Deirdre19

So one user actually took the time to rate every single episode with “1”.
Kid, you have a problem. If you hated it that much, why didn’t you drop it after the first three episodes? That’s what the grownups do…

There are some kisses, but it takes a while… It has a HE and a wedding. There are also some characters which you will really hate, but none of the baddies will get away…

Some BTS of the fighting scenes
https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5009666879455243?from=old_pc_videoshow

They’ll probably update them by tonight… just give them some time.

Yes, he was quite hard on her, but that provides a lot of room for change. Once the Realisation of what he has done hits him, he is in a mess…

Somehow, it’s always the same people who cannot tick that box… 😂

Yeah, medicine in these dramas has its own rules. Cuts heal in no time. If you want blood, always slash across the whole hand even though cutting just a finger would provide the same amount of blood. People with sword/arrow wounds can get up the next day and walk about.
However, the tiniest scrapes or burns require medicine and if you get into the rain you must take a hot bath or you’ll die.
I find it very confusing how these people can be so tough and yet so fragile.

Some more BTS fun…
https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5009609891708944?from=old_pc_videoshow

That last point was much clearer in the novel. There are several princes who compete with the Crown Prince for succession to the throne and for that they need support in the court. Many ministers belong to different factions. For example Shen Wenqi is a supporter of the Crown Prince, whereas the Xu family supports the 6th Prince (Concubine Xu’s son). The family of the Eldest Princess is very powerful but they have always held a neutral position. If they could be won over by a marriage alliance it would benefit the whole clan. These girls were brought up to put the family first. Shen Zhen does the same in a way.

I haven’t finished reading, but they’ve changed a LOT!
Lu Yan does a lot more investigating in the novel, not just for Shen Wenqi’s case. Su Heng isn’t a brain dead Labrador, Xu Yiqing is an intriguing b*tch without any martial arts, Fu Man isn’t looking for any younger sister, but Lu Yan brought her and her brother back to the capital with him. The brother is a skilled physician who goes on to save the Crown Prince’s life (because the court physicians who were treating him were actually poisoning him) and so on and so on.
I will probably write a summary in the “discussions” section once I am finished with both the drama and the novel.
Sadly, scriptwriters seem to think that we viewers cannot cope with complex stories and multiple plot lines and therefore everything gets overly simplified.

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…