KainCrisus

The duke was fine with ML in the beginning, as he knew the guy really cared for his daughter. ML even saved him, when he almost fell into a trap on the battlefield. The duke was on SML side and known the guy longer, so hes on the opposite side against ML in terms of politics, but ML never did anything directly against him and did a lot of protect him.

Duke was thankful to ML because due empress trying to marry the 3rd prince to her, the duke had to find any guy to marry her to prevent her from entering the palace and ML stepped up. Later on as the duke found out more about him, he realized how smart/strategic this guy is and was more wary of him and worried for FL as she was to marrying him. FL was “attempted” to portray as smart, but more than half time she was a person who doesn’t know what’s going on or how to resolve. The duke was worried about FL losing out against him because of how amazing he is, because he really could have gone better. FL was under age (by ancient Chinese standards) so he was also worried about whether ML would break his promise of not doing it until she became of age (15) or much older. Which ML did and she was pregnant at 14, and that caused complications because she was too young to be giving birth. The duke didn’t like him because of that and I didn’t like that aspect as well.

To be far, I like novel and drama ML, the real big difference between the 2. Was novel ML was more confident and a very rational, as political he was the most ideal person he was cunning, patient, and strategic. Really his only flaw was FL, her troubles seemed to always set back his political career. There was a time where she was away from him, he almost gone insane, but it shows how high up politically he could have gone and fast without FL troubles. The one scene I wished they added was where he asked FL how far in the ranking does she want him to go. Which FL replied ofc the Top scholar, ML say ok I’ll become the top scholar. Then when it became time to release the result, instead of looking at the board, he would be looking at her. Cause he’s confident he’ll be on top and his reasoning for going for the top was her so watching her happy would have made him happy. The one thing I liked they removed in drama ML was his obsession with FL, if yall think SML obsession was bad, novel ML was on the same level as him.

Latest episode came out - she and FL resolve their problems and they all good now. I actually like the direction they went with MingZhu, she did cause problems, but it was mostly minor offenses. She was jealous of all the attention FL was getting and worried for herself, cause she’s only an adopted daughter, so she did things to lower the likeness of the grandma and father towards FL but overall not a bad person. She tried to ruin FL stores reputation at the party by putting itch power/rash in the handkerchief everyone used to wash their hand . And she stepping on FL dress leaving a huge dirt stain during the party.

SPOILER FOR THE NOVEL:


Novel MingZhu did a lot worst, she almost got FL raped. She was spoiled and willing to do a lot of stuff just to ruin FL. In the end they do resolve their differences, and MingZhu will help FL. But they are not on friend terms or as close as shown in the drama. Ming Zhu understood it way too late that FL never had any intention of kicking her out. So by the time she realized she was reduced to really being treated like an outsider (no room, no servants, only purpose is to tend to grandma, and no say/power to run anything). Not even grandma liked her as much anymore. The only reason she was kept around, was cause her biological families situation was way too messy.

Yeah she was really powerful and I liked her character. However I do get why the scriptwriters took her out of the drama.

In the story, her sister was so powerful FL grew up without worry, and she married someone from an influential family. Due to her sister no one in the family dared to treat her bad and sister always checked up on her too. Like in the drama, grandma is influential, but not all powerful to have stuff go her way, so without the sister being there, FL lost her most powerful backing. Thus would give reason why she was sent away at a young age, because if sister was there. No way Concubine Qiao would have dared to frame FL. Or even if she did, sister ran the household and even when she married if anything happened to FL she always came running to save her. I did not like FL in the novel, she always needed saving and lots of the times she got in to those troubles herself. For a person who lived 2 lives dying her first life due to murder and 20 years observing the future you would think she be more alert or smarter. Nope, in the beginning it was fine but as the story progress, disliked her more and more. This may be part of her characterization cause she was really protected/spoiled by her family espically her sister. So I guess they took her sister out as a way to give reason for her independence.

I really hope not, the scriptwriters be playing 😭, if it is

Well they never mentioned his age, so I assumed he’s probably like a few years older than her. In the novel they were only a few years apart before reincarnation. After the reincarnation this scene was a crazy, because he was like late 20s - early 30s and she was 14 (or younger) when something similar to this scene appeared.

I feel you bro - I usually wait until all the eps come out before watching. But YouTube recommends was really tempting and I love the actor. Now I’m suffering TT-TT. So now I just joined in with everyone’s discussions and I’ve been refreshing weibo to see if there’s any spoilers.

