
iii. as I am contemporarily watching other dramas, it's natural to compare them, wondering about the functionality of certain things they have in common. For instance, I am currently watching Whispers of Fate, too, in which the ML actor also started as a dancer and had a great dancing scene, but which was totally functional to explain the story, hinting to the audience smth important (sublime, celestial) about his character.
iv. on the contrary, the dancing scene in FfL wasn't functional, it failed to convey important info about the FL, the BGM didn't fit and it wasn't even well choreographed, so it felt too long.
3. Both the novel and the drama take smth from the real (Song dynasty) history, in particular the Wei family is loosely inspired by legendary general Yang Ye and his sons (Song style is particularly noticeable in their armors). I appreciate the authors of both have chosen fictional dynasty name while focusing on certain great issues of THAT time while telling their own fictional story. Among these issues, the loyalty and/or betrayal towards a country, a homeland, is certainly explored in both. Because, "mountain and river" may mean many things in Mandarin (but the idiom is written and spoken differently, but even in that case, it has nothing to do with "cats and dogs"), while 山河 stands just for the country, the land one perceives as his/her country 😌

It's not your fault at all, I think it's the actress's stiffness in expressions combined with some small loopholes in the script which failed to explain better the reasons why she acts differently with two bros.

I agree it may look incomprehensible, but there are at least two good reasons for her distrust: 1. in her life, she trusted and was betrayed by the Gu guy who left her and married the duke Ning's daughter (although he could have had his good reasons for doing that) 2. being older than him, she still perceives ML as too much boyish... Even on the battlefield, his father and bros left him at the back, the character (very well performed by the actor btw!) actually gives these vibes of so. "in the rear" of his great and mighty brothers, so she also may have an idea of him as not particulary fit for great challenges. Besides, his initial hostility to accept her as his bro's widow made her think he would never accept to cooperate or coordinate with her in the investigation of crossbows which killed her father and defeated his army.
Now, the question why she trusted the eldest bro more... Well, we can't say "she trusted Jun", she just trusted he was not THE TRAITOR who gave the blueprint to the enemy and it seems logical to me: he is a great general with great responsabilities and morals, who was fighting on the battlefield just like her father and bro and had no motives to work against the interests of his fellow soldiers.
It is also logical for ML - especially after we've seen the letter left by his bro and after she saved his life (for the second time, btw) in the secret chamber - to apologize first for being so distrustful towards her.
Could she apologize to him as well? Yes and no. Yes, for the reasons you've said. No, because apologizing isn't in her "alpha" character, she is not a "proper lady", she is a martial artist who doesn't bother herself with what other people think of her, a person of action rather than a person of talk, and who leaves her doings to speak of her. We may not grasp well these traits because the FL actress fails (imo) to deliver this character in full (she delivers well her "serious" traits but not that well her "acting like a scoundrel" side). Maybe this isn't entirely her fault, maybe it's the script or direction, but we've recently seen several other actresses able to perform such "more than one personality" FL's, even in worse written dramas (and which I've rated lowly) than this one (eg. Tian Xi Wei in Moonlit Reunion, Zhou Ye in Legend of Female General...): the audience knew exactly when they were "switching" from serious to unserious, giving depth and making sense of contradictory traits of the characters they were playing. Victoria Song has very few facial expressions, her face is constantly stiff.

all dramas having a "bunch of military sons" are more or less inspired either by historical general Yang Ye of the Song https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Ye and his sons' (browse the sons' names too on wiki, there are many movie and drama references) lives or many fictional stories, folktales, plays and novels written since Ming period to nowadays based on these characters.
This drama mimics the historical Liao-Song conflict under different dynasty names.

three lifespans in this order: sadistic, sexy and sweet.
One knows the actor/actress is skilled when able to catch the attention and "create magic" even when performing the most cliché roles within the most cliché, nonsensical and forgettable plots.
I knew He Lan Dou was this kind of actress, but didn't know Jerome Deng is also this kind of actor.
These two are able to keep the watcher's attention till the very end of otherwise totally unattractive story.

totally agree with you, bravo!

yes. And her sister and mother, too