ShortCircuit

1. No. Except for a very short period at the end of season 1, that's it.

2. By the second season, they forget everything about magic levels and it won't matter. Don't bother remembering them.

3. Yes.

4. Naksu's body is gone BUT there's a plot switch that allows someone else's body to look like Naksu's original one. She doesn't shift any more.

And geometry battles :D

JiaMo explained it the first time they landed in court with the story of the misplaced tax. 100 years back the emperor introduced a quick tax in kind (silk) to support the army against a Japanese surprise invasion. All the counties contributed to it. But after the war they never removed the tax (because why not?) and then the trail got cold because the registries of the tax bureaus went missing, and those that survived showed the same tax (it kept the name, presumably to keep track of it), but paid in silver taels and relegated to just one county in the prefecture instead to all of them.

That's the original problem, anyway. And then there's the land measurement (measures don't fit the official tallies) and that's a HUGE problem. And JiaMo's parents were probably killed because his father (also a good mathematician) had calculated it all and told somebody, presumably a politician or a landlord with an interest in keeping it secret.

As for the tax system, it was pretty complicated already. They had tax in kind (products of some type, like silk or rice etc), money tax (actual silver), and work tax (the peasants would have to work for free for the empire or nobles - and that's aside the actual slaves or state convicts sentenced to hard labour). China - all the kingdoms and empires that came and went - used to have a wonderfully complex bureaucratic system for taxation, public works, army, and so on and so forth.

BaoYu's heart is in the right place, he's just young and naive (and sheltered), not really stupid. He can improve.

And love is supposed to be blind at that age - she's teasing him about the food, and having heart-to-hearts with him. It's love. :D

A sensible wife will keep him in check and let older sister find her own happiness. I hear Cheng's not married either, and he's digging himself up from the pit. Just sayin'.

Mr. Fan seems much more sinister, and more decided to do away with JiaMo. He grew mad at Lawyer Cheng because he postponed the whole thing until JiaMo and BaoYu managed to escape.

I think Mr. Fan is the culprit, even if it wasn't he, himself, who did it.

But him bringing in the cat was cute (and he's allergic now?! :D LOL).

But oooooh the WHOLE prison shuddered in unison when they learned JiaMo was returning. And they brought out the new straw mats, LOL. I think I like those guys :D

PS And it's definitely love between BaoYu and the girl, I see marriage in their future - what, he gave her his precious jade! They're basically engaged already.

I don't trust Lawyer Cheng when he doesn't take money.

I'm all about living in a fantasy (I'm watching dramas, aren't I?) but it's always the characters that I end up loving or hating. The actors playing them are secondary.

LSG's private life is his private life, he and his future wife are not public property so the public doesn't get to decide over them.

TBH though, this sounds more like what a regular tabloid would publish - something to get the clicks. Even if there are some fans who can't respect common sense limits to fandom, giving them any kind of discussion space isn't right in the end.

Edit: reading about it, it's not directly about the marriage, but more about the bride's family (her father was twice prosecuted for embezzlement, went to prison the first time, was exonerated at retrial the second time), and about how the family made their fortune partially due to that. So it's not opposing in sasaeng fury, but more in disapproving the future in-laws.

I still think framing it as a case of fans mad their idol is marrying (at all) is baiting for clicks. The situation is a bit more nuanced, apparently. Still his own - and her own - private lives, but not as black and white as it first appeared.

It seems to have been released last week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmfDNi9xYew

I mean, man-made airborne biochemical weapon. We can't have that at this time, even in a roundabout way.

It started extremely strong - loved the first episode! - and kind of mellowed toward the end. Zhang Ping's tenacious nature might've bent a bit too (was ShuLin the actual emperor? Because it sure looked like he was, and ZP ignored it in order to make the good guy an emperor.)

Lan Jue was all over the place - there were about three distinct arcs (LJ's revenge, LJ and ZP's enmity, and then the final arc), and in each he seemed kind of disposed toward each of the guys in turn, LOL. And then they smack down the son kept in the countryside so that he'd be protected, LOL. I mean, okay, he definitely has a son, BUT, unless there was some mention of him in the cuts made to the previous 28 eps, they didn't need to mention him now either, unless it was to tone down any presumable close friendships *ahem*. And when did he have TIME to become a scholar, get an official position, get married, have a kid, lose the wife, plan a revenge, meet ZP, etc? Good thing the cats are still around. They'll just purr some sense into him again, maybe :D

Gu Qingzhang acted in a different drama than the rest of them, LOL. They were all being detective-y and then military-ish, and he was being the main character in a palace drama and court politics :D

The absolute winners - MoWen!! (yes, I'm definitely a MoWen fan.) I don't know how he came to become the Minister of Justice, LOL, after going to the wars, but hey, I don't judge. He has insane chemistry with everybody else, too. I'm going to be looking out for whatever drama Hong Yao appears in from now on. And then, obviously, Chen Chou - you don't need Lan Jue, Zhang Ping, your own faithful sidekick is there to save the day, any day, every day :D

I just wish somebody would have thought to give Zhang Ping his metal bowl again. How will he practice the magic without it?

And now that I remember it, whose was the metal bowl they found in the closed Incantation Court when the fake/real/no, wait, really fake Dowager Empress was about to be burned? If it's supposed to be GQZ's? But he wasn't from the clan, what could he do with it? Ah, plot holes...

I would've LOVED it to keep the original atmosphere, and sadly, I kind of see how badly it was cut down. Maybe it was to tone down the bromance, or the final plot lines, or whatever... But the first ep felt like a whole movie, and for me anyway, that didn't maintain til the end.

