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This is one of those dramas I thought I was going to drop after 15 eps. Then I watched ep 30-32 and could see a real improvement. One of the rare C-dramas which has a better structured ending relative to the beginning or middle of the show. I have therefore decided to keep on going and am in the mid 20s now. Have to say it is quite enjoyable now, and the ML shows real character development.

Yes.

I haven’t watched the full drama (skipped about 5 episodes in the middle but I will try).

1) he was trying to implicate the prime minister and to do that, he had to pretend he had eyes on the throne. His way of doing so was to do things which advanced his interests, in this case pretend to marry Shen. He therefore had to cut all ties totally with XM even though it hurt him to do so.

2) he was trying to protect her because of the above. In case he gets implicated, she can at least with as a virgin remarry.

3) not sure why but he did not end up with her.

4) he was accused of usurping the Crown Prince’s position and the Prime Minister was eager to kill him as he was investigating the case of the army provisions

5) the emperor wanted some of the old familial ties (XQ addressing him as Father instead of Your Majesty etc) and XQ implied they could not go back to the past and took his leave with a “your subject takes his leave”

6) it was a pretence on his part but he could not take her marrying the second ML. Also, he had already done what he wanted to do which was present his petition to the emperor on the evidence of the army provisions case and clarifying to the emperor that it was never his intention to usurp. So it was all over on that front and he need not pretend to want to marry Shen anymore.

Hope this helps!

Does anyone know if the OST has been released? So far, I can only find the 5 songs but I would really like to give the BGM a listen as well (and also the song sung by Yuanniang to Zhun'ge).

Yes, it hurts so bad. She should also have explained though that she was actually running away from marriage with Wang Yu; although she never wanted to marry Xu Lingyi, she was past the running away stage by then.

Totally agree. And because Bian Jiang dubbed both characters, sometimes I think it's Ye Hua instead of Lingyi speaking lol. Also, in certain angles, Wallace Chung's eyes are (to me) similar to Mark's. Aahhhh.

If YN was married for more than a decade then yeah, I guess it is possible from a timing perspective, although it begs the question of what Amber did once she separated from her sister and how she entered the same mansion as her sister as a maid, how Madam Luo knew about them being sisters etc. The account by Zhun Ge's nanny also changes. When she first spoke of Tong to Shi Yi Niang, she was very derisive about Tong and said it was Yuan Niang's benevolence in overlooking the seduction and raising her to the status of a concubine. However, she then seems to imply both Tong and Yuan Niang were in on the entire matter when she recounted the incident to Qin whilst drunk.

Would not be surprised about Madam Luo's involvement - after all, she did expect Amber to seduce Lingyi.

I find it really difficult to accept that Concubine Tung is her sister - if they both ended up in the same household, with Tung being Yuan Niang's maid and Amber being Madam Luo's maid, how could they not have run into each other? Amber was not a baby when the sisters separated...I am hoping against hope that it was a spanner in the works thrown in by Concubine Qin to make use of Amber to create distance between ML and FL.

Only for who have watched until Ep 42 or who don't mind spoilers - have a question regarding Hu Po's arc.

Yup it is the romcom Under the Power starring Seven Tan and Allen Ren. Great OTP pairing but lousy second lead subplot.

haha, I think 2nd ML here is A LOT better than Xie Xiao! More brains, more restraint. Xie Xiao really drove me nuts in UTP. One thing I do like about 2nd ML here is that he was not afraid to apologise when his Coroner turned out to have integrity issues. No cowardly pride here.

I stopped following her after she criticised actors who always had their voices dubbed in dramas and then had one whole post gushing about Allen Ren and his talent - does she not know he has been dubbed in almost all his dramas? Nothing against him (I liked him in Under the Power) but said a lot about her double standards.

Looks like we have the same problem - I tried linking all my cards to the account but it just did not work. Maybe we have to have Chinese-issued cards or be able to access the China App Store to unlock the on demand episodes.

How do you buy the episodes? I tried going in via VPN, but payment for the episodes failed - they told me I had to go to the China Apple App store to purchase...oh well!

I am an overseas subscriber of Tencent and watch shows on the Chinese app (not WeTV and not via VPN) - sadly I don't think we are able to buy the on demand episodes sigh!

Thanks!

Zhaoge and Xuanyi did not die - they reappeared in FL's wedding prep room and explained Mu JiuZhou resurrected them with his sword and the help of some magical herb that ML etc helped to get. But I agree - the ending is just awful and so weak. Hated it!