Suliabryon

Noooooooooooo! Why, show, why??? 😭

Literally my LEAST favorite SML storyline is when the SML is too obsessed with the FL, can't let it go, and turns evil. The one fox lady is clearly in love with him. Have him wake up to it and fall for her, please. I know these shows rarely do it. They have SML turn evil, or self-sacrifice, or wander off with his broken heart in the end, but it's okay to have him move on and find happiness elsewhere.

It's going to follow the same schedule all of these dramas do. 1-2 episodes a day. Given it will be 36 episodes total and we are only on 13, we have another couple of weeks.

IKR? Like WHY girl! Just tell him the truth! At this point you have nothing to lose.

Right? I think we have a lot of angst ahead because I have a feeling she's not going to tell him everything, which is a MISTAKE, of course.

FOR REAL. Only 1 yesterday was criminal!

That was so heartbreaking! And her face when she saw it and realized what it was. 😭

Let's not forget, the lover's path appeared before them, and it's directly stated in the show it only appears to couples in love. So....that pretty much tells us that regardless of whether either of them are willing to admit their feelings, they are in love. I think that was evident in their actions previously, as well. The way they worked to save one another in the illusion realm two episodes ago, for example. When he said "I trust you" in the last episode, that was HUGE for him, maybe even bigger than saying "I love you".

Also, and I don't think this gets talked about enough, but these are two broken people who have both been through their own forms of serious trauma. He was raised as a slave in the worst conditions imaginable, and only knew love and trust when his master found him and cared for him. She was used and abused by her family, forced to live a lie and become this unbeatable warrior for them. Her experience with being loved is limited to her companion animal and what she "earned" from her family by winning in the arena, and the fact that her mother said her father was going to k*ll her once she lost and she needed to flee and live a good life, tells me that she never felt real love from them (other than her Mom who seems to have been powerless to protect her). So, Ming Yi has never been in love before. She doesn't even know how a loving family should operate. She cares deeply for the people in her inner circle: her cat, her best friend, her master....but I don't think she knows how to understand and accept her own feelings for JBZ. And JBZ is only going to feel bitter disappointment in himself for having feelings for her after finding out she's been lying this whole time.

I thought the scene at the rock was perfectly played by both of them. Even if MY had understood her own feelings to be able to confess to him in that moment, he wouldn't have believed her or listened. That kiss was such a physical expression of love, pain, and anger. I can't wait for the next few episodes as they work through more angst and their feelings come more to the surface.

Because he's used her in his plans multiple times, and she's gotten hurt in the process. And remember, he doesn't know that she's maneuvered herself to participate in helping his plans to get closer to him. Also, "repaying her" feels like an excuse to me. Remember, in the last episode he told her "I trust you" after he hasn't trusted anyone since his master, and now he knows she's been lying to him the entire time. I believe he did the ritual binding them as a way of giving her what he thinks she wants while both protecting her from our bad guy and also punishing himself for trusting her (and for his feelings for her). The lover's path appeared before them, that means they are in love, even if neither one of them is admitting it yet. That means finding out she's been lying to him cuts even deeper. This "repaying her" by carving their names and taking the divine punishment is a way of punishing them both, in a way, while also having the effect of binding them together, and I don't think that's an accident. Now she can't just leave, and he similarly can't walk away from her.

Really cool insights, thanks for sharing!

I agree!

Right? Same! I laughed out loud and said "Really?" to the television, ha ha.

IKR??? I totally agree, HMH's acting in this episode was SO good! You could feel his emotions and he does most of that through his eyes. The look on his face when he came in as they were attacking his people was soooooo "you are all dead".

And yes, I agree. He MUST realize she is in fact MX now, but it sure looks like he's still questioning who she is in the next trailers. Maybe because she really IS a woman, and not using illusionary magic to appear like one? They all seem to think "he" is pretending to be "she" but it doesn't seem to occur to any of them that the MX who reigned supreme in the arena for seven years straight could actually have been a woman the whole time - maybe because ALL of the warriors we've seen have been men? Are women not allowed to fight in the contest?

Anyway, yeah I think this angst is going to continue. It's interesting. The trailers before this show aired made it seem like she was seducing him all over the place before he found out the truth, but we've had exactly ZERO kisses until the one tonight, so I'm thinking all of those actually happen after he knows. Interesting how tricky trailers can be.

