Raisins

I loved how she was bringing actual numbers to the table like "oh yes surely you can bring in more than 70-80k yes?"

The last few episodes I felt really bad for DM. I think the actress for DM is doing a good job of showing how young and naive she is and bewildered with the situation. Support actors really help elevate an ok show to a great one.

One eye-opening thing to consider is that THIS is the utter garbage that DZ married into her first life as a teenager when she was DM's age. Ep1 doesn't go into her first life a lot but seeing how much suffering DM has now and how poor and worthless the Weis are, I think you can see how much bitterness DZ has built up in the past life, especially since she didn't have a loving mom and her husband didn't love her. So she married young into this mess and spent her life fixing it up and making the Wei household prosperous (since Ep1 shows them as well off) while being abused and all to be rewarded with betrayal from everyone in the end. We know how bitter DZ is and how much warning she gave DM about it but I like that this not only moves the story forward with DM but also shows glimpses of DZ's past life without additional exposition.

I don't trust Chen Jia.
However the meeting was different this time. Chen Jia was already with the escort guard and first life Duke Ding was not assassinated by bandits but was judged as a traitor and executed. It is implied that Duke Ding allies in the first life petitioned for his innocence which made the emperor even more suspicious of Duke Ding. The change in strategy in the second like made the bad guys murder the duke in transit because it didn't look like the emperor would be fooled so all the escorting guards were killed including Chen Jia father and he ran away.

I think he does feel some kind of emotion for her although the flower could represent friendship and not romantic love. The way he hinted twice that he is another option for her makes me think that it is more than friendship. He is so calm and collected about her marriage it may be that he expects Song Mo to die eventually in his grand machinations of politics so he's not worried about her at this point or maybe it truly is just platonic affection. He is such a wild card.

TBOY/DY fans in the house! I was also tickled that Song Mo was using a spear next to the Spear Deity Sikong Changfeng. 😄

I thought both child actors did a great job portraying the younger versions. I think the girl looked a little older than she was supposed to be but this may be because she was the best actor to portray an old soul in a young body and also she could never be purely childlike again since she had too much knowledge and experience. The young SM was an actual child who could be a child so he could just be adorable munchkin.

I actually could not believe he rolled up with armed guards, like was he going to just martially stop the wedding and kidnap the bride at this point? How desperate was he?

yes it's easier to understand as you watch more episodes. Also there is a lot of information conveyed in dialogues that may not make sense initially but make sense later. Like the fate of the uncle's clan in first life is briefly mentioned and the reason why DZ monologues how much work she had done for the Wei household including managing ALL of their shops and businesses which will provide a reason as to why she is such a business phenom at a young age (because she's done it for a decade in another life). I'm pretty sure I will rewatch this again to get all the details.

Episode 16



I know that DZ has a better life now without re-marrying her ex-husband but I also really liked that in this life, she actually seems to have a loving sister and a real sisterly bond that she thought she had before. DM is so sweet and cares so much for DZ. That is such a huge change from her previous life where she was all alone. I hope this means in this life, it's not just living better but that she can let go of some of the grudges from her old life because she is still so deeply affected by it and makes so her cynical especially about marriages and relationships. It was ironic that the evil stepmom was also echoing DZ's thoughts about love and marriages because her life didn't turn out so great either (although it's karma because the way she pursued her love was vile).

I actually chuckled. She was like oh I didn't admit it because I don't want to be a distraction and then he yells that at her. Like oh no, that ship's sailed, she's already on his mind, he's fallen for her bad.

This show is messing with my emotions! EP 12 starts off kind of sweet, some breaking and entering music, scripture plagiarism then pain, pain and more pain (sprinkled with semi-love declarations). By EP 13 our poor ML and FL are just beaten bloody and I can totally see why ML rebelled the first time. These families are just so trash. Please give them a win in the next few episodes.
Also JiYong seems very much a end justifies the means guy and I feel his "big picture" and previous knowledge means he'll rebel with Prince Qing, just that he'll believe he'll do it right this time.

This is insightful. It's only the second time I've subscribed to WeTV/Tencent to access express so I feel like they are on a roll. Also excited that this may be a breakout drama for the director and all the casts. Good to see lesser known talents elevated.

It seems this director is good at peppering hints and does not waste scenes. There was a mention of the stepmom conducting some shady illegal financial dealings so I assume that will come into play either as blackmail or as part of the punishment at the end.

wow that entire boat sequence is 😲🔥!
It was a nice detail that he is still wielding dual swords at this point. Indicates that perhaps she has changed things. I love these little details.
Ep 11 Ji Yong surprised me. He is such an unknown variable now.
Whoever directed this knows how to end on a cliffhanger. It is a torturous 16+ hour wait for the next episodes. 😑

It was gross listening to her stepmom and the prospective in-law talk of divvying up her wealth/dowry when they hadn't done a single thing to help her and now they just see her as their own moneybag property when the FL had done the hard work of accumulating it. They are all leeches and trash people and she needs to escape from them any way possible.

He is so soft on her already. It's cute how everyone around him is like oh you like her~~ and he denies it. When he finds out she's also the fox mask it'll be game over for him. 😄

The setup is so good. It's showing well how both are attacked from all sides and getting cornered. FL would rather not have been involved with all this but knowing what she knows, she even asks could she have looked away? It makes the latter strategic alliance more plausible despite the lack of trust between them. There is attraction there but it's not as important right now as much as mutual survival especially since it's getting revealed the conspiracy is probably from a higher up, even possible from the palace.

NO! I can't hear you lalala 🙉 this is not going to end like that! (I hope)

NGL there was a scene in one of the episodes using a river analogy that made me reeeeal nervous about the ending. But so far I think they're doing everything right so hoping it sticks the landing as well.

I also enjoyed Blossoms in Adversity. Good happy ending.