gmat6594

I think that storywise, it is to add in the contrasts between rustic butcher girl Fan Changyu and the urban educated Yan Zheng.

It's spiritual addition to the steel. To use your own blood is the highest sacrifice. Using blood when forging steel has a basis in old history and has been thought to add carbon to the steel. Animal blood usually. Blood is also used in quenching.
Google using blood to help forge steel weapons

Shades of Hitchcock. lol

Of the two young couples, Shi Dian Dian and Xu Tian are the main. But the second couple, Wen Xiaoyao and Zhou Tong have a more natural romance. Both couples meet in a blind date. Shi Dian Dian thought that Xu Tian had a second date because he liked her, but he really wanted to ask her for a favor. She is kind of determined (she first off tells him her life plan) and that scared him away. The path for them to end up together is rather bumpy.
If you want, I can tell you why after ep. 18 it became gripping for me.

The ML had a dream that he was in the Tang dynasty and the FL and apparently her family entered his dream. The family woke up after the fire,as if from a dream and like a dream forgot everything. But certain skills learned the dream were retained, subconsciously. .The ML lived the rest of his life alone but the FL was a silent observer and both suffered loneliness. The ending was to conform to regulations about not showing dramas changing the past. The ML discovered after the fire that Shen Family never existed, but he tried to recreate their restaurant and his manor so that in the future, the Shen Family would visit the manor to change their luck.

I think of He Yan as a younger sister type and Li Shuang as an older sister type. There are many types of generals. General Patton wasn't like the George C. Scott version and Bill Mauldin describes Patton's voice as a high pitch growl. Song Yi has that kind of voice.

Thank you, I was commenting on the sentence, "Kill them all." He said that the ML and FL knew too much. The same could be said to a lesser extent for Wuren disciplinary officer Palace Investigation Bureau and Prosecutor Gu who either investigated or accompanied one or the other. The other friends like the Physician are loose ends. I have no doubt that Peiyi and Huajin together could predict the Crown Prince's action and survive, but their friends might not.

Alas, no. He goes off on his own journey and she actually liked her brother but didn't know who he was until the end.

Are all of the people shown at the end also gonna be killed? He said kill them all.

Yes, it is. The smile on her face at the end.

kisskh

To add to the very good responses to your comment by Eszter and Tsukiko, Technician Pei couldn't be allowed by the censors to benefit from fruits of the poisonous tree. So she had to die and make us regret her story.
Plus in her letter to Peiyi, she left a record of her reflections and analyses of classical prescriptions to be forwarded Physician Liu at the Imperial Medical Office and she said that she was tired (of the constant prejudice because of her gender, I expect)

Prosecutor Gu was the ML in Butterflied Love (2023) He was pretty gentle towards the FL. Both the FL (Rain Lu) and the 2FL (Bao Zhu) were mostly feminine.
Not a costume drama and not a cdrama but in the Korean movie Be With You (2018) the ML So Ji Sub is a big guy that is surprisingly gentle towards the love of his life. A father and son struggle in the shambles of their home while the son clings desperately to the promise made by his late mother to return during the next rainy season. A remake of the Japanese Be With You (2004) Bothe adapted from the novel "Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu" (いま、会いにゆきます) by Takuji Ichikawa (市川 拓司) There is also a Chinese adaptation. Gift From a Cloud (2025) But the flavor is different. Watch the Korean version first.

Baike Baidu list the FL as 林霖 Lin Lin. She is not listed on MDL.
This is her page on Baike Baidu.
https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%9E%97%E9%9C%96/66727705?lemmaFrom=lemma_starMap&fromModule=lemma_starMap&starNodeId=66051d8812a74cd29bdc9a71&lemmaIdFrom=65261586

I guess that if they had filmed her emerging from the tunnels into his trap and then being killed that it was part of the six episodes worth of time that was cut.
I think the clean up that the mysterious person ordered may claim one or maybe two of the gang. I wonder if it was the ML's father or the Emperor that was the hidden man?

Ep. 19 and ep. 18. Was anyone struck with similarity of Master Wu's corpse hanging from the bar and his bloody crotch with the was Ms Liu was hanging from a bar giving birth?

When he killed himself for her, I believe that she then determined to follow him. Perhaps there was no point for her in staying alone in the Palace. That was a sachet that she gave him that she clutched?
I thought that it may have been what he sacrificed to become a eunuch. Makes her grief more emotional.

How far have you watched? In the drama, Luo Shu's past warp her present. in ep. 12, she says that she wants someone who will love only her in this life. She breaks up with Han Muzhi because he can't give up his fiancee which will make Luo Shu his concubine. What made her insecure? After her parents died in the fire, she was taken in by Wuniang who later became Madam Yu of Mingke House, and who lived at the Qin Mansion. It is not made clear in the drama, but in the novel, Madam Yu came from a brothel to become Second Wife but was expelled by the First Wife. Qin Yi might be her son. In the drama, Luo Shu's Father could not be moved by bribes and young Qin Yi to establish his usefulness the Qin Father and Governor Qi, the ML's Father offered to take care of Luo Su's Father, a minor official. He set the fire to their house and later sent men to look for Luo Shu and ultimately pick her up. That is why the placements of her past in the drama are significant. When in ep. 17 she is forced to play the pipa for Han Muzhi's fiancee and the other rich wives it cuts to her being forced out of the Qin Mansion and no one will help her. (People who say that they are close will betray her and the gulf between rich people and someone who was a courtesan at Mingke House) And in ep. 23 at the Qi Mansion with Menglin and the servant girls having a party it cuts to her living with her Mother and Father and then the fire. (Good times are temporary at best.) So as late as ep. 26 during the Lantern Festival when Mengiln says that he loves her and steals a kiss, she slaps him. But in ep. 29. he says the magic words. "He will only marry her. And if she doesn't agree. He will wait a lifetime for her."
Muzhi and Menglin are a contrast in fate. Muzhi climbs the ladder to success but he is alone. Menglin loses everything, is exiled and in poor health but Luo Shu comes to him. She weds him and it is significant that she recites the wedding vows.
Here is a link to the novel.
https://www-kanunu8-com.translate.goog/book5/fengyuejinnang/?_x_tr_sl=zh-CN&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

The last episode, ep. 16. Try kisskh to view the whole drama. In that episode he asked his friend, the Reaper, to kill him at the beach before the blood moon rises and to drink his blood to free his friend from his own curse. But just before he could do that, the FL is there so the ML grabs his friend's hand holding the knife and stabs his heart. He dies in her arms. It is not known if his friend was able to drink his blood, but later he is shown helming a foundation to save children with heart defect, so it must have been done. We are lead up till the very end that his death would sever ties with her. She runs the hotel and after looking in on his empty office/room, she emerges to her party but sees him standing at the second floor balcony. They smile at each other but when they show her smiling the camera focuses on a picture of them at the beach. It that earlier scene she says that wishes to live a life with him and to explore the world together. So we can imagine their future from then on.

Experience shows that dramas often depend on a twist. So it became natural to not take the Princess's death at face value. Same when the 'night soil' lover declared that he killed her. Also sometimes the moment of unraveling the mystery is so good that you feel that you have to preen. Sometimes the detective in me is sparked and other times I fell happy to be lead along. And I have made many errors in predictions, but that is part of the joy and I'm enjoying this drama. I wasn't enamored with the ex-hand maiden story because it is too close for comfort. I don't see a way for the second story to be educational, in fighting a poor hand beyond being kinda cautionary. None of the young women, girls, had a chance.
I guess I say walk your own path and when spoilers that aren't hidden bother you, You can ask until blue in the face and they won't change. Take care.