Oh, The Double. That was so cruel. POB is Prisoner of Beauty? You'll have to help me cuz ... I don't remember…
OMG now I totally remember. That was cruel too !!! Really bad and his lady was so incredibly devastated. They'd taken so long to get together and she had stalled. Yes that one was really bad.
spoiler tag is a good idea. I wish everyone was so responsible when talking about other dramas.
On the Episodes page, the green line is flattening out between 9.0 and 10.
It had been very much effected by lower ratings that had been submitted by people/trolls who were rating unaired episodes.
So now we get to see all these incredibly high episode scores and a line that will travel straight along 9.5 or higher ... if nothing outageous happens at the end.
I haven't been rating episodes for many dramas so I'm strangely pleased about this. I haven't seen such consistently high numbers before.
Episode 37 when LJQ was back at his residence recovering on his bed... it was at the side chamber and his siblings…
He's sick/injured so I doubt they'd think much of it ... unless they knew that it wasn't just now but always. Then they'd know... for sure. Chances are that they have their suspicions but would never ask.
It would probably help if they didn't go back to Jinling where there would be spy servants and all the elders would know for sure as well. Surely that would be real trouble.
I'm not understanding who 'they', 'others' and 'people' are in your comment.
I'm not taking a stand. I was taking the time to try and really understand what you said even though it's not clear to me who you are talking about. Perhaps you are only speaking to people who think they know.
remember when he helped Uncle Liu escape from the opera house? that was the **old** crown prince in disguise that…
He (deposed CP) should be dead so that he can never come back in the future to 'take back his throne'. See even if the deposed CP doesn't actively want to be king, power hungry factions might seek him out to bring him back and take the throne for themselves. He has a legitimate right to it. So he could be used as a puppet (king in name only) by some faction that would want to stand behind him pulling the strings. So, basically, while he's alive, he's a potential threat. The rightful heir is still out there while a usurper sits in his place. Bad potential. Bad look. By saving him LJQ kept the problem alive which, at the very least, would make the new emperor feel anxious ... and at the very most, might actually endanger him in the future. Two things that Lin family would/should be punished for. Acting against the king in any way is treason.
the notes that the FL burnt state that the ml had indeed helped the son of the previous dethroned king to escape.…
An emperor, especially a new one, especially one that took instead of receiving the throne ... will tend to kill off their predecessors supporters in case they come back to sabotage for revenge or just because they give the new guy a bad look.
Clearing the field ... off with all of their heads ... and choosing a family like the Shen to make an example of ... will also scare everyone else who might become a problem, so that they don;t.
Shen family were not treasonous. They just supported the former king. They made the usurper king look and maybe even feel bad. They made great sacrificial lambs and were one of the examples used to scare everyone else into submission.
They advised the previous king to decrease the power of the princes because one might steal the throne. They were right. One did. And then he killed them for speaking out against him before he did his bad act.
Basically, they backed the wrong guy, underestimated the enemy that won and paid the price. No real treason. Just the wrong move at a pivotal time.
The Lin family weren't executed like the Shen because they bent the knee and groveled. Grandfather resigned after reversing his allegiance. He said all the right things and did all the right things in the new king's eyes. He declawed himself publicly and then ran for the countryside to save his family. And then they made a political marriage to join families with one of the new king's supporters.
You can almost see it as LJQ being attached to the Zhao family, put under their control, almost like a hostage ... to make the new king feel like the next generation of Lin would be controllable and made safe.
That part didn't work, of course, the marriage was also useful because it solved the Zhao family problems with ZXT. So she was used and sent to the Lin family ... outta sight, outta mind, but also a hostage in a way. And LJQ rebelled against the plan by going to the military instead of finishing the scholarly path that would have taken him to court as an official in the Zhao family's pocket.
I think it's a good thing that they also showed that many women, while victims under patriarchy, also perpetuate…
It's called brainwashing. It's not that some women are guilty of consciously perpetuating the status quo. If we are told that we are less-than. undeserving, or necessarily, incredibly different ... enough times... and everyone around us believes it, we begin to believe it too.
We develop self hatred and low expectations and turn them on others of our own kind because that's all we know, that's what we learn from every angle ... that is the received truth that gets into our bones. And so we act like the oppressor does.