IDK! I feel like he's leaving her in that prison and she looks like she's freezing to death or something, and will have to use her powers to live?? I'm guessing. But I also think she's going to almost die and he won't be able to bear it and will realize she can't use her powers. Maybe that's where the conversation about how she "blocked" her powers comes from because that was all in voice over in the trailer.

Solid choice!

Oh, my. Let's recap, shall we?

1. Well, the lover's path appeared to them, which means our duo are, in fact, in love.

2. As if we needed that confirmation after watching them both suffer through everything that happened after.

That was every bit as painful as I expected it to be! And CRIMINAL that they only gave us that single episode tonight given what happens in it! AH! How am I supposed to survive until tomorrow waiting for the next angst filled chapter??

Seriously. though, given everything that was revealed tonight, I kept expecting him to finally carve "Ming Xian" into the stone and that being how he finds out who she really is. Never thought the magic would just give up and say "Okay, he out-stubborned us. Let him carve the wrong name." But here we are. And now they're bound by the red string. As he said, he can't abandon her. Which is good for us since it forces our lovers to work through this set back.

And MAN, was not expecting that first kiss! Made me wince just watching. So much pain and anger conveyed in that.

Oh, and I'm just going to add that when JBZ shows up at his place and protects his wife, that was epic! I wish he'd done more than just knock our main villain back a few steps, but that's okay. Watching him send all of the henchmen flying was pretty satisfying.

AND, AND....did anyone else want to see the Princess and Yan Xiao try to walk the path?! Because I KNOW those two still love each other. Every single day our main villain does some truly heinous stuff that is making YX question all of his life choices. He's going to end up back on the Princess's side, but man she needs to make him grovel for real before even considering taking him back. I hope the show doesn't go the "noble self sacrifice to save her" route of redemption.

Hmm...I'm not sure it's really a love triangle yet, but there is a side character who knows the FL and has always been in love with her, but there is someone else in love with him and FL is oblivious so I have hopes it will never become a triangle. The secret keeping is less annoying and more....anxiety inducing as we all know the deeper they fall the worse the fallout will be when the truth comes out.

I agree 100%! I've said it here before and I'll say it again: finally a series like this where neither of the leads gets watered down or loses some of their bada** aura after falling in love. These two are a power couple. She is smart and embodies what I expect from a woman who has lived on the battlefield. He is just as smart and still completely ruthless - to everyone except her and his sister. And I love how much they trust one another. Neither one is making stupid decisions in the name of protecting one another. I'll go back to the scene in yesterday's eps when FYX finally told FSG about his best friend being the bad guy. WHAT a scene. It held not only so much emotion of her having to tell him his best friend and the only person he's trusted absolutely has betrayed him like everyone else, but also the sincere trust between them and the maturity of their bond as a couple. The way she asked him for a favor first, that he must stay calm no matter what she tells him, and the way he doesn't lash out at her at all, even as he is struggling to accept what she's saying. He believes her, but yet we still have all of the layers of what a person hearing that would feel: the shock and denial, the struggle to comprehend and accept it, and then the anger when he does. And then you can feel how much she is hurting for him, how much she wishes it wasn't true because of how deeply this hurts him. It was just so well acted by both of them.

Oh, was he in the novel? That makes more sense, because I'm over here like....dude, you want to be Emperor, you're going to need an heir sooner or later, you've eventually going to have to consummate something with someone who is not Fu Yixiao, and your wife, who for reasons beyond my comprehension actually WANTS you despite how you treat her, is right there. I've only watched the first few minutes of ep 23 this morning, but as things are going, he's going to end up pushing the princess right into the arms of his brother (which wouldn't be good for her either; really, Feng Yixang is...well pun not intended but she's just screwed at this point).

But him being a eunuch makes more sense than absolutely refusing to touch his wife because he's still holding a torch for the woman he "loves" but also shot off a cliff at one point.

OMG the intense conversations today?? Her telling him his best friend has betrayed him like everyone else he loved. His confrontation with said best friend? SO well acted. Just wow. The emotion of both of those scenes felt so real and earned.