@Rosat23
I’m not sure about the quack doctor, but you are right about the first madam. The latest preview revealed that the first madam was culplrit

Alright peeps we made it. After almost 30 episode the latest preview show truth being revealed that FL isn’t Luo family’s daughter. With barely 10 eps left I wonder how they gonna wrap things up

Nope - he still doesn’t know. Still suspecting

In modern ofc that doesn’t account for much. But in historical times if she was caught being way too close to her brother, rumor could spread and ruin her reputation. So you see that he’s trying to be close , but she still think they are sibling. Hence ambiguous stares and closeness that is shown on ML side. If you were to have comparison you can see how Shan yuan interact with yiyu/yixiu or xuan yuan with yilian.


SPOILER
Also, in the novel, and in some videos of how director describes FL. FL even with truth coming out that they notsibiling still treated him as her brother and accepted his feeling as he was always the one to treated her the best and he had a place in her heart. In the novel FL accepted his feeelins after marriage, because they got marriage due to circumstance and she was very young so he gave her time. During that time he became more forward with his advances, which scriptwriters might or might not do.

I highly doubt we getting a second seasons, from what we see from the stills and trailers, they do get married and that's usually end game unless there's additional plot to happen?

I think the ambiguous era/phase started long ago lol. From the moment, ML found out he's not her sister, I feel like you can see him slowly falling in love with her and willing to risk his life for her multiple times or help her out. I don't know how far you got, but if your expecting outright kisses, and very touchy scenes that's pretty impossible consider what time period they are in, much less they are in ancient time where separations between genders are very strict. Like even showing your skin for a bit and a guy sees it, means you have to married to him. The story seems to follows a scholar family which is even more strict with traditions, because even a small little scandal can cause someone to lose their official positions or reputation. If they were caught kissing or even like doing much more ambiguous stuff, it would implicate the whole family, remember how Yiyu was sending notes to Chen Lang? If that was discovered, all women in the Luo family wouldn't be able to get married now because they would have bad reputation and no proper family would have their son or daughter marry a family with a bad name. The drama didn't really address the seriousness of it as much.

Also, ML likes her, I think is pretty obvious by now, if he really just saw her as a sister, the moment he found out they weren't related he would have kept his distance aka no physical contact at all. From my perspectives, he's fully taking advantage of the fact that people think they are brothers and sisters to have physical contact (hugs and carrying her) XD. Cause if anyone thats not a brother/relative did those things, they would need to get married to them.

I suggested giving legend of minglan a try, its even more slow burn there XD, but the family inner drama is very interesting and explains most of the ins and outs of a scholar family. In fact, I think this drama is already on the less stricter side, and this drama is really catered for audiences in china who already knows most of these rules or people have watched a good amount of ancient historical dramas based on more political/traditions.

That only happens in the novel. In the drama, when FL was living in the family side house, Lu Jia Xue lived right next to her house. But because of some injury he couldn’t see. He fell in love with her and then suddenly she disappeared and so he wants to find out what happened.

The drama show yining stand point, so we know what happened but Lu Jia Xue doesn’t know and he was madly in love with her. He wanted to marry her.

Also to note is that the drama romance is actually moving a lot faster than the novel lol. Since in the novel FL is very young like sooo young. She was 7-8 when ML realized she wasn’t his sister. Then her real father came when she was 12, that how their broke off the sister/brother relation. Before that it was hand holding or carrying a child (FL).

After she find her real father, she now lives in a different residence and since ML is no longer her brother. He has no excuse to be close to her, because he’s not family. So it might actually be even more slowburn after she finds out. They get married at 14 and between 12-14 they had almost no contact. Unless scriptwriter decides to change something, and make it more fast pace. I mean they did a good job with pacing it right now, slow burn but gets you hooked, with little romances here and there.

Yeah totally agree, its the fact that it satisfies the prince right now. However, imagine after he marries her or his appetite is fixed, and then they live for a very long time together, like how consistent will he be in treating her. Much less by ancient china standard, the Luo family does not match up to the prince family in terms of standing, so there is very high possibility that she'll only be married as a concubine. Since the guys family is royalty, theres gonna be a lot of political battles and noble woman relations going on, Yi Xiu probably won't survive and I don't think the prince mother (a princess) would even agree to have her married over as a main wife, cause she's not consider proper by standard. To the prince, she's probably just interesting thing.

The drama moves at a totally different pace than novel, so there's no telling when she would know. They mixed up the order of things like a lot and changed lots of parts of the novels in the drama which make sense, because if it is filmed as is in the novel. This drama might never even had the chance to be aired.

It is in the novel, she ends up with some random dude. The novel is more focused on yi ning, but it does mention yi xiu very briefly. She became of age and her mother started looking for marriage partners for her, but Yi Xiu took a liking to a cousin (or some relative) from her mother side. Her mother had already picked out someone for her and Yi Xiu threw a tantrum, until she saw how handsome the guy looked then she agreed. In the novel, she didn't believe in love and stated that if she can't get someone she loved, she rather get someone handsome so that she can at least be happy looking at him.

