Shreya

As of ep 28, Yuzhi didn't really become the obsessed 2ML yet and I'm still holding out for him. He was on route to potentially becoming one of the best 2MLs, and I really don't wanna see the writers ruin him.

"Chance at becoming Zhao's husband" is the nonsense spoken by his father among other ridiculous things he periodically says, and I don't think Yuzhi took it that seriously. But his father was right to stop him from getting involved in their escapade because doing anything would've only made things worse.

They are similar in the sense that both them are jealous, obsessive people with trauma who manipulated their partners but the context also matters. MQY is not nearly as bad as FX. MQY did throw himself at danger to garner CZ's sympathy, but justified or not, most of his actions stemmed from some kind of legitimate reason. We also have to remember that MQY and CZ are literal enemies with everyone trying to pull them apart, so sometimes going to extremes is the only way to get closer. While MQY may push CZ's limits to test her love by making her choose him over her sect, he would never do something to physically or mentally hurt her, and never push her to the point of breaking down.

Her master is definitely the biggest problem, but she doesn't know that. Her parents want her to be happy but will being with MQY really make her happy? From their perspective, no one in their family had ever been happy by getting involved with the demon sect and they are right to be cautious about MQY, especially when the only time they interacted with him was when he lied and impersonated Chang Ning.

Despite their prejudice, her parents are the most righteous and unconventional ones among the six sects, and they really loved and indulged their daughter. If MQY went to them before, showed them that he loved her and tried to be a part of her world, do you think they wouldn't have agreed over time? But he never envisioned a future like that, he wanted them to be together in Li sect or roam the world together where he wouldn't have to share her with anyone else.

Exactly, and it is important to acknowledge his toxicity and not romanticise it. He has feelings and it's okay to fall in love with her for her kindness and attention, but his feelings are not her responsibility. And calling her kindness in the first few eps "provocation" is something I truly cannot digest.

PS. Sorry for the deleted reply, I misread your response the first time.

Honestly, it is pretty reasonable for those two feelings to exist at the same time. CZ can love MQY and do everything in her power to keep him alive but also be unwilling to betray and leave her family, friends, sect and everyone else she loves just to be with him.

For what it's worth, I do understand where MQY is coming from or why he is the way he is but that does not make his actions condonable. Maybe we'll find out that he didn't really abandon his sect and it was all an act to draw Nie Zhe out, but everything Yuzhi and Cai Zhao said is also true. MQY absolutely did wager his life to guilt trip and manipulate CZ and force her hand to burn bridges between her sect and herself. And for all his declarations of love, his actions show a lack of respect for CZ and her wishes. They do love each other but MQY's love burns like a fire and inevitably, at times ends up suffocating CZ in its the smoke.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying this drama, but I think I'm getting too old to defend obsessive and manipulative behaviour. Rather than MLs who drop everything and everyone in their single-minded pursuit of love, I much prefer those who can accomplish the impossible task of balancing responsibilities, friendships and love.

Okay, so there are four armies in the mix here - the Left, Central, Right and Imperial. At this point, all of them were supposed to be on Prince Duan's side. The Right army, under A Bai's leadership and XiaoHo Dan's command, had come with the intention to rebel but the Left and the Central armies were still loyal to Prince Duan. However, Prince Duan was suspicious of the other armies (especially, the central army who supposedly sent the fake emperor), so he was cautious of them and ordered the search (Imperial guards are the one executing the search as they were directly under XHB's command).

The other armies were unhappy about the situation and Wanyin and Dan took this opportunity to frame the central army (by giving a soldier a gun) of rebellion and colluding with the emperor. Since the Imperial army was convinced of the rebellion and started attacking, the central army at that point could either die or defend/attack, which resulted in rebellion. Since the central and imperial armies were fighting against each other, they both asked the Left army for backup, who in turn asked the Right Army which side to support. The Right army of course chose to help the central army and attack the imperial army. The Left army were initially loyal to XHB, but due to XHB's suspicions and negligence, the peer pressure from the central and right armies, as well as the concern for their general who was stuck in the city, the Left army also rebelled. So, at the end it was the three armies against the imperial army.

As for the jokes, I'm not a mandarin speaker myself, so I'm not sure if I'd be of much help with that, but I hope this was helpful!

In his defense, none of the disciples seems to have anything better to do 😭. And dare I say, not leaving them alone is quite the point. At first, he was concerned about her safety. Later, after realizing his feelings, it became all the more reason to not leave them alone, especially since from his perspective, CZ and MQY's relationship is pretty much doomed.

And as far as 2MLs go, I think Yuzhi is surprisingly respectful towards the main leads. He does not actively try to influence FL's feelings or decisions, and neither is he too hostile towards the ML. I feel like if the writers kept his character consistent, after CZ acknowledges her feelings for MQY and takes a stance, Yuzhi would back out himself.

I thought so. Given MQY's personality, it totally seemed like a thing he'd do!

Honestly, that incident was a little too convenient to be just a coincidence. If I had to guess, MQY probably paid them to act out the scenario in front of them to make Yuqi back out from the engagement.

