Blackrabbit63

Yes!! I am thinking about the show as soon as each episode is over, and about the characters and story....it's very interesting so far, and the characters are good too.

It was good writing that Yanyun was allowed to show how overwhelmed he felt for a moment. Just how many threads is he holding, how many things does he have to keep track of? I also thought how dark this part of the story is, and how terrible for the family. Really good writing and acting. Yanwen is a scary character.

I like the FL and SML together too, after today's ep 5, I think they are also getting a deep understanding vibe.....either of the Chens are more her equal, though. I really like 2ML, I think Winwin is doing a super job playing him as entitled character with a little vulnerability and loose cannon vibe - that look he gave the younger Chen (3ML) in ep 5 today - wow. So dark and explosive.

Me also today, I was asking the same while watching ep 5 just now. How do either of the women fall in love with Gu Jinchao's father? Talk about a bad choice for a partner....

LOL to your Emperor comment! He is a little hottie! I'm just finishing watching the show for the first time and the actor who played the Emperor did a fabulous job too. Very interesting style of leading the country, I enjoyed his scenes very much, as well as the whole drama.

Both of these dramas have the power of wishes/love creating the loop in the beginning. At least that's how I understand both these time loops in these two dramas. For BAYM, love powers the cookbook that Yijeon writes for her, and her love pulls him forward to her time, with that page with him. Anyway, just a theory! I really enjoyed this drama overall.

Good question....I kept thinking the professor is key, and at one point I thought it might be the king or reincarnation of him, bringing it to her! lol I was wrong on that point. I'll have to think more on this. There is something about how the book disappears once she meets the king, and he keeps her with him, that the book then disappears in that time because it doesn't exist yet. But how did it exist in the first place? This doesn't distract from the quality of the story for me; it's kind of like another C-drama travel, Reset, that I watched earlier this year, that also is very good but doesn't fully explain how that time loop started.
Spoiler thoughts just below, for those who have seen both.

@ K Lover, I agree with your thoughts about how the missing page works. I was thinking how the scene was showing the page landing right by him was key. That maybe he is able to go to where she and the book is now in current time, because he has the missing page.

Me too for Our Golden Days!

It's not in Viki in Canada either, where I am, I just checked. It's not even listed yet as coming 😭

Thank you so much for giving us this. I am fascinated by thinking about the 90% left unsaid. It's such a good novel and drama, I wonder what it was like imagined in her mind?

Yes, you are right, CX was the one she loved at the beginning of the drama. It's so interesting that he could feel her pain with the love bug, in the same way XL can. It hadn't quite taken root because he didn't know yet she was his sister, but she knew he was her brother. What if he kept the bug in him until he discovers who she is? You are right, this story could have gone in so many ways for each of the characters.

Do you find it interesting that she doesn't really care to fully understand the love bug? I think this is unusual for XY: usually she learns everything she can about a poison, plant, herb, etc. Yet she is so lackadaisical about the love bug, not exploring more about it. It's an anomaly, like how Jing doesn't cancel that arranged marriage when he easily could. Not a writing flaw, more a clue the author has left us viewers, I think. She uses the love bug to poison XL, and control him (so she thinks), without learning everything about it, ie, that they both have to love one another. Such an important part of the bug! And he accepts it. Such interesting choices the characters make in this story. XL wants/chooses to be tied to her. Another light bulb moment!! And this is why Jing is so afraid of the love bugs, he doesn't really "have" XY to himself with that love bug around. They are all control freaks, aren't they? lol

Me too! I thought his love interest was really interesting, too. It's nice to meet someone else who has seen this drama too!

lol sorry it appears I have posted several comments to you today! This is what I get for not coming here for the last few months to see if anyone was commenting still on the show. I am so happy the postings are alive and still ongoing! Yes, watching this from the beginning, after letting S2 ending sit for the past year, has been really enlightening for me too. I've posted comments below where thoughts have occurred to me when reading other posts. I've been paying careful attention to Jing/Shiqi in this viewing, to see if it can help me understand his character better. Of all of them, Jing's gives me the most difficulty, I think because he is so indecisive and yet so scheming and manipulative, I am team CX/XY and Team XY/XL all the way, every time I watch this show! but I want to know what Tong Hua's view of him and reason for writing him this way, is. He does offer another view of masculinity in this show, which I am appreciating. I am so uncomfortable with that lingering marriage to FFYY that he won't call off, though. Promises, promises.....
Also, what really caught my attention in the first episode, is how CX and XY say they will never part if they become like siblings. Knowing the ending now, it is the moment the whole drama unspools from, for me. Such a poignant moment now in rewatching. The whole first episode contains so much that runs through the whole drama and our main lead characters.

