MsDarkqueen

Yeah something must have triggered the. Murderer because he/she? was silent for past 20 years and now going on a murdering spree.

Even I had assumed that he had died in the fire but @PeachBlossonGoddess pointed out that official archives stated there were four survivors she named all four......I am now writing summary for episode 3 and in that episode Shicong reads from official archive that
survivors after the fire werewere:
1. boy attendant Lu zhi,

2. servant chen wang( who later drowned 20 years ago also in present time his corpse found hanging over the bridge at the end of episode 3)

3. chef You'er and

4. guard Zhang Gui(we get to know in episode 7, he is now going by the name Mr. Zhang who is Mr. Xue's Butler / housekeeper)

I agree more and more with comments written a few days ago about how everyone operated in the Ming dynasty... It was an era of NO GOOD MEN... To be humane was considered weakness and frowned upon.

I am leaving the link to the comments about Ming dynasty from few days ago below, worth reading again.

https://kisskh.at/717911-fan-cheng-zhi-xia#comment-14915643

https://kisskh.at/717911-fan-cheng-zhi-xia#comment-14924195

As per my understanding Lu yuanbao was Lu Jinshin's brother ... He was also a wealthy officer, I think in today's episode he was the one to kill the pigeons to threaten his business partner and he is quite merciless and cunning in his dealings, and if it was discovered that Lu zhi helped hide Mr. Zhang's master then he would kill all of them..... In today's episode it was mentioned that out of the two prescription written by Dr. Cheng, the one written for Lu yuanbao would be lethal for him if mixed with chen wang's prescription and would kill him in 6 months.. So even if he escaped the fire, he would shortly die due to the prescription.

The killer has to be someone whom Lu zhi confined in... So far he has been baring his soul in front of old zhong..

I somehow think Lu zhi and Sangeng are very similar kind of people both wanting to be good but forced by corrupt world to use underhanded manners to achieve their goal....... Although all clues point at Lu zhi being the killer, I don't want to believe Lu zhi would be the killer because if he is a killer then in few years even sangeng would become a killer conditioned by this ruthless, cruel world..

I agree with the comment you had written about Ming dynasty and how noone was humane in that era.. I find that post more appropriate now.

Interesting analysis..

As per my understanding, The list that monkey thief had was from a pawn shop... Everyone on that list had been approached by a man in bamboo hat who insisted the useless items in their house were antiques and paid high price for them.....

The premise is that people who would sell one valuable antique would have others at home... So the monkeyman getting his hand on the list of useless items sold by residents on Du county came in hope of finding other antique, but actually these people never had antiques in the first place..

Monkeyman just became a pawn used by the
murderer first to divert attention from him, then sangeng used his presence
to implicate him in all murders to send the captain xia away handing him wrong suspect and finally used by captain xia to pin all murders on him.

I feel Sangeng is more like Lu zhi... Sangeng may seem all innocent but he has used many tricks and devious methods to get favourable results...

Old zhong said to Lu zhi that extremely evil and extremely good people are very few in this world... So if people who are killed were extremely evil, then Sangeng and Lu zhi are extremely good people.. But even good people are not completely honest?

Episode 7

Butler Zhang was the guard zhang gui working for Lu Yanbao... But because Lu zhi helped him save his senior's life he is indebted to him... butler zhang has quite a fondness for the man on the boat, he said that if the threat was to him(fisherman) then butler zhang and his master should abondon watching other two people and focus on watching the lone fisherman......the fisherman also expressed that probably other two deserved to die....probably the fisherman on the boat is Lu zhi, because butler zhang wants to protect him primarily....Is Lu zhi, Mr.Xue Or someone else?

Are the fisherman and Butler zhang trying to save the murderer or help catch him? because they are merely watching not intervening...