Ikr, this drama has the full package! Though I understand that if someone is binge-watching, it can be a bit fast for them. I watched two eps per day so I had ample amount of time to digest all the events and discuss them with others which made the drama more enjoyable for me.

I agree with you, reading the source material definitely makes it quite difficult not to compare it with the adaptation and be disappointed with the changes. Especially if people were expecting the novel ending which was more elaborate but given the censorship and episode limitation, I think they did a pretty fine job with the drama ending too and it was satisfying to me.

But here's the thing, he didn't really know anything about the story or plot. He was aware that he was inside a novel but had no useful knowledge beyond that. He was simply a normal teenager stuck in a foreign world full of danger and schemes. And he did try to change his fate like when he tried making friends with young Prince Duan, wrote letters to the previous emperor but he soon found out that his every act of 'rebellion' only made the consequences worse. And he was very young without any backup, at that point anyone would give up. Still, he didn't exactly give up entirely because if you'd remember he sent A Bai to infiltrate the army and had been planning to fight back for better or worse even if the FL hadn't come. Now, you can just personally not like his character but to me, most of his actions did make sense. I may not like all his actions, but I could see where he's coming from.

Also sorry for not putting the spoiler tag earlier, didn't realise it was turned off.

The poison absolutely did hinder his physical activities and along with constant headaches and periodic flare-ups, the level of rationality he maintained was honestly commendable on his part.

Prince Duan was also tortured by the empress but in a different manner. He was probably thrown into the battlefield to die at some point unlike Dan who was pretty much locked within the palace. Being outside the empress's sight and out of palace, allowed Duan to gain military recognition, resources and people and grow politically. Another reason being that the Empress purposely allowed Prince Duan to grow in power (at least in the beginning) to keep Dan in check so that XHD wouldn't even dare to go against her because even he did, Prince Duan would still kill him.

I mean in his defense, he spent the entirety of the ten years under the constant scrutinization of the empress dowager who made sure he didn't know much of any skills to prevent him from rebelling. Not to mention, he was poisoned the whole time and effectively too weak to do much physical activities.

ML transmigrated in 2016, and while the drama didn't clarify, it is most likely that he went back to 2016 when he returned and lived 9 years in the modern world before FL went back and they met.

Can't explain all the plot holes but would like to point out that Yong'er is a 2D character, Dan transmigrated when he was middle-schooler and had never even read the story so the only person with actually knowledge is Wanyin and even she speed read the novel in one night so she only knows the gist of the major events and not the details. As such we have to excuse if they had to wing their way through the story at times. Not to mention after some point, they had changed so many things that the main story didn't even matter,

As for why they didn't kill off Prince Duan. You are right, they absolutely had infinite opportunities to kill him and the empress dowager. One like you said they didn't know what effect killing a main character would bring so they didn't risk it. Two, we have to remember Dan had been stuck in that world for almost 17 years. To him that world is as real as it gets and he probably has no hopes of ever getting out. So, if he plans on staying there, he cannot just unceremoniously kill the two people who hold most of the power as it'll make the court and armies very unstable and mostly result in mass revolts and war.

As for Bei, his one and only concern is Dan's safety. As long as he is safe, the country and everyone else can go to hell for all he cares so I assume he isn't always trying his best to maximise the benefits in any given scenario.

One thing I wholeheartedly agree with you is the absolutely uselessness of the secret guards. They look like they don't even know what they're doing half the time, the most useful thing they did was probably dig the secret tunnels lol.

I never read the novel but from my understanding of this drama, my theory is that even in the novel that our FL read, Xiaoho Bo was always a schemer and probably a bit manipulative, that's literally how he was able to survive in the palace. But in that novel, all his actions were absolutely justified in the bigger picture. He fought against the Empress Dowager who was evil, went against the emperor who was a tyrant and didn't care about the country, saved the scholars, saved people from the drought, fought to protect the country against Yan, all great things. Yong'er helped him do all this, they actually fell in love, and this probably helped him heal from his trauma and be a better person. Minor evil/bad things that he may have done all the way would have dimmed under his bright protagonist light.

But in our main story, all his great achievements were hijacked by our main leads. There were no scholars to save, no drought, no war, not to mention he was constantly thrown off by our leads at every step, so the only thing he could do was direct all his energy against the emperor for personal revenge, and became more and more obsessed to the point of evil, especially since he never fell in love with Yong'er and missed his redemption arc. Again, the protagonist light literally justifies almost anything like what happened with Dan in the main story, Wanyin came and changed his story from a tyrant who actually did evil things to emperor who fell in love and started caring about his country and people.

I just know I'm going to have serious withdrawal when this drama ends cuz what do you mean it's this perfect!?

Xiaohou Dan declared Yu Wanyin empress in court (out of scene) but is mentioned when Eunuch An went to inform her father. The official crowning ceremony is still not shown yet and will probably happen in the future eps as we can see her walking down the court in that gorgeous red dress in the outro.