natalie

so i gave this cdrama a chance since i heard it was good and i thought okay fine i’ll try it cause i hadn’t watched a cdrama in awhile and i didn’t expect to like it but i did. it was actually pretty good and i was intrigued by the plot because it’s an enemies to lovers trope, the fl’s clan and ml’s clan have a feud because the fl’s grandfather betrayed the ml’s family years ago and it resulted in the ml watching his family die in front of him which led to him having a grudge against the qiao family (fl’s family) and the ml ended up being successor of his country at a young age and has a reputation of being an undefeated hero, but his country is undergoing famine, to which his grandmother and fl’s grandfather reached an agreement to have them arranged in a marriage to bring both countries together under an alliance. that’s the basic plot summary and it was pretty interesting to see how their relationship developed as their mistrust was guided through past generations’ problems and really the fl had nothing to do with the betrayal because her grandfather was the one that committed it but the ml held the grudge against her for awhile.

onto the romance and dynamic of the leads: at first it can be a bit frustrating because the ml is very wary and mistrusting of the fl and he took awhile to agree to marry her because he didn’t trust her. he thought she was trying to take over his land and hurt him but she always helped him and she even gave up the seal of her country as her way of saying that she was on his side and she felt guilty for the pain her family caused him. he treated her harshly at the beginning and i honestly couldn’t blame him that much because his family kept on misleading him and telling him fl didn’t care about him and was like her family but eventually over time he saw that she was sincere about him and wanted to bring the alliance to help the people of both their countries that were suffering. she did a lot of things to help him and he began to appreciate that she wanted to help him build the water canal that would help resolve the issue of there not being enough water to cultivate the crops and resolve the famine.

they came to understand each other after having to cooperate and come together to work towards resolving the problem with the famine and he says the opposite of what he thinks always lol he actually cares for her but he says the opposite however fl is smart and can tell when he’s lying lol she’s very meticulous and a strong fl, she had to scheme several times for the sake of her country but she also took advice when it was given to her and she didn’t let anything sway her in her sincerity towards the ml, she always liked him since the beginning and stayed faithful to him, it took him some time to come around but he eventually started harbor romantic feelings for her, they have a lot of tension and that’s what made the drama good to me. even when his mother and other family were being annoying and prejudiced towards her he would defend her too, it took about 20 episodes for them to develop but it’s a slowburn and the slowburn was slowburning indeed 😹

one of my favorite scenes between wei shao and qiