She knows he is to stubborn. She is trying her best but even she gets tired of pushing him
I think Arthur Chen’s acting was great in ep 16 - when he expresses all his feelings to her . And yeah He Simu is trying to be ‘heartless’ . She basically thought he would be scared to enter the Void- she underestimated him
So in episode 15 you can see that she has this almost helpless expression on her face when Duan Xu successfully enters the void! She just can’t shake him off.
DX is only child like in front of He Simu. As another commenter mentioned, smiling is his coping mechanism.
Agreed on both those aspects. He Simu has seen both his sides and she is completely aware of who he is- because the side she saw first was the cold ruthless assassin/general. But then a person has many sides . We all do. And smiling is a coping mechanism and I don’t think we have seen all of his painful past yet .
Let’s discuss all this talk about chemistry being off . But then we are not talking about 2 normal people falling in love. He Simu does not feel that yet for the ML and she is a spirit - so if she looking detached/uncaring it’s because of that . But in spite of that their chemistry is good - not extreme- but good . They are capturing the feel of a really young general trying to capture the heart of a 400 yr old spirit queen very well. And the way she is responding is also beautiful because unknowingly she is becoming more attached to him.
1
1
https://youtu.be/gRMqvcKxWWE?si=8CF0VL0VAeFJMSSZ