I agree, excellent analysis from Kokuto! I am so glad I am not the only one thinking deeply about LYF.

Agreed, Kokuto! He's so not innocent. Much more scheming and manipulative than he lets on - but by the time XY begins to figure this out - Agreed, Kokuto! He's so not innocent. Much more scheming and manipulative than he lets on - but by the time XY begins to figure this out -"you are so cunning", she says to him later on in season one, she is already becoming attached to him. One question I have, that I don't know if it's been covered elsewhere: if Jing is so clever, why can't he get himself out of the forced marriage with FFYY? It surely would be simple, for someone who can cook the books and cover for an army that isn't supposed to exist, and plot to have CX move to the Central Plains. He's an excellent strategist, so why is he so weak and feeble when it comes to getting out of a simple arranged marriage? I can't think of any time it's said by his grandmother that he can get the chief status only by marrying FFYY. He even gets made chief before marrying FFYY . So I wonder why does he not cancel the marriage as soon as he is spotted in QST? Or after he becomes chief? Mostly I am wondering this to myself, but if you have any insight, I'd be interested to hear them. It makes me wonder - and surely XY does to, though she never says, she just hides her heart and pretends she doesn't care, to others - if he is sincere towards her, really sincere. Why doesn't he manipulate FFYY away from him?

Oh, I just had another thought: I realize why he lets himself be poisoned by FFYY: he can't have XY, so he is letting himself die again. He is ridiculously pleased when XY goes to great lengths to save him.

Always Team Cang Xuan here too! lol I like all the male leads and Xiao Yao, they each have different intensity and story telling to them. They are all interesting, intriguing, and fascinating to watch. However, Cang Xuan and Xiao Yao is the story at the heart of LYF for me.

I feel sorry for FFYY, but I do not see her as tragic - she chose everything that happened to her. From being willing to hide her relationship with Tushan Huo, who never promised to marry her - though he does say he considers her as his "wife" to keep her compliant in their plan - to being an assassin, to faking everything with Jing.....She is not a tragic wife in any sense of that definition. I agree with you that she is active in choosing her path, active in the actions she takes, and wants the power and prestige of the Tushan clan. There is never any love for Jing - even when she rushes to Madame Hou's side after Jing first disappears, she is aware of what Hou has done to him, which is horrifying, and it's part of their plan to keep her in the Tushan household - So not a tragic wife!!! I have like two ounces of sympathy for how she can't see what Hou is doing to her, but that's it. I also like how she did get revenge on Hou, too. Not a tragic character at all!

You're not in the minority. I think XY loved both Jing and XL, though differently, and for different reasons. She gave to both men - saved Jing literally with her blood three times - and as you say above, all the things she does for XL, even though XL has a push-pull dynamic with her. In no way is XY dependable either in a relationship, she herself says she is heartless, and yet she gives to both of these men everything she can. It's just that she and XL have different movements - I think it is the author who describes it as one of them moves forward as the other takes a step backwards in the relationship, they are never in sync - while she and Jing slowly move toward one another. She and XL are fated to love one another but never to be together, which the love bugs echo, whereas Jing is her fate. Love is not easy in LYF world! I very much like your comment about the mirror, you are so right, only XL is captured by her in there. He is forbidden to her in some way, and she recognizes it, even as she yearns to be closer to him.

LOL I can't believe I didn't check in over the last year to see what was happening here, as I would have been on the Harvard thread from the beginning! Thanks so much to both of you for promoting it. I've read the novel once, I found a translated copy over at Koala's Playground, but I think I will have to give it a closer reread again, too. Meanwhile I am working my way through my rewatch of LYF. It's fair to say that LYF has a hold on some of us, isn't it? 😁😂 Such a good drama.