That's why every single instance suggesting the contrary needs to be highlighted and taught too. The weight of every single one has to accumulate over time in order to offset the prevailing messages that have dominated for so long.
Hey you can't say stuff like this and not explain what you mean. There's no story context in that teaser at all…
The teaser is a red herring? Come to think of it, this drama hasn't done a lot of deep fake teasers ... but now we have one that's meant to trick us into twisting our knickers? Oh man. Here I thought these producers were above this kind of thing. LOL
Lanxiang’s ironyThe more I think about Lanxiang, the more I feel her complexity lies in the gap between what…
I think it's simpler than this.
LanXiang knows what she wants but she keeps doing things for others because that's the kind of person she is. If she can help, she will help ... even someone like XingTing because the woman desperately needed assistance and giving it was the right thing to do. So, even though, it was downright risky for her to step up to help XT that's what she did because that's the person she is. When she can help, she always does.
So, then, what does she actually want? She wants everything that she and XT discussed as XT lay dying. She wants to be her own person. She wants her own (pen) name and her own repute. She wants to read and learn and make money, develop her talents, become more and more capable and be independent. She wants to be as powerful and as independent and as equal as possible in her relationship. That's what she wanted to do and was starting to do in her first year as a free commoner. And she hasn't given up on that dream.
People are all caught up in her identity as a Shen; a noble woman in disguise. But it doesn't matter to her. She wants to live well ... as herself. Not a Shen . Not a Lin. Herself.
This drama has really became the best drama of 2026 for me. If I have to rank it among 2025 dramas, it's also…
With The Legend of Zang Hai, I couldn't get past the MC's foolish risk taking at the beginning. He was in so much of a rush that he did some seriously stupid things and I couldn't find the faith that he would ever become the cunning genius that everyone seemed to think he was. So, as a lover of the show, should I give it another chance and, if so, at what point should I restart. When does he mature a bit and become more careful?
For the FL here, I think she is working hard to travel her own path and become her own person before she'll even consider getting closer to her husband. She loves him but she wants to have her own life first.
I mean, she's writing plays. She's making a reputation for herself as a writer. She's making money and investing it (I think) and so, when she does start to open up, soften up and communicate more she won't be doing it from a position of powerless dependence.
At least that's my guess what the director meant when she said that they walk separate paths until their fate brings them to their ultimate destiny. Hers is independence and his is learning to think and act beyond the narrow world view that he was raised in.
At any rate, I think many of us would be disappointed if the dramas main themes just dropped away in order to speed up the reconciliation and romance. It isn't supposed to be easy for them both to arrive at a shared definition of what it means to live well. They represent rich and poor, man and woman and the path to be blazed by and for everyone moving through history towards a more equal society where everyone can live a good life.
No, not related to the Shen family. The papers is evidence detailing how LJQ saved the disposed Prince and sent…
His grandfather had been an advisor to the deposed CPs father and would have supported the son as well.
In all the time that the deposed CP was in hiding, he never said boo to anyone. He stayed incognito, in hiding and never went looking for backers to stage a coup of his own in order to retrieve his throne. He just lived a quiet life not bothering anyone.
So, since he wasn't going to challenge the now emperor for the throne and he'd never done anything wrong, JQ let him go.
He was showing a great deal of trust in someone he didn't know but the chances of his coming back from abroad seemed minimal.
And there was the fact that a lot of blood would have been shed, yet again, if the deposed CP were found and executed. Everyone who had anything to do with the opera house that hid him, would also have been put to death as well including LX's friend the singer, her Master Lu and who knows, maybe scholar Han and many others as well.
It's difficult to know where the killing would have stopped in a situation like that. No nobles involved. No wealthy people with friends. Just commoners who were expendable and so JQ would have wondered, if his enemies knew his fondness for LX, perhaps she would get caught up in the sweep as well since she was Master Lu's only disciple and a contributor at the opera.
So, JQ avoided all that and took the risk to send the deposed CP abroad, hopefully forever.
JQ asking for a first decree undo while he's alive would be like asking the emperor to reverse himself and say he' was wrong about his mandate. Impossible because the emperor is absolutely never wrong. They don't reverse themselves once they utter a decree.
