nephie

ep 16 //

What a shame a potentially interesting story keeps getting bogged down by strange directorial/editing decisions.
Poor Ah Rong is one of the worst cases of canon fodder I've seen in a while. Her husband Qin was the guy who had been teaching Zhan martial arts right? If he had even mentioned his wife sooner or they had dropped a few little nuggets it would have been more impactful when she died. I felt bad for her as a woman, but the narrative also wanted us to feel sad because she was the wife of a friend of the FL/family, but the way they revealed everything was so choppy.

Onto what happened... so like they went into the place and Yu Qi was like "this place is sus" and just disappeared??? then seemed to forget he found it sus when Jiang Si got sick and somehow everyone except 1 person needed to leave?
Everything was just so sudden 😅

She's horrible but I think I've seen much worse in terms of annoying characters. The Cheng grandmother in Love Like The Galaxy and the concubine in Story of Minglan immediately come to mind.
At least this aunt isn't screeching and whining all the time lol

technically anything with major spoilers should be made a hidden comment. i think it should be on by default 😅 i don't want to be the one who ruins someone's day. (although of course looking at comments at all is not risk-free)

People on here really throw all their empathy for female characters out the window if she makes a decision they don't like.

There is no such thing as a perfect victim. And "right or wrong" is not so black and white. Trauma responses can often be detrimental to the person experiencing it and the people around them. It's well established that Yifan's response is to hide/runaway.
Add on top of that, being scared that her uncle will continue to target the people around her, I think many people would choose to distance themselves in that situation too.
How many male leads have we seen suddenly turn distant or cruel in order to make an FL leave them in order to protect her? Not saying it's a great trope but at least here it's not just machismo but also something deeper rooted that has nothing to do with Sang Yan at all. & I am glad that even though he is hurt (& he does deserve feel hurt) he isn't making her trauma about himself.

Even though it's painful, it's somewhat refreshing to see a story where falling in love doesn't magically make trauma vanish.

Do I wish she would have just taken the leap and told him everything so he could help her? Of course. But it's not just about trust either.


Anyway I hope Yifan and Sangyan can have their uninterrupted happiness soon

Thanks so much! I'm pretty new to watching cdramas so I've mostly just been picking up things along the way, but this will be really helpful in understanding things better.

Do you know any resources that go into detail about this? I assume that the european titles used in subs are often just a close approximation of the rank in the hierarchy, but it would be nice to know the actual ranks names/meanings.

Lin Yishen running away when he sensed the girls wanted to take photos bc he's been friends w them for so long he already knows the signs 🤣

I heard they cut of lot of episodes, to go from like 36 to 23 is pretty significant. Maybe it was a secondary storyline/2nd couple stuff? By my rough calculations a 23 ep cdrama is around the same runtime as a standard 16 ep kdrama so based on the synopsis it probably doesn't need to be any longer than that.
Still, must be a bummer for those who worked hard during filming only for it to get cut after the fact (whether it was the leads or supporting cast).

ep 11 //

i'm a bit confused about the logic behind the FL's decisions & also ML's thoughts? She knew there was a large chance that the coin/seal was sent by the ML to test her, but why did she lead him to someone from the sect then? And then he told his aide that she doesn't know anything but that the courtesan is a spy. For the ML, maybe he is covering for her and still does find her suspicious but he also likes her i guess so he wants to give her an out? but if he truly belives she has nothing do to with the sect, he would be stupid because obviously she knows stuff she shouldn't in that case.

As for FL i can't understand the reasoning at all. She clearly views the sect people favorably, but she also knows they and the ML will be at odds. If her only purpose was to throw the ML a bone, doesn't she know that could end up with her sect friends dead? So does she not actually care? maybe it will make sense later with more backstory revealed but right now it feels like she just threw her sect sister under the bus to take the MLs suspicions away from herself.

eh the display works fine for me, i can differentiate the past flashbacks and present scenes without much trouble, it's just sometimes the timeline or timing is odd or messy.

They haven't really made that clear at this point (ep 8) yet. I had originally interpreted that line to mean recognized him as the one who rescued her.

It seems in the source material they did meet before as kids once but that hasn't been shown yet in drama. even if that is the case, it didnt at all feel like he liked her at first, the behavior switch stills feels rather sudden to me.

Same most of the time. it's still early so I might end up caving later 😂

i think i'm gonna wait until the next set of episodes or even a few days. i'll binge once they stop being sad lol

it is a mistranslation, i guess they haven't fixed it. he said actually something like "are you still hestitant to break up [with your boyfriend]?" so he doesn't actually know at that point

Finished ep 8, right now my rating for this show is 7.5 - i am enjoying it, but it's got some strange pacing and plot issues. i read a teeny bit of the webcomic, and the ML liking FL lines up with that. but in the drama, what happened to him being suspicious of her? there weren't any scenes that really show his suspicion turning into liking her. it feels like him being suspicious was added on later. FL also seems quite comfortable with him despite thinking he killed her.
also, i am used to these dramas having tonal whiplash but its quite severe here. we went from a brutal abuse and murder case to slice of life running a shop.
(because are you really a chinese historical romance protagonist if you aren't running some sort of shop to make money? lol)

I wish the script would spend less time on the grandpa storyline/2nd couple and would give a little more about Sang Yan's work life & friends instead.

I haven't read the novel so this is just my speculation - it is hard to be convicted for assault because it is difficult to prove. Doubly, from the flash ack it seems like it was an attempted assault but was interrupted so even if he was convicted it would probably be a very light sentence. (This is also assuming it happened only the 1 time. Its not clear yet.)

In my opinion acupuncture is a pseudoscience, at best there is a mild therapeutic effect due to placebo if the person believes it's working (after all, it does require you to lay down and be calm so that it can be applied in the first place) And the risks of injury or infection if not done properly scare me. I can suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy the drama though lol & I do find it interesting through a historical perspective.

The apple thing is basically aromatherapy. I am sure it helps for some people. Though even in the show they later say the insence satchet is better than the apple.

For things like the actual medicine, I am sure there is some benefits/effects in the same way that eating a healthy meal would naturally have benefits or like taking supplements.

if i had the resources to make edits, i would have definitely made a "if The Best Thing was a thriller" edit like that 😂

i do agree a lot of modern dramas make mundane things seem like life or death to make the stakes feel higher. for example i was recently watching Go Go Squid, and i feel like the whole issue between the ML there and his friends in the past was really weird for ML to hold such a passionate grudge over. but if a modern drama doesn't have a thriller element (lovely runner, strong woman do bong soon) they kind have to ham things up.

though personally, i don't feel they are going overboard here. he doesn't have a problem with her going, if he did then he wouldn't have continued pursuing her. i think the issue stems from herself and how her ex treated her regarding the issue, shooting down the idea early on in their relationship and then calling her selfish and a terrible partner when she brought it up again.
on top of that from her perspective her ex bf being away a lot and basically being a long distance relationship that failed, it feels decently realistic to me that she would be scared to try again and worried about being too selfish :/