i love YL too, but you cannot force someone to love you just because your are kind and your intentions are pure.…
Sorry, I will never have empathy towards rapists and in his first life he was one so I may like him in the second life, but first life, I could not care less.
i love YL too, but you cannot force someone to love you just because your are kind and your intentions are pure.…
Your logic here imo lacks empathy towards sexual assault victims. That is a nightmare that never leaves someone's psyche. There is no justification for it and she will never be beholden to give him a chance after it.
And hey, I don't think Xie Wei should have a chance with her either. He assisted her her torture just as much as Yan Lin, but this author loves giving her FL's abusers the limelight and ignore her trauma, so what can I do.
their whole storyline is just weird. it doesn't fit the rest of the story.
I mean, it's true that there was a lot more gravity given to them in the novel, but, you can see all the clues straight away and infer it from the drama if you pay attention too. In the moment before her death, she mentions how she has done many misdeeds and been reviled by others, but she doesn't owe them anything because they had all hurt her or hurt her back in some way or another. However, only ZZ had never harmed her and instead helped her at cost to herself.
At that point in time, we see that she had been imprisoned in the palace by XW. We see her frightened and pretending to be asleep as YL is in her chamber and taunting her by her bed. We have enough context clues to see how she was alone, vulnerable, and in pain because of those two, so instantly when she comes back to the present, we also know that she will hold reservations against them. We also can easily see how determined she is to be a better person in this life and change her fate; this motivation is brought back and tied to stemming from ZZ over and over.
In the drama, the encounter after ZZ helps her with the empress dowager, JXN tells ZZ that she is extremely afraid of pain and death, and if you look at ZZ, who has his back turned, his expression frozen at that moment. He stops in his tracks. Because he knows that despite that fear, she...the so called "selfish, evil empress," still overcame it for his sake, to save him. That's HUGE.
You can see it in their small gestures and involuntary actions when they see each other. They might not say much but their actions speak. Like how JXN is baring her teeth when she's facing the dowager, but as soon as ZZ comes, you can see her guard totally relax. She goes from attack mode to not being able to take her eyes off ZZ and even becomes clumsy. She's only able to be like that because of her trust in ZZ and how safe she feels with him around.
You can see it with how ZZ doesn't say much but his body seems to betray him. When ZZ stumbles in front of the dowager, he instantly reacts to hold her up even though his mind understands that's not the best move logically. When she stumbles in the rain, he reaches out a hand like he wants to help her even though they're separated by a whole street. He's basically unconsciously constantly reaching for her even when he tries to keep a respectable distance.
I mean, there's so much more and I could go on and on with just the drama alone, because there's SO much subtext in their interactions and body language around each other, but I don't want to write a novel over here. Just because it's subtle and may not be to everyone's taste, doesn't mean it's illogical or comes from nowhere.
I personally think it's more nuanced than that. I think ZZ and JXN resemble XL's story more because both loves…
Oh, I agree with you completely about XL. Even when XL was so called "evil," he was never really cruel in the twisted, misogynistic, obsessed way XW and YL were. When he treated FL harshly, it was when he thought of her as his soldier and treated her accordingly. Once he actually cared for her, his actions SHOWED that, and he never put his own desire for her over HER happiness. He instead helped her even if it meant injuring himself. That's what I call true love. I definitely think ZZ has resemblances to that. They were both wholehearted in their love.
tbh you might want to try copy pasting the text into chat gpt and translating it that way. i've found those translations…
yeah ancient chinese novels are my crack and I must have scrambled my brain reading so many of them with MTL but it's worth it for me at least, nothing else quite like it
i love YL too, but you cannot force someone to love you just because your are kind and your intentions are pure.…
In her past life, JXN didn't pursue love but power and status, so ofc she didn't care about YL's love and could throw it away even if she came to regret it later. In her second life, she had already experienced (TW ) being raped and tortured by YL, so although she still regrets what she did to him in her last life and wants him to be happy, just because her trauma now exists in another timeline, doesn't mean she doesn't have those memories with her. Imo, the story actually pretty much ignores the trauma of her SA and skims over it in an unrealistic way. Why would she beg him for mercy in this life when those memories are still there with her?
Like she says before she died, she did terrible things to people and they did even more terrible things to her back. YL had already gotten his revenge on JXN in the past life so there was no turning back after that. Of course she won't chase after the people who made her life hell, even if she regrets treating them badly, and instead chase after the person who gave her life warmth.
their whole storyline is just weird. it doesn't fit the rest of the story.
he is basically the entire reason she even gets a second chance and tries to change herself and her fate in this life. without him, there would be no rebirth or changed JXN, so it makes sense that he is crucial to her storyline.
So If it were you, who would you choose, the one you love or the one who loves you?
in this drama, there's an option that has both: both the one she loves and the one who loves her, so no need to choose! I wish that JXN could have followed her heart and been with the person she loved and who loved her for both lifetimes, but from a doylist perspective, the author doomed them to have no chance.
This is just a story after all, but in real life, girls, don't settle.
Ya she should have ended up with the three of them. I’m ok with full fledged harem ending
one of the few dramas where reverse harem ending would be the best ending since all 3 MLs have their own unique merits. Emperors in ancient china had harems of 3000 women, why can't our empress have 3 men?
Getting Lost you forever shipping war vibes in the comments. If she ends up with XW, it’s the ship we’re not…
I personally think it's more nuanced than that. I think ZZ and JXN resemble XL's story more because both loves had to do with the ML sacrificing for the FL and them loving each other, but not being able to act on it because of life circumstances outside of their control. Xiang Liu was the "bad" guy so to speak, but he put FL's happiness above his own if they were together and he never wanted to bind her with his burden, similar to how ZZ despite being the "good" guy does not want to bind JXN with the memories and guilt of the past life if it causes her pain, even if it means they won't be together.
