Deirdre19

On the plus side: Shen Zhen finally tells the Labrador to go fetch a stick and Lu Yan tells his mother about Shen Zhen. I really like the character of Xu Yiqing even though she has absolutely NOTHING in common with the Xu Yiqing from the novel (who was a devious b*tch). It was nice to see a bit more of Shen Zhen’s father, this guy has great screen presence.
Then there were the annoying bits: top of the list, the screenwriters for creating such a bunch of annoying characters when in the source material there were only normal people. Su Heng really is as dumb as a plank, how is this guy believeable as a victorious general? Zhou Su’an seems to have forgotten that he is an investigator and just takes everything Su Heng tells him as the truth. Is he too blind to see that the guy has an ulterior motive?
And why the need to vilify the Eldest Princess? Lu Yan’s family was such a nice group of people in the novel, but they all got deleted by those darn scriptwriters or turned into the spawn of satan. As if there weren’t enough villains available!

Episodes 17/18 were a mixed serving…

There was plenty of plot in the original novel. Interesting cases, not just romance.

Because delusional scriptwriters think their ideas are better than those of the original novel.
I’m only on ep. 18 and I cannot believe how much they messed this up.
I get it that some parts had to be changed because of the censorship rules and also because some things that work in a novel won’t work on screen. However they re-wrote some parts of the story so thoroughly that for some characters all that remains the same is the name!

Well, the FL is getting on my nerves as well. All she would need to say is: “Back off, I’m interested in someone else” to keep the yapping Labrador under control.
Given how goby and feisty she was in other situations it doesn’t make sense for her to keep so quiet now.

Only in his play-within-the-play persona Wei Xin. Those were supposed to be the mannerisms of a playboy, but I also thought that they came out a little gay… 😂

So does Lu Yan 😂

Yes, I can recommend the novel. It is very well written and the two main leads have an interesting character development. The side characters are quite well fleshed out and I love all the political plots. Someone also tried to kill the Crown Prince and the “noble ladies” keep trying to catch Lu Yan’s eye with all sorts of schemes.

I think the problem comes from how they structured the plot for the drama version. All these people have been around in the novel since the beginning, but instead of slowly introducing all the side characters they concentrated only on driving the romance between the leads full speed ahead and then just set up a wall in its projectory.
Bringing in all these sources of adversity now just doesn’t feel organic.
For example they could have shown how Lu Yan’s mother is permanently trying to bring in marriage candidates and he manages to drive them away with one cold look and a vicious remark about their bad poetry 😂

If you mean Xu Yiqing, yes, she is Concubine Xu’s niece. They are trying to sneak her in as a potential marriage candidate for Lu Yan…

We can guess 😂😂😂

Sure, it would work, but I would prefer him to get away from that stern and cold image and show us a goofier side. If you have ever seen his arc in Fairyland Lovers you will know that there is great untapped potential in this. He was so charming!
I know that many actors don’t like to go back to previous personas but I could very well see him as an eccentric chef hunting for a Michelin star. Something like a Chinese version of Lenny Henry’s “Chef”. Aaah, the fun we could have!

I guess he would take the CEO role if said CEO could manage a horse racing team and invite all his business partners to a fencing session.
I in my opinion his preference for ancient costume dramas is due to the fact that he gets to do a lot of physical stuff like fighting, horse riding, archery, etc.
in that aspect modern dramas are somewhat lacking and I find the usual CEO roles rather cliched and boring. Maybe a private detective would be a good alternative.

Yes, we know. However we also know from the still and the spoilers that there will be a wedding scene, so it’s at least a bit better than the ending in the Autumn Ballad.
What’s drives me nuts is this stupid situations that could be resolved within 5 min by anyone with a bit of common sense.
She wants to go travelling, just travel WITH her.
The Labrador is delusional, just tell him you’re a couple.

In the novel their relationship was different. He cleared her family’s debt and hid her in one of his mansions. She felt obliged and became his mistress, but there was no love between them. He just hat the hots for her body and she was grateful for all his help regarding her younger brother and her father. He then slowly fell in love with her and realised through his dreams that he treated her badly in the previous life and also saw her leave him. He then starts to treat her nicely in the present, but she is still planning to leave him as soon as her father is released from prison and her situation becomes motor secure. Lu Yan overhears her talk about these plans and gets into a panic. It is in this situation that Su Heng turns up. He is a successful general, not a goofy idiot like in the drama and Shen Zhen is very happy to have an old friend back and spends some time with him which obviously drives Lu Yan to a whole new level of anxiety.
What I mean to say with this is that his fears in the novel are quite real because they haven’t confessed any feelings and he assumes that she wants to get away from him as soon as she can whereas in the drama it feels completely made up. All she would need to do is be clear with the delusional guy. It’s like those stupid misunderstandings that could be cleared up in two sentences if only people talked to each other.

Of course he can. All real actors can. It usually works by visualizing a personal sad memory, but I read somewhere that for his crying scene in Legend of Dugu he spent the hours before filming listening to sad music to get into the mood.

I think it’s a red herring with the only purpose of creating adversity between the couple shortly before the end which seems to be an obligatory trope in Chinese dramas.

Hyperthyroidism is in most cases a permanent condition. It can, however be controlled to get thyroid hormones back to a normal level.
People with this condition will be sensitive to heat which is probably why he had several heatstrokes wearing the heavy armour during the fight scenes.

Long-suffering people? 😂

She isn’t and Lu Yan isn’t anywhere near the line that leads to the throne. He is the Emperor’s nephew. The Emperor has many sons (who we sadly haven’t seen yet in the drama version). He has already named a Crown Prince and there are several other princes as well.