Raymond Ardin

Oh right, I forgot about that. And that it was Prince Kang, not CP. But the point is, he wasn't an official hostage prince. The late Emperor probably secretly kidnapped him or something.

In regards to her parents, the deal with Beimo makes zero sense. "If you remove the obstacle that's preventing us from invading you, we promise not to invade you." Um, what?

I don't think the late Crown Prince (or anyone else in Nanxia) knew that he's the Beimo emperor's uncle. He wasn't being treated like a hostage prince; he was just one of the CP's advisors.

I'm pretty sure CYQ is involved in the fight for the throne in Beimo, so riding off into the sunset isn't realistic. There's more to life than romance, especially for people like him and Mai. But that doesn't mean they can't see each other now that she's leaving the military until she's needed again.

"Dali Temple" isn't an actual temple, but the Supreme Court in imperial China. Similar to the Supreme Court in modern countries, it only reviewed cases that were appealed, and didn't take lawsuits directly. It also jointly (with other justice departments) tried very high-ranking people (royalty) who were accused of serious crimes. For some reason, in detective fiction, it's very common to portray it as a special police force responsible for solving crimes, like a kind of medieval FBI, which is not historically accurate at all, as far as I know.

Right now, no. But with Mai as his teacher, and given that he's intelligent enough to learn all her skills, he will be a formidable ruler when he grows up.

What makes you think that the politicians in Beimo aren't just as rotten? The Emperor is just an innocent kid but his mother seems like a piece of work.

Two more episodes

Last I heard, the late Crown Prince was desperately trying to gain the support of the Zhenbei Army because he didn't have any military power, which put him in an awkward position in court. Suddenly, out pops a Marquis of Zhongyong (who died as quickly as he appeared) and two other generals who are so loyal to him that they're willing to risk everything and rebel against the current Emperor in favour of his son. Am I missing something?

Zhang Sheng betrayed Tang but could be trusted to relay his secret message to Mai???

She is still just as strong physically and personality-wise, but she definitely doesn't seem as smart as she was earlier, and her role has been reduced to a passive one for many episodes now. As of the end of episode 32, she has decided to leave the ML and take charge of her own life again, so hopefully she won't disappoint.

What happened to the quick-witted Mai that could come up with a genius solution to every problem on the fly? Given how quickly and nonchalantly she confessed to her "crime" in episode 30, I could've sworn she had a plan.

Suddenly this is a harem drama now? lol But finally she's leaving, so I guess the purpose of the past few episodes was to make her figure out who she really is, what she wants, and that this isn't the life for her. Good, now go off and do your thing, because I'm bored.

But she left the kid behind, which is going to be a lot of trouble.

He passed out from drinking on the wedding night, and she took advantage of it. Whether she drugged the alcohol remains to be seen.

Song of Glory's ML had some of the most awkward and idiotic lines ever written; I couldn't believe the actor was able to say them without dying of embarrassment. Like, "Have you decided to stop fighting and killing? And cook and do laundry instead?" Like duuuude... first of all, you're a prince; there's no way any of your wives would be doing chores. Secondly, you fell in love with a warrior; if she changed, she would no longer be the person you love. And now you're trying to turn her into your first wife, who you have zero feelings for because she's boring AF?

Interesting, but monarchy is all about bloodline, so "taking over" their countries is impossible. They would have to start new kingdoms with new names, new flags, and mostly new lords and ministers, and purge everyone loyal to the old dynasty. Those who get away will be rebelling against them for decades to come. It's very messy stuff that decent people would never try unless the world was already completely chaotic and fallen apart.

1) The Princess is adamant about not letting Mai marry into her family for another hidden reason, one that the Prime Minister knows about. This implies that she, her late husband (who may or may not actually be dead), and the PM conspired to eliminate Mai's father.

2) The Emperor revealed that when the Princess first met her future husband, he wasn't a noble yet. That means he received peerage as a result of his military exploits. Thus the death of Mai's father may be related to his promotion.

In episode 28 there are two subtle revelations:

His real father was the former crown prince, his adoptive mother's brother; he wasn't emperor yet. His birth mother was just a maid. Unless there is another twist (and there might well be), the Marquis of Dingnan, his adoptive father, was the commander of the secret Xuanwu Army.

And the Princess, her "dead" husband, and Mr. Xu are obviously all in a scheme together that Yizhi doesn't know about.

Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee is pretty good.