Yue

Fully agree with you. I'm going to re-read the novel after this drama ends since I forgot a lot of things but I definitely remember XZ being a real character there with more depth.

Yeah I remember the one in the novel treated him horribly so it was somewhat justified.

I think it would have worked if she told him she knew his identity earlier and he wouldn't have killed her. But confronting him in anger and saying of course she didn't love him because he wasn't her child. That tipped him over the edge. QM has an abandonment complex in the drama. There is literally no one he can trust or who cares about, that's why he latches on to QQ.

Children sense love and hostility very well. I think she might have let him live in her family but didn't do more than that. QM in the drama is pitiful and it's clear they just left him to languish alone in a childhood of pain from being burnt. Even his nanny drugged him to use him as a stud.

I'm not excusing his actions but it's clear how everything shaped him into this paranoid, pitiful man who sees everyone as his enemy and has no one on his side.

QM might have spared the Sui couple if they showed him some love but it seems both didn't like him for different reasons. Only the younger brother didn't know the truth which makes it more tragic.

The cinematography really elevates this drama. The director understands light and shadow composition. Every scene is carefully shot to highlight this. Truly stunning work.

Use the spoiler button please

So the princess' betrothal is a yoyo? Feels like there's a missing scene in this new narrative

That's exactly my point

Sure. That's why the guy quickly covered up when he thought FCY was entering the room?

These jokes about FCY's lack of knowledge are getting stale

LOL! Are you telling me the princess is bandaging a half-naked man? Does not compute XD

Ep.31: the funeral is really awkward and doesn't make sense since they re-structured the events in the drama.

I noticed her other two dramas have a bigger episode count than this one so maybe she doesn't know how to write for a shorter series.

Yes

The politics wasn't properly introduced at all except in offhand remarks by characters. It's no wonder many viewers are confused.

They might have changed events for the drama version since there hasn't been sufficient foreshadowing of the political side of the plot. Sorry, I can't remember what happened to the boy emperor.

You're welcome

It's been a while since I read the novel but that Eunuch scene was just a threat to make the boy emperor back off and not try to control him through marriage. Later on, when it became a choice between a puppet emperor controlled by his uncle and a crazy Qi Min who has a rightful claim to the throne, he decides to support QM's son instead. Sort of cleaning up the rot that infested the imperial court since 17 years ago when the battle happened where both his father and the crown prince died.

XZ isn't really a villain in the novel. He's more of a morally-grey character who was lied to for years and feels very hurt that his own uncle betrayed him.

Third CP of the princess and strategist? They have no chemistry at all.

You have a point XD Though he could have added more iron from another source

I don't like to compare between a novel and its adaptation but in this case the novel is better. The Eunuch Scene doesn't make sense to be placed in Ep.32 because we know the Empress already betrothed her daughter to the Li Eldest Grandson.

A butcher is at the lowest of the social ladder and a female butcher is even lower than a male one. So yes, no hint of realism to the point of it being absurd.