But, asking for permission for LX to remarry after he's dead isn't asking for the emperor to reverse himself. The emperor mandated the marriage of two live people but the decree says nothing about what happens if he dies before she does.
So, it would just be asking for another decree. Ordinarily customs frown on it and people seem to have assumed that LX would be denied the right after the original decree. But since there's nothing about it in the original decree and there's no reversal involved, why not? The emperor can decree a second marriage if LX wants one ...
JQ clearly doesn't want LX to divorce him and remarry but when has he ever suggested that he would prevent her remarrying after his death. And there's no reason to ever have believed that he would be that petty.
So, you guys are joking, but given the possibility with the ins and outs of the decree situation, I think he would actually have done it.
Can someone explain what those papers were that she burned? I didn’t really understand it. Is it related to…
Zhao XingTing's father and uncle had been hunting for the deposed CP who was rumored to have been in hiding since the throne had been stolen from him as a ten year old. They were tearing apart the city and were fooled when they got to the Opera house. LJQ got the CP out of there with a great charade and then put him on a boat to escape after he gave them a description of the man who had abducted LX. By doing that, LJQ had allowed an innocent man to escape but as someone who could challenge the new emperor for the throne ..., what JQ had done, essentially, amounted to treason.
The Zhao suspected what he had done after the fact, they collected evidence and were going to give it to their father to get JQ and the Lin family executed. But Prince Han started his rebellion and they didn't get the chance. So, ZXT stole the evidence, had been intending to blackmail the Lin's with it ...to keep herself alive but ... as you saw she elected to give it to LX so that she could wield some power over the Lin's to protect herself instead, since ZXT could no longer use it. So ZXT was trying to give LX a gift of power over the Lin family in case they ever tried to hurt her ... the gift was evidence that JQ had committed treason ... nothing to do with the Shen family. And LX had no use for it so she burned it. That way it could never be used against them. Only she and he would even know for sure what he had done.
K-Drama 
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spoiler tag is a good idea. I wish everyone was so responsible when talking about other dramas.
It had been very much effected by lower ratings that had been submitted by people/trolls who were rating unaired episodes.
So now we get to see all these incredibly high episode scores and a line that will travel straight along 9.5 or higher ... if nothing outageous happens at the end.
I haven't been rating episodes for many dramas so I'm strangely pleased about this. I haven't seen such consistently high numbers before.
ok I need more than just a little more ... I just need more than one ...
ten would be better.
I'll make them last, really I will. I won't stay up all night and binge ten ...
It would probably help if they didn't go back to Jinling where there would be spy servants and all the elders would know for sure as well. Surely that would be real trouble.
Clearing the field ... off with all of their heads ... and choosing a family like the Shen to make an example of ... will also scare everyone else who might become a problem, so that they don;t.
Shen family were not treasonous. They just supported the former king. They made the usurper king look and maybe even feel bad. They made great sacrificial lambs and were one of the examples used to scare everyone else into submission.
They advised the previous king to decrease the power of the princes because one might steal the throne. They were right. One did. And then he killed them for speaking out against him before he did his bad act.
Basically, they backed the wrong guy, underestimated the enemy that won and paid the price. No real treason. Just the wrong move at a pivotal time.
The Lin family weren't executed like the Shen because they bent the knee and groveled. Grandfather resigned after reversing his allegiance. He said all the right things and did all the right things in the new king's eyes. He declawed himself publicly and then ran for the countryside to save his family. And then they made a political marriage to join families with one of the new king's supporters.
You can almost see it as LJQ being attached to the Zhao family, put under their control, almost like a hostage ... to make the new king feel like the next generation of Lin would be controllable and made safe.
That part didn't work, of course, the marriage was also useful because it solved the Zhao family problems with ZXT. So she was used and sent to the Lin family ... outta sight, outta mind, but also a hostage in a way. And LJQ rebelled against the plan by going to the military instead of finishing the scholarly path that would have taken him to court as an official in the Zhao family's pocket.
We develop self hatred and low expectations and turn them on others of our own kind because that's all we know, that's what we learn from every angle ... that is the received truth that gets into our bones. And so we act like the oppressor does.
