Michelle Topham

Hahahaha, he's just so funny. :) And I laughed so hard at that scene, especially when, if someone watched it out of context, they'd think they'd just stumbled on a Boys' Love drama where the top was just taking the bottom to task for cheating on him. :)

Hahaha, it's great isn't it? I replay those scenes four times as I'm still astounded every time he gets his ass kicked and then comes back for more :)

And you can tell how much I'm obsessed with this thing. I went off to handle the MASSIVE amounts of work I have to do with a plan to "save Ep 26 until I went to bed". Lasted about an hour and a half then came back to watch Episode 26. ROTFL

Now I'm pissed I have to wait for tomorrow for Episode 27. :)

Hahahaha, I keep thinking "Bless him" too every time he fights CYY and then goes along with what he suggests anyway :) Poor guy. Always trying to stand up for himself then failing miserably :)

That was the funniest thing about it. He's a 10-pound weakling who had to resort to getting a weapon custom made that fires poison needles because he can barely hold a sword, let alone win in a sword fight. Then goes after the ML, while waving his sword around like it's a floppy piece of spaghetti. ML has him nailed to the wall 3 seconds later :)

Love the character, but he really should learn who he can attack with his needles and who he should probably avoid with his sword -- hahahaha.

Alrighty, I'm caught up to Episode 25 and now I'm going back to work (after watching 8 episodes today LOL), and leaving Episode 26 until I finish work for the day and so have something to look forward to. :)

Couldn't have said it better myself. Sometimes she's incredibly irritating, silly and stupid with her quick decisions about things she misunderstands, she treated her mother terribly right up until the end (with a few moments of being nice and kind to her), and she's sometimes too rigid with her decisions, when bending slightly to someone else's request would give her a better result.

Other times she's 10 steps ahead of everyone else she's so smart, as she sees things others don't see.

And remember, she's only 18 or 19 at this point, and only 15 when the story first started, I would love to see how these holier-than-thou people criticizing her acted when they were her age. Probably a lot worse, I would guess :)

She's one of the most complex and superbly-written FLs in Chinese dramas in a long time, IMO, and one performed phenomenally well by Ren Min, who obviously understands the character perfectly.

I loved her in The Longest Promise, but IMO, this is her best performance yet.

Thanks for this :) And I'm happy he has a talented FL for his next drama. Ancy Deng is always amazing :)

And a very cute video of him and Ren Min :)

Oh thank you so much - for the praise about my site (it's new, but I'm hoping to make it a major one eventually :), and for the offer to answer questions. I might contact you sometime :)

And yes, I agree with you. I always thought Winwin was handsome but never really thought of him as a "good actor" but he is superb in this. I hated Ye Xian to begin with, but the way he is written and the way Winwin has played him, I feel sorry for him, and I am now a big fan of the actor.

Can't wait to see any new roles he takes, as he has really shown how talented he is in this.

Somebody else said they had read he had been taking major acting classes to improve his acting skills, and it shows :)

I'm sorry but "whataboutism"? The minute someone uses that term that requires no thought and means nothing, I know I can't have any kind of discussion with them. Moving on.

1,000 percent agree. The writer has written an incredibly well-thought out script, with every little moment that seems to be inconsequential at first look meaning something.

That scene where she grabs the lantern and then, minutes later, first sees him in the hallway, not 10 minutes into the first episode, is spectacular -- both acted and filmed. It's a while since I've seen the first few minutes of a drama that has not only grabbed me massively, but that also sets up the drama perfectly for what's to come.

Oh I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. And I knew it wasn't written by you, so don't think I was attacking you. I wasn't :) I wasn't attacking the author, either, just saying their thought-process was a bit delusional :)

Like I said, it's beautifully written and I always enjoy a well-written post (so many of the Chinese posts I read are written by incredibly intelligent, obviously very well-educated and thoughtful people - you can tell how good the Chinese education system is), I just think the person's reasoning about the relationship between the two is a bit "off" :)

But it's probably written by someone who likes Winwin (and who probably should separate the character from the actor :) -- an actor who is doing a fabulous job.

The actor is doing a fabulous job as well. A superb performance by someone still so very very young.

OMG, DYING laughing at the set-up in Episode 23 designed to bring disaster to certain people in the government, only for it all to collapse because Chen Yan Yun, and especially Gu Jinzhao have a brain :) Brilliant writing.

Hahahaha, Yep, for one second I thought I'd misread the labels and I'd stumbled on a BL drama instead. Wouldn't have had any complaints if I had have done either :)

It's quite a bit later IMO before things really start moving but, like you said, a slow cook. And honestly I'm not a big fan of slow burns most of the time, but this one is hitting ALL the spots :)

Best thing I've watched all year. Brilliant cast, superb leads, as everyone else said, gets better and better. If you like it now, you'll love it a few more episodes in :)

I especially like it because all of the "problems", "misunderstandings" and "major political schemings" are dealt with and come to a conclusion very fast. I don't like dramas that drag political scheming that puts character's lives at risk for most of the drama. It makes me too anxious :)

Did I say they weren't? I just pointed out that it is not only old men who behave this way. Plenty of young ones, and women, do as well. As is evident in American politics right now.

And if you had mentioned your region, I probably could have commented on that as well as I've lived all over the world, and am a journalist who at one time covered politics, so I probably know something about your region and your "old men". But you didn't?

And then a couple of other people became "outraged" at my comment, which, to me just seems to be immediately defending the behavior of the current American left. Bizarre. But anyway.. A Splendid Match :)

I'm sorry but that's bizarre. A beautifully written post, I do admit, but delusional.

She has never had any feelings for Ye Xian except feeling sorry for him and Ye Xian's feelings for her aren't "love". He was just interested in her from the beginning, and then it became an obsession, because she was the one person who wasn't fawning at his feet, and then she went a step further by telling him exactly where to shove himself every time he tried to best her.

I've had men like this chase me, and it's never love. It's that ridiculous part of many men's egos that, when they get turned down, they MUST have the woman even more. Look at Wang whatever his name was. Attacked her in the street, then came to propose marriage, just because she wouldn't even look at him. Stalker.

And it's fine if you are actually interested in them, like Jinzhao is with Chen Yan Yun, but stalkerish if you're not. Love pays attention to the woman's feelings, and doesn't attempt to overturn them. Stalkers do everything they can to overturn the woman's feelings, even if it means injuring them.

And btw, I like Ye Xian and think Winwin is doing a brilliant job in the role, and I feel sorry for him as well (see: my long post about that somewhere below) but to think that anything in their relationship has anything to do with "love" is delusional.

Just how I feel, and how most people who haven't been brain-washed by extreme left-wing "news" media also feel, about the current left. A political movement now, sadly, beyond help. As I was once left-wing myself. Until half the Democrats went batshit crazy.