And LYF comment section was WW3, can't be compared to this haha.
Arguably I think the situation involves a misunderstanding. When they initially met many years ago and faced a…
I'm not saying it doesn't make sense for his character; it does, we know he is cold and hostile because of his life experience. It still imo doesn't justify the brutal nature of his words of "skinning her" and wanting to remove her nature. Idk if it's just me who fixates on uses of language like this through a feminist lens, but I do think there's something really twisted and fcked up rather than swoonworthy about that kind of jealousy.
No matter if she is good or bad, she is her and he has no right to tell her how to act or feel. I mentioned this because people in the comments were asking why anyone would think XW is toxic because they think he's just a sad, misunderstood, traumatized puppy. And yes, he does have his own trauma and misunderstandings, but they don't erase the unhealthy way he pushes her boundaries and forces his views and thoughts on her when she does something he doesn't like. People keep saying that she gets to be her genuine self with him, but at the same time, ignore how he tries to erase parts of her genuine self.
I was watching this drama with my sister who was rooting for XW and she suddenly sent me a screenshot from episode 11 and said "hell nah." It was actually a moment that I totally skimmed over, but going through it again just now, it sends off alarms.
When XW is questioning JXN about her crush on ZZ and using YL as a reason to hide his jealousy and possessiveness, he says: "If I were Yan Lin, I would skin you and take away your rebellious nature."
Like...EXCUSE ME? Yeah, I get the jealous, possessive, agressive ML can be hot but a statement like this is directly opposed to all the claims that JXN can be her genuine self with XW. At that point, he became the only one among the 3 MLs who censored and rebuked JXN for acting like herself and following her heart. Even Yan Lin, is better in this regard because in this life, he cares for her happiness above his own, and doesn't seek to restrict her. I don't like how ML attempted to restrict her thoughts here, even if it was supposedly "romantic" to some.
1 
And hey, I don't think Xie Wei should have a chance with her either. He assisted her her torture just as much as Yan Lin, but this author loves giving her FL's abusers the limelight and ignore her trauma, so what can I do.
At that point in time, we see that she had been imprisoned in the palace by XW. We see her frightened and pretending to be asleep as YL is in her chamber and taunting her by her bed. We have enough context clues to see how she was alone, vulnerable, and in pain because of those two, so instantly when she comes back to the present, we also know that she will hold reservations against them. We also can easily see how determined she is to be a better person in this life and change her fate; this motivation is brought back and tied to stemming from ZZ over and over.
In the drama, the encounter after ZZ helps her with the empress dowager, JXN tells ZZ that she is extremely afraid of pain and death, and if you look at ZZ, who has his back turned, his expression frozen at that moment. He stops in his tracks. Because he knows that despite that fear, she...the so called "selfish, evil empress," still overcame it for his sake, to save him. That's HUGE.
You can see it in their small gestures and involuntary actions when they see each other. They might not say much but their actions speak. Like how JXN is baring her teeth when she's facing the dowager, but as soon as ZZ comes, you can see her guard totally relax. She goes from attack mode to not being able to take her eyes off ZZ and even becomes clumsy. She's only able to be like that because of her trust in ZZ and how safe she feels with him around.
You can see it with how ZZ doesn't say much but his body seems to betray him. When ZZ stumbles in front of the dowager, he instantly reacts to hold her up even though his mind understands that's not the best move logically. When she stumbles in the rain, he reaches out a hand like he wants to help her even though they're separated by a whole street. He's basically unconsciously constantly reaching for her even when he tries to keep a respectable distance.
I mean, there's so much more and I could go on and on with just the drama alone, because there's SO much subtext in their interactions and body language around each other, but I don't want to write a novel over here. Just because it's subtle and may not be to everyone's taste, doesn't mean it's illogical or comes from nowhere.
Like she says before she died, she did terrible things to people and they did even more terrible things to her back. YL had already gotten his revenge on JXN in the past life so there was no turning back after that. Of course she won't chase after the people who made her life hell, even if she regrets treating them badly, and instead chase after the person who gave her life warmth.
This is just a story after all, but in real life, girls, don't settle.
https://www.tumblr.com/dangermousie/733979594974248960/seriously-i-love-how-this-is-a-break-up-can-you?source=share
And LYF comment section was WW3, can't be compared to this haha.
No matter if she is good or bad, she is her and he has no right to tell her how to act or feel. I mentioned this because people in the comments were asking why anyone would think XW is toxic because they think he's just a sad, misunderstood, traumatized puppy. And yes, he does have his own trauma and misunderstandings, but they don't erase the unhealthy way he pushes her boundaries and forces his views and thoughts on her when she does something he doesn't like. People keep saying that she gets to be her genuine self with him, but at the same time, ignore how he tries to erase parts of her genuine self.
When XW is questioning JXN about her crush on ZZ and using YL as a reason to hide his jealousy and possessiveness, he says: "If I were Yan Lin, I would skin you and take away your rebellious nature."
Like...EXCUSE ME? Yeah, I get the jealous, possessive, agressive ML can be hot but a statement like this is directly opposed to all the claims that JXN can be her genuine self with XW. At that point, he became the only one among the 3 MLs who censored and rebuked JXN for acting like herself and following her heart. Even Yan Lin, is better in this regard because in this life, he cares for her happiness above his own, and doesn't seek to restrict her. I don't like how ML attempted to restrict her thoughts here, even if it was supposedly "romantic" to some.