That's why every single instance suggesting the contrary needs to be highlighted and taught too. The weight of every single one has to accumulate over time in order to offset the prevailing messages that have dominated for so long.
LanXiang knows what she wants but she keeps doing things for others because that's the kind of person she is. If she can help, she will help ... even someone like XingTing because the woman desperately needed assistance and giving it was the right thing to do. So, even though, it was downright risky for her to step up to help XT that's what she did because that's the person she is. When she can help, she always does.
So, then, what does she actually want? She wants everything that she and XT discussed as XT lay dying. She wants to be her own person. She wants her own (pen) name and her own repute. She wants to read and learn and make money, develop her talents, become more and more capable and be independent. She wants to be as powerful and as independent and as equal as possible in her relationship. That's what she wanted to do and was starting to do in her first year as a free commoner. And she hasn't given up on that dream.
People are all caught up in her identity as a Shen; a noble woman in disguise. But it doesn't matter to her. She wants to live well ... as herself. Not a Shen . Not a Lin. Herself.
For the FL here, I think she is working hard to travel her own path and become her own person before she'll even consider getting closer to her husband. She loves him but she wants to have her own life first.
I mean, she's writing plays. She's making a reputation for herself as a writer. She's making money and investing it (I think) and so, when she does start to open up, soften up and communicate more she won't be doing it from a position of powerless dependence.
At least that's my guess what the director meant when she said that they walk separate paths until their fate brings them to their ultimate destiny. Hers is independence and his is learning to think and act beyond the narrow world view that he was raised in.
At any rate, I think many of us would be disappointed if the dramas main themes just dropped away in order to speed up the reconciliation and romance. It isn't supposed to be easy for them both to arrive at a shared definition of what it means to live well. They represent rich and poor, man and woman and the path to be blazed by and for everyone moving through history towards a more equal society where everyone can live a good life.
In all the time that the deposed CP was in hiding, he never said boo to anyone. He stayed incognito, in hiding and never went looking for backers to stage a coup of his own in order to retrieve his throne. He just lived a quiet life not bothering anyone.
So, since he wasn't going to challenge the now emperor for the throne and he'd never done anything wrong, JQ let him go.
He was showing a great deal of trust in someone he didn't know but the chances of his coming back from abroad seemed minimal.
And there was the fact that a lot of blood would have been shed, yet again, if the deposed CP were found and executed. Everyone who had anything to do with the opera house that hid him, would also have been put to death as well including LX's friend the singer, her Master Lu and who knows, maybe scholar Han and many others as well.
It's difficult to know where the killing would have stopped in a situation like that. No nobles involved. No wealthy people with friends. Just commoners who were expendable and so JQ would have wondered, if his enemies knew his fondness for LX, perhaps she would get caught up in the sweep as well since she was Master Lu's only disciple and a contributor at the opera.
So, JQ avoided all that and took the risk to send the deposed CP abroad, hopefully forever.
But, asking for permission for LX to remarry after he's dead isn't asking for the emperor to reverse himself. The emperor mandated the marriage of two live people but the decree says nothing about what happens if he dies before she does.
So, it would just be asking for another decree. Ordinarily customs frown on it and people seem to have assumed that LX would be denied the right after the original decree. But since there's nothing about it in the original decree and there's no reversal involved, why not? The emperor can decree a second marriage if LX wants one ...
JQ clearly doesn't want LX to divorce him and remarry but when has he ever suggested that he would prevent her remarrying after his death. And there's no reason to ever have believed that he would be that petty.
So, you guys are joking, but given the possibility with the ins and outs of the decree situation, I think he would actually have done it.
The Zhao suspected what he had done after the fact, they collected evidence and were going to give it to their father to get JQ and the Lin family executed. But Prince Han started his rebellion and they didn't get the chance. So, ZXT stole the evidence, had been intending to blackmail the Lin's with it ...to keep herself alive but ... as you saw she elected to give it to LX so that she could wield some power over the Lin's to protect herself instead, since ZXT could no longer use it. So ZXT was trying to give LX a gift of power over the Lin family in case they ever tried to hurt her ... the gift was evidence that JQ had committed treason ... nothing to do with the Shen family. And LX had no use for it so she burned it. That way it could never be used against them. Only she and he would even know for sure what he had done.