Raymond Ardin

The set up of the plot is very interesting, but the palace harem fight (which is unfortunately the main focus of the drama) is not that impressive, especially if you've watched really good palace dramas like Yanxi Palace. But it's worth watching to see what happens in the fight against the Empress Dowager and between the humans and the other races.

I've seen much worse, especially considering he thinks she killed his mother

Have you seen any other dramas like this one, where the FL seems ordinary at first, but is actually the one pulling the strings behind the scenes?

I took it to mean that her renovating the house means becoming his wife, because it was a wife's job to manage the entire household, including renovations.

Not officially. She just doesn't seem that capable anymore, with no explanation. lol

The purple flowers are used to make illegal drugs. We don't have a lot of details, but we do know that they're poisonous, and they must be addictive too, otherwise it wouldn't be profitable.

I heard the closeup shots are of ZQ, but they used AI to change the face of the wide shots.

I knew something seemed not quite right about her face sometimes, like I was looking at two different people.

He was also emperor in A Journey to Love (well, eventually).

Do we know what happened to the Kingdom of Dai and the king who abused Wanning? How did she get back/escape? Are they the ones that Prince Cheng's army is defending against? If so, will they invade once Cheng is taken out?

Duke Su's plan is very risky. Zhao could betray their alliance and take control once they're in the capital and have defeated King Cheng's forces. Poison princess seems trustworthy, but we can't be sure about her brother the king.

She is good at martial arts. She doesn't seem that smart, but not stupid either. No love triangle. There are other people who like the ML and FL, but it's one-sided.

Makes sense. There was a scene of the consort bringing a snack to the emperor too. They wouldn't show that if it wasn't important. I guess that's the emperor's antidote. So only the princess and SYR will get poisoned. But I wonder what effect the poison will have on a man, if it will fake pregnancy in a woman.

I'm uncomfortable with the deal that the FL has with the imperial consort. It goes directly against her fight for justice. Not only is she helping someone get away with her crime (of killing another consort), she's also getting an innocent person killed (by handing over the maid who was a witness). Unless she has plans to bring her to justice in the future.

Except in many xianxia dramas the demon lord is actually the good guy/gal, and the "righteous" side is usually hypocritical and evil.

Not that much. He's more of a comic relief character than anything.

Yeah that's what I'm confused about. If the drug was for the princess, why did JL drink it too?

Drama version is better, more original. Novel stole the line from Star Wars lol.

2ml is her biological brother, so obviously not. The stupid South Prince is wooing her, but I think it's more for political reasons rather than romance.

He's a general guarding the northern border with a huge army, so he's very powerful. And the emperor needs to keep sending him more soldiers because there's no real evidence that he's going to rebel.

There's no restriction against women drinking, but it's considered shameful for a high-status person to be drunk and misbehave in public, especially for women but also for men. But when she got drunk with her brother and servants she was at home.