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I want to recommend Coroner's Diary. Coroner's Diary in my opinion is the perfect blend of mystery, crime and romance. The mystery/murder case are entertaining and thrilling. To seasoned cdrama viewers some of the cases may be predictable, but they are still engaging and interesting to watch. The main big case and big villain keep you guessing till the end. The drama does a good job of dropping hints of the eventual massive plot twist and keeps you guessing who is the true villain and who's e side everyone is on.
But the main event of this drama is the main romance. The relationship between the ML and FL is as close to a perfect cdrama relationship as possible. All cliches are avoided which I love. No misunderstandings, no break ups, no noble idiocy, no keeping each other guessing or waiting, nothing like that. The FL is smart, and independent. The ML is supporting and trusting. They communicate openly about what they both want and their goals and future together. They get together relatively early, no messing around. And once they are together, they are so supportive and trusting of each other. They communicate so well, with absolutely no misunderstands or break ups. Not even a single argument. Once they're official, they are fully committed to each other and nothing gets in their way, supporting each other till the end. Both of them are walking green flags, and a damn near prefect cdrama romance. They work together in perfect harmony as they investigate murder cases, while also going on secret dates and secretly flirting with each other. The 2nd and 3rd CP's are more generic, but still also cute with no break ups or misunderstandings. Honestly, the romance between all 3 cp's provides a nice warm and cute contrast to the mystery and murder cases. Overall, this drama is a really, really well made mystery, crime and romance historical cdrama. A true dark horse of 2025. And the main CP is exactly who this list was created for.
Edit: I didn't see SAI's recommendation of it below, but I'll just leave mine here as support for SAI's rec and for someone interested in a quick idea of how the main cp is.

In the novel it's worth noting she does become empress after he becomes emperor.

Haha no problem

Hahaha ikr so unexpected the type of twist where it makes you want to rewatch the show to pick up little clues

Haha yeh no honestly if I hadn't read the novel the hints would mean nothing to me but when its revealed it like all makes sense and comes together. He's definitely become so sus lately.

They have dropped clues in the drama about this but never fully said it. But in the novel, the emperor is an imposter, from the flashbacks in episode 21 of the rebellion, Yan Han (Yan Li's father) took the place of the emperor and become an imposter emperor, pretending to be the emperor. In the drama, in today's episode it was mentioned how his Go skills use to be good but are now bad. In a previous episode when Yan Chi gave a speech to the prince envoy that visited and tried to kill his brother, about how he can never steal the throne, the emperor looked upset. And yesterday when grand aunt and empress dowager spoke and grand aunt mentioned twins, the empress dowager looked suspicious. So yeh there are clues but no confirmation in the drama. But in the novel he's an imposter, he killed Consort Jin and killed Fl's family because they found out the truth.

hahah yeh probably will after this or soonish, so many cdramas and kdramas I wanna rewatch but new ones that are so good keep coming up like coroner's diary I have no time haha

Just another clue to the emperor being an imposter, at the end of today's episode its mentioned how the emperor use to be a really good go player, but now he's looking to Grand aunt, showing how he's likely an imposter, as his go skills are completely different.

It's weird, I watched prisoner of beauty but for the life of me I can't remember his character, might have to go back and watch it. I did really like prisoner of beauty but I remember being too distracted but the ML and FL haha

No problem 😊

Yeh ikr so frustrating, seeing him hand over the power of the Shuoxi Army to someone you know is evil, it's painful to watch for sure.

Based on the novel there's romance, but it only happens after a long time. So the show probs won't cover it or maybe just slightly. So likely slight romance but not much.

I swear, Prince Cheng's dumb little secretive smirks every time he thinks something goes his way are so annoying. Just want someone to wipe the smirk of his face one and for all, can't wait till ML deals with him properly. Gotta give credit though the actor does make him really unlikeable.

Same I hope Yan Chi takes the throne, and honestly just want Yan Li and Yue Ning to be happy but don't really see him as an emperor based on his personality if that makes sense.

Can't wait for immortal ascension, Coroner's diary ending perfectly before Immortal Ascension is perfect timing, hopefully Immortal ascension can be as good as coroner's diary and we can have back to back great cdramas.

Feng girl is official primary consort, and he took Qin Xiang as his concubine, after they slept together. Just did it to mess with the crown prince, Qin family and Qin Wan.

Pretty much just mean barbarian invaders, people living outside the empire like other countries or empires or tribes that are constantly attacking the empires borders to gain more land/invade the empire. ML's father and the Shuoxi Army fight at one particular border, guarding it from barbarian invaders.

I get your point and definitely keeping the tally if possible would be ideal but I think it was his only option, to protect the Shuoxi Army, his father's loyal deputies and himself. As long as the emperor doesn't have that token, he will never trust the Shuoxi Army or Yan Chi. If Yan Chi didn't hand over the tally, he would likely kill whoever had it, until he got the tally. Or just have completely disassembled the Shuoxi Army. At least that's what I think. Definitely not ideal to give the tally away and would prefer to keep it if possible, but I think ML was trying to protect the army from being broken apart, and the emperor from killing anyone else for the tally. And from today's scenes you can see his father's old deputies still trust ML and will help him when needed.

No problem

In the novel they were identical twin brothers, with one brother getting jealous over the other getting the throne, thus rebellion and taking his place. I think they should have kept this set up for the drama, but I saw someone else comment, that because in ancient china having twins can be seen as an omen, its possible Yan Han was the emperor's twin brother but was hidden away at birth with the family of a farmer. Also last episode when twins were brought up in the discussion between empress dowager and grant aunt, empress dowager looked a bit suspicious/like it really got to her. So maybe Yan Han is the emperor's twin brother but was hidden at birth because it's inauspicious. I saw another comment before bring up the same theory about twins being inauspicious and him being hidden away etc.