absurd

You have to take into account, that this passed censorship. ML won't be a bad person, otherwise they wouldn't have been greenlighted.
He is not nice and definitely has some toxic traits, but I'm pretty sure there won't be any "forcing" here. The drama already got some for the promo pics where FL looked like ML's accessory. With current trends in China and censorship some possessiveness and sabotage for her current relationship is probably as toxic as it will get.

Am I the only one who thinks that his dad excuse for not saving him is kinda weak? Either dad is lying or they really did not show the situation properly. From where I'm sitting he had all the time in the world to save both.

So far this the first republican drama that I don't want to drop as soon as I started.
Let's see how it goes. First 4 eps were really interesting

I am... not sure. Like, I finished it and it wasn't bad per say, but I'm also not impressed. Kinda choppy, way tooo much talking in the end there, but the overall story is interesting and they did tie everything up. Idk, it's just little not there, doesn't flow nicely, too much time on things that weren't that important, not enough drama for the twist in the end. The endless speeching really took away the impact.

Literally same. It's just not keeping me interested. There were some parts in the beginning, where I thought "now we're talking", but drama kinda changed directions several times and in the end I got bored too.

All scenes with her dad give me creeps. He's such a diva

My problem was not the lack of conventional happy ending, I've watched a lot of c-drama and know how they work. I also know that a lot of them f-up the ending pretty badly, for censorship or other reasons. This ending to me feels like writers went "we wrote ourselves into a corner, it's either complete tragedy or time-travel fix-it, let's go with fix-it". I'm not saying it's bad in general, but I personally hate endings like these. Heavily traumatized or not, it was their life and what made them who they are, erasing that fro easy happy end looks like a cheap trick to me

Pretty good so far. Not very original, definitely seen a lot of the same set ups before, but so far well executed. Though I'm not a big fan of the whole "female household squabbling for every little thing" trope, it gets a bit repetitive.
But leads are interesting, I like the very slow burn.

Jiu Ying is like the most typical abstract villain ever, just some kind of Sauron like evil spirit that wants to destroy the world or whatever. Seems more like a place holder to me, as in we need some enemy to fight, there you go

I didn't skip everything! 😅 just yknw the repeat. I got the gist of what was happening

The "erase everything, like it never happened" was probably the worst ending they could have pulled for me. Even "everybody dies, nobody lives" would have been better. It was so disappointing, like they erased all the character and relationship development for everyone, erased Ji Ling and all of his sacrifices from existence and worst of all put pour Li Jie back where he started with no resolution. God, I hated the ending, it does not take away from the story, but makes it disappointing, especially considering there's no place before it where you could stop.

This was pretty good considering how many twists and turns the drama took. I kinda dropped it when I first tried it, probably because I wasn't in the mood. But on the second try, got into it pretty fast. Twists and turns, though for me make it a one time watch only, after knowing everything it's not as interesting to watch. But as a first time watch very engaging. I found the Lu Wuyi/Ji Ling pair much more interesting than the other one, and it seemed like director did too, he gave them a lot more attention and detail than the Wu/Wu couple. WSG and WWY living as a married couple arc was probably the most interesting part of their story, but right after they got out it went into the most boring trope ever, so I lost any interest I had.
Also poor Wu Shiguang got a bit sidelined for most of the drama, and now that I think about it if you remove WSG from the story, not much has to change, which is not great for ML.
Overall interesting to watch, pulls you in and not that many plotholes, considering the amount of turns the story takes. I also haven't skipped really, except for the Lu Wuyi redoing the saving of JL for like 200 times, I watched maybe two and the last one, did not have the patience for the rest.
They effed up the ending though, for me personally. I'll put why under the spoler

That part was what actually put the last nail in the metaphorical coffin of their relationship for me, not her giving him a choice, but the way she first decided to just sneak out, instead of having a conversation with him like an adult. And then, when he cought her, acted like she was giving him some important life lesson, while giving some lame excuses like "you will change and become your father", instead of straight up telling him "sorry, but family business is more important, you can stay here, but it doesn't work for me". Her speech sounded like a load of bs, covering for the fact that he is always going to come second after the tea. And there's nothing wrong with that, that's her life and blood, but it along with her fake moral superiority just drove the point home, that this relationship is not something I'm invested it. The story is good, would have preferred a bittersweet ending is all.

Saying that douban ratings are reliable, when fan wars can literally tank even the best dramas there, is a crazy take

I agree that ratings are not always right, especially on mdl. I've seen some pretty good dramas that barely pass 8 here and some pretty sh*tty ones, that have almost 9. But 6.7 is way too low to even bother, there are other things I can spend my time on, thanks

Ok. It does pick up after about episode 11. Here's hoping. Still not at the edge of my seat, but definitely more interesting.

Oh, wow. I was planning to watch this later, since first episode was pretty good. But 6.7? MDL ratings are definitely not reliable, but when it goes this far, it has to be extremely bad. Reviews don't give me hope either. Guess it's good I didn't waste my time

Imho, the last part just did not fit into the overarching story and looked like an afterthought. If it was a separate drama or season, with more developed characters sure. But they just dropped like 10 characters on our head and expected me to care about what happens to them. No way in hell.
And RSB behavior, where instead of talking to him like two adults, she decided to just leave. And after being confronted, came up with some absolutely idiotic reasons why she's leaving, while acting like she was teaching him a life lesson. This made me realize "I want them to break up". I want him to stay, take care of kids and become the head of the family, maybe build a family with someone else later on. While she goes back and lives for her precious tea (which she obviously values more than any person in her life), while watching her sisters be happy and carefree.
The drama in and of itself was not bad, it just (in my opinion) begged for the bittersweet ending.

One Chancellor is more than enough. But they seem to come and go. Admittedly I didn't get far, just can't get into. Skipping so much from the get go is my indication that this is not for me and I'm wasting my time

That really is not my main problem with this, if it was the only thing that bothers me, I would continue watching.
Also what often happens in dramas, is that child emperor is a weak idiot and that's why he gets manipulated. Here he's definitely none of that, that's why it's weird for me.
But again, talking out politics for 80% of every episode so far is what made me drop it. I personally don't find it interesting