Yi Xiu in the novel is very different from the Yi Xiu in the drama, first Yi Xiu doesn't eat a lot and she's more of carefree straight forward gossiper lol. Sad part is though she didn't really get a guy she liked and the her husband wanted to her maid to become his concubine, so she threw a fit. Eventually, yi ning convinced her that to go back and not care too much about her husband, because in the end he can't do anything to her since she is his main wife, and I believe she had the backing of her mother in law.

Yeah definitely agree with all of yall. The novel shows a very realistic representation of women that lived in ancient China. How a 14-15 year old would be considered an adult and how it was the norm for woman to marry a much older man. What are people thoughts back then.


ALOT SPOILER:


I think was the most problematic thing with the novel was really the emphasize on yining(FL) age. Every once in awhile it is reminds readers of how old and just how young she is. She starts at 7 years old and then grows up very slowly. She got married at 14 and ML was 22. I mean she has her first life, but she still died pretty young to know anything. It also didn’t make it any better when ML her brother literally say he lusted/loved her when she was around 11-13. Even stated that it was good that she wasn’t related, but even if they were, he would have still went after her. Which is why I can understand why people say they don’t want to see it. The novel went a bit extreme with those tags I stated.

The one thing I love about the drama is the way FL and ML is portrayed, it is definitely catering more to modern/younger audiences. FL in the novel will frustrate you, in 21st century, the concept of woman being restricted and her mindset will upset you. While they toned ML down, still smart but not insane and less obsessive.

I watched the first ep and went to the read the novel and then came back. Glad I did, because the drama is going in a much better direction than the novel. Notes to others - the novel contains some trigger stuff, so if you know you’re sensitive to this kind of stuff, don’t read it and stick to the drama. I am making this disclaimer, because I realized there’s no novel update page about it, which shows the tags.

The novel contains incest, pedophile, violence, grooming, and attempt rape

Would be interesting if all the novel readers wrote about the changes between the drama and novel, cause it’s quite a lot just from the few episodes that came out.

Lol I am very sick of too, but really Historical Chinese dramas like really try to stick to as realistic as possible. In Chinese history there has almost never been an emperor that married only 1 wife and that is because of the so called balance in politic that you keep hearing in this drama. Marriages are used as moves and woman are used as chess piece. The value of a woman was really very low in ancient China. If a woman even tries to block their husband from getting other wives (concubine), they would be bashed for being a jealous woman and not that the husband is lustful. While if the woman find concubines for their husband and not have any issues among the “wives” they are called virtuous wife.

In Lan Ling Wang, this guy is actually based off real history, if the writer/director/producer actually deviated from actual history. They will actually be bashed for doing so. He lived and married the evil woman (forgot her name) in the drama and died when he was served poison. So from the moment the drama started, I knew he wasn’t gonna be the emperor.

I’m pretty sure a lot of people here watched a lot of historical drama and probably more than me. The more popular ones are ones that involve the in fighting of concubine in the emperor’s harem and I know y’all watch it. Otherwise it wouldn’t be breaking record or these actors/actresses wouldn’t be getting awards. Even minglan involves the fighting of concubines and schemes. If there wasn’t the sacrifice or tragedy, the drama probably wouldn’t have even garnered much attention. Like in Goodbye princess, if the FL actually forgave the ML and they ended up happy together, I’m pretty the fans would call it bs and that it was unrealistic or how could she stand being with a man that killed her relative and treated her so terribly. And overall the drama just wouldn’t be as popular. The point I’m trying to make is that none of these dramas would have really been as popular as it is if there wasn’t sacrifice, tragedy, (fighting for) romance kind of components involved and some others I missed(but can’t remember).

While a drama like “singing all along” wouldn’t be as popular, because there really isn’t a scheme, but more about political battle. The emperor Liu Xiu stayed true to his vow and he sincerely loved his wife, but for political reasons he also married one woman and another because of schemes. I can’t say my words are very accurate, but out of all the dramas I watched, this emperor is probably the only that stayed true to his heart and really loved 1 wife.
“Legend of Dugu” is also a good depiction of a faithful man, but also shows how a man would eventually succumb to power. However the man respected his wife and they did live a happy life until he gained power. Where he eventually becomes blindside and their couple life was no longer the same.

Lmfao!! I just started typing and next thing you know. My response became a long as essay. If you actually read to the end, I congratulate you and also apologize. I just wanted to say my point, had no intention of arguing with someone and also wanted to suggest some dramas that are pretty good in my opinion, but I am a pretty talkative as you can see.