Dr. Cheng died when killer forced him to drink his medicines in large doses mixed with other herbs which would be harmful if mixed together.... Dr. Cheng was originally treating Lu yuanbao's brother then how and why did he write a prescription for Lu yuanbao?

reason for Mr. Wang's death was almost clarified, he must have hit his student very hard on the head probably by mistake and killed him, panicked he then chopped the head which would be evidence of the boy's cause of death and dumped the body elsewhere... Hence Mr. Wang asked his students to beat him as repentance and that is why a headless fluffy baby chicken was stuffed in Mr. wang's mouth by the killer.

But what is the connection between three victims... Dr. Cheng hurt Lu Yuanbao, Mr. Wang killed a poor motherless boy and we don't know a specific crime for which captain leng was killed..

The motive for murder of two victims(Mr.wang and Dr. Cheng) is becoming clear but who is the common factor between all three except Lu zhi? if the fisherman on the boat is Lu zhi he is merely an observer who knows the real murderer, then who is the real murderer?

Just some random musings on episode 7

In spoiler tag below

May be, it is interesting for us to keep speculating.

If there is any survivor capable of being a mastermind then from the flashback episode it does seem to be Lu Zhi rather than Cheng.... Cheng seemed to be a kind of a person who would be easily manipulated.

Yeah, I also think that the mysterious man shown on the fishing boat and Mr. Xue's butler(zhang) are also investigating the murders for their own reasons...
Zhang was also assigned to follow and keep watch oner two other unknown people for some reason.

It does seem likely that Lu zhi is still alive and the master mind because he was streetsmart who sneaked around finding everyone's secret and seemed quite intelligent, he also managed to convince Captain Leng to spare his life... At that time he was saying everything possible to sound plausible so that Captain Leng would not kill him... But when he said he hated Mr. Lu, the owner of Lu mansion it seemed like a truth to me... Ms. Lin was talking to captian leng before they were interrupted, she said Mr. Lu was very cruel and abusive parton... Probably Mr. Lu was abusing Lu zhi too so he orchestrated the whole fire, aided by others.

That is very good theory, Lu Zhi did seem to be too smart for his own good... He even managed to convince Captain Leng to spare his life.... If there would be any survivor from that Lu mansion fire, then high probability of the survivor being Lu zhi.

Did anyone notice shots of cricket, grasshopper, frog,spider etc just before strategic scenes... Does anyone think there is an important connection of the scenes with these creatures? Does anyone have a theory or understands why they were shown just before some important scenes?

These creatures' shots are also included in opening theme.

I noticed his weird fasination with pears, in captain leng's house he stole a pear... Also in ep5 or 6 while he is at a fruit stall when a lady customer mentions juicy pears his ears prick up...

After Dr. Cheng was confronted by Sangeng, he went to see Mr. Xue and Mr. Xue's butler told him to calm down... Somehow everything is leading back to the absentee mysterious Mr. Xue.

Yeah, I noticed his name in episode 1 ... Ms. Lin when giving money to Sangeng for deceased Captain Leng's family... When Sangeng asked her how he could explain the money, Ms. Lin told him to say it came from Mr. Xue... Mr. Xue
owed captain leng a big favour...

Mr. Xue's butler lead Mr. Song to the discovery of first murder site in the abandoned warehouse.

So, I am sure Mr. Xue is somehow involved in this big time.

About the man in the fishing boat, don't know who he is but Mr. Xue's butler is keeping him well informed.

Yeah saw it, so glad you made it for this drama too.🌹

Yeah that was quite confusing, I had half expected that jiu ling's senior brother would ignore her letter but was surprised when he instructed his servant to send some rare herbs to her city, so that was strange... Let's see what he does in future episodes.

This is so nice to see you make a discussion thread for this drama's characters too 👍.... Yeah, pictures do attract people more than words, your information on characters along with other small details when accompanied by corresponding pictures or gif make the post quite an interesting read.

I was wondering what was the name of Rong Yu's other guard, because on mgtv it was written as 'fan' was so happy to learn his name is 'He Shan' from your post.

Thanks for mentioning my summaries, somehow it seems I can't stop myself from writing looonnnggg summaries. 😊

😂😂😂

Yeah episode summary has to be approved by moderators.... We can leave episode reviews without needing any approval.... I will try to submit as summary to see if it gets through.