Yet, it was a good series, pretty good production values (despite having only one throne room to play for the whole imperial complex, and only two or three street settings overall. and then in the second half, lots of kind of obvious green screen scenes (like the cozy playhouse of LJ and ShuLin). The music was also good (old master's singing voice was a surprise, LOL, he could definitely win some awards :D).

So, all's well that ends well.

Okay, now it makes sense why they couldn't air it in the past two years.

What the heck!! ShuLin is PeiZhi's zhi ji / soulmate?!! When did THAT happen?!

MoWen, come over, I have cookies. Bad people don't deserve you. Seriously, come over, we'll find someone new for you. Someone better. There, there... *consoling the baby*

Seriously now, Zhang Ping going bothered about that is cute, though LOL.

Mid ep 22 but I can't help myself...

It's male-centric but not BL. At most it's bromance, of the really-really not-lovers kind.

It's a three-fold story,

First, the tax was initially paid by all the counties in the prefecture as raw silkweight (a tax in kind, basically, pretty primitive for a tax system but then it was supposed to cover for an emergency) for a few years, then, after a few years of missing registries from almost 100 years back, the tax remained, but paid as silverweight (a different kind of tax but with the same name) and only one county carried the whole of it. Which is definitely not right for them. So if JiaMo and BaoYu (and maybe Lawyer Cheng) manage to clear that up, they'll all be heroes of the county LOL.

Second, there's the land issue. If you measured incorrectly AND also exempted lots of land from taxation, it's going to become really, really messy as it goes on. Just think what it would mean to sell or buy a piece of land that's supposed to be agricultural and of a certain size, but then you want to pass it on or something, and discover you have a different size and it's not agricultural at all. And then you either are rich and powerful and steal from your less than powerful neighbours, or are poor and get robbed. But you also have to pay tax on a wrong piece of land, and they're expecting all kinds of stuff to happen on that land too, LOL. And that for 100 years.

I've been reading lots of Chinese webnovels, there are some stories about taxation and land ownership and borders changing in some of them, all fascinating. Because - just think of it. In Europe, in the Irish kingdoms, for example, one of the biggest stories in the Bronze age was the Great Cattle Raid of Cooley, or The Tain - also known as the story of Cu Chulain. It's about how in the first century CE, a bunch of people stole a bull and then there was a war over it. It sounds like a HUGE thing and there are gods and warriors and geasa throughout it, and it's amazingly heroic and inspired lots of Celtic folklore literature and high fantasy.

And they had like a few dozen people fighting throughout the whole story (and at one time, Cu Chulain is fighting off a whole army by himself too.)

Compared to that, take the beginning of Nirvana in Fire (a story set in the first half of the first millenium, if I'm not wrong), for example - it's a story about revenge for the wanton killing of a Crown Prince and his whole family (a blood prince, too, not someone who happened to be unrelated to the Emperor who ordered it done), and the total destruction of an army of 70000 people (with all its soldiers and captains and generals and everything.) That, just because of a distrustful Emperor, and even if that army had guarded the border, the Empire had plenty of other armies to spare.

What I'm trying to say is - the SCALE of it all is orders of magnitude different from an European - and generally a Western - frame of mind. For us, an army of 10000 is huge. For the Chinese, it's the vanguard of a regular kingdom, maybe not the greatest. (It took a while to get used to those numbers, let me tell you :D)

So ANYthing regarding land tax and land allotment and use, no matter how small in the greater scheme of things, would become a huge thing in enough time, for the Chinese kingdoms and empires.

And third - the story is also about JiaMo's parents and how they actually died. So on a personal level, he's trying to solve the mystery of their murder, which is closely related to the silk tax AND the land measurement.

So yeah, there's plenty to solve in the long run, but there's a chance for it, because it's still small enough to get solved, but also important enough to drag in important men to make political decisions about it.

Sorry for the long story, LOL, I get interested in such things and there are times when I feel like sharing what's interesting to me. :D

It's not the two of them, LOL, it's young looove. Or it sure looks like that, according to drama rules. It's not JiaMo either :D

But there are already signs that SleezyLawyerCheng.exe is starting to grip and give errors, and RedemptionArcForCheng.exe is starting to debug :D

I have no idea (they're not together in any way by ep 7.) I don't really think so, though, she's way too independent and he's much more versed in the ways of the world.

They could be friendly enemies though, if he ends up helping BaoYu and JiaMo solve the problems (that he helped cause, LOL).

So, uh, let me put ep 7 to song. *ahem.*

"I can see what's happenin'" - ""What?!"
"-And they don't have a clue!" - "Who?!"
"They'll fall in love and here's the bottom line: Our trio's down to two." - "Oh..."

And yeah I'm counting Lawyer Cheng as part of the trio LOL. Just for the sake of discussion, yes, I'm totally down for it. I like naive falling in love and someone's sister needs real help in handling the boy LOL.

Moment 3 re-visited: Wen KeXing yelling at Ye BaiYi, "Old Monster, are you trying to pick a fight with me!" while Zhou ZiShu and Chengling are looking on helplessly, and ZZS is trying hard to keep WKX and YBY separated LOL. Though ZZS seems kind of a little happy about it too :D

This took a bit to get used to, now I wanted for it to have lasted longer.

Does anyone have any idea if the BGM OST was ever released? I can only find three songs, and I really really loved the BGM theme (the OP, and its other versions). Pretty eerie, fitting the story.

I have come to really like Chen FeiYu for a while now, this drama presented quite a few other great actors I'll be on the lookout for from now on.

...And hopefully someone translated the novel, too :D