general feihong-s wife

I think he's saying '成何体统' which is the name of the drama, meaning 'how inappropriate!' or 'this is ridiculous!'

💗

Oh definitely

First kiss in Episode 20

Personally, I really love the difference in perception between Yu Wanyin and Xiahou Dan, how Yu Wanyin is much more sympathetic and treats the others like real people while Xiahou Dan reduces them to 2D characters and is much more focused on the two of them, being immediately distrustful of anyone who isn't written in favour of their situation. They're both justified in their actions and opinions from different perspectives. The reason why I like it so much is that in this kind of situation it is more common for the viewer to side with Yu Wanyin and see Xiahou Dan as heartless and unreasonable, however, when looking from Xiahou Dan's perspective, his perspective can be seen as a coping mechanism for all of the trauma that he's endured over the past fifteen years. "The people who isolated and abused me are not actually real. They are just characters, not real living people. I come first."

so true i felt physically unwell after watching that, fucking insane

ikr it's so jarring like the first zhang san diary was kind of cute and funny with him planting SOS (horrifying when you think abt it) but it's just gotten more and more traumatic so everytime I hear 'zhang san diary' I have to brace myself to see a kid being horrifically isolated and abused.

I need to continue my rewatch but my god their chemistry is next level

Yes, I think XJ as a character in the novel is much more suited to a novel format than to a drama. Another character that I miss is Lin Shuanghe, but I think it's interesting how they combined his character with Cheng Lisu, especially as I would say that Lin Shuanghe is a more important character than Cheng Lisu.

I just finished the novel too and it's so good! Finishing it feels a little bittersweet. I can't help but grieve the loss of He Yunsheng retrospectively. I think the character change of XJ is honestly really interesting and it just shows how at the end of the day, the novel and the drama are two different stories. I have a craving to rewatch the drama now because it's so different from the novel!

This is exactly right, I feel like if they could've filled out the episodes to 40 then there would have been a lot more time for the events to actually breathe and also to have a stronger emotional connection with HY in the beginning.

if it's too long for you, then don't read it? I wasn't aware that reviews had such strict criteria.

When he said that I was like "No, you didn't. No, you can't."
I'm genuinely tweaking trying to understand where he gets the confidence from. Calling her second-rate as well? It's actually laughable. Does he believe that the title of General Feihong comes with some magical powers that helped He Yan to become the best? No, she did that all through her own hard work and dedication. He's the second-rate one riding off her effort and achievements because he thinks that he's somehow entitled to it.
She was fighting on the battlefield and strategising in the war room while he was playing with a candle in the temple. How does he not even have the self-awareness to understand that he has never once done something successfully?

I guess his plan is actually a pretty good one but he forgets that he doesn't have the capability to carry it out. Does he realise that he still needs to rely on his own skills? Having the title of General doesn't give him magical powers, especially when he's up against the person who dedicated her life to claiming the role he now comfortably enjoys. It is super embarrassing.

she didn't die in the drama, she did get stabbed and fell into the river, but her master saved her life and cured her blindness. after a month of recovery, she goes to join the army.

in the novel she did die and was reborn, though

Both of his parents had just died. He already had an unfavourable view of HRF at that point because the Fuyue soldiers came late and he thinks that his father died because of that. He literally just watched his father die in battle and faced betrayal from somebody that he knew from when he was 15 whom his father held in high regard. How detached and objective do you expect him to be immediately after enduring such a traumatising experience? Furthermore, he doesn't have a solid reason to question HRF's identity after that as his suspicions are validated by HRF sending somebody to kill him.
Also, (this is information I understand from novel readers) HY moved away from the capital and became a fearsome general there. Her and XJ hadn't seen each other for years by the time of Mingshui Battle. War changes people. Is he supposed to expect that a naive 15 year old, now a hardened war general years later, to act exactly the same?
And, yes, to the audience, the switch is obvious, but the imperial court doesn't actually know anything about HRF. That's why it's highlighted that HRF is staying in the capital, because HY didn't spend time in the capital after she graduated.

sorry, I didn't know, thank you so much for telling me!

just so you know, in mandarin 'ta' means both he or she. it's a gender neutral term and it's understood by others using context clues. translations get it wrong a lot of the time as understanding it does rely on the rest of the sentence or conversation. therefore, it's less obvious than, for example, in English, which gender the other characters perceive HY as, as there is no specific way to say it.

su yishui cast a spell to make mu qingge look different when she gets reborn. she's played by xiang hanzhi for the sake of the viewers. additionally, su yishui battled the black dragon to obtain its blood, which concealed xue ranran's soul.