AleksandraSucur

yeah, I also feel it was just one of his (wet?) dreams, lol

Oh, no, on the contrary, it works too well. 😂😂😂
It's just seeing them so close... 🪭

He is my first sus of being a traitor along with Yao and duke.
Because he was the only person who had sufficient clues (from CY) to figure out WY's and CY's plan at the Princess's banquet. Once returned to his mansion, Yao general said he didn't send that assassin to kill CY but to "get info", which means the assassin got such an order from a person who was in the Princess's estate and was coordinating with Yao.
There's still a small probability so. of other followers heard CY and Hanmei's conversation when she broke into the Princess's garden, but now that we know Hanmei is a Beiqi person... the ambiguity we've all noticed started to make sense

Can't watch, can't watch 🫣🫣🫣

It looks like Gu's wife is stupified by her feelings and easy life she lived to the point she can't come up even with some silly assassination plan. 🤦‍♀️
Turning to our conversation, I start suspecting that scholar toyboy... Yao must have had someone inside the Princess's household and Yao was informed about CY+WY plan. The Princess didn't know about it, but the toyboy got sufficient info from CY to figure it out. Besides, Yao said he didn't send the assassin to kill her but to "get information", so there must have been a person who gave such order to the assassin and the major sus is the toyboy.
What do you think?

Her line delivery in Luoyang was terrible, even I, who usually don't mind voice performance nor speak Mandarin, noticed smth was off. Better being dubbed. Btw. with the exception of her martial arts movements, her acting was so noticeably unnatural and not on par with other leads, that she stood out exactly for her underperformance, stiffness of her face and 0 chemistry with Huang Xuan. Definitely a miscast in that production.
Even in this drama, she is able to produce 4-5 facial expressions at max. I don'ty think she was a good choice to play CY character, especially when she is pretending and acting like a scoundrel

yes, I also feel there's someone else beside general and the duke

Ofc.
It is wrong to manipulate if the goal is to harm other people, espc. if they've done nothing to us or people who can't defend themselves. But the FL's manipulation doesn't harm anybody and in particular she means no harm to the ML or any defenceless person

Ofc. me too, but for some reason I am unable to articulate in this moment (probably from the next eps' trailers, when he hands the evidence to WY), I don't expect that usual scenario, I don't expect him to turn evil, at least not at this point, when he still wants, as a priority in his life, to find out the truth about his own family tragedy.
That's why I ruled him out and suspect just his wife and the general.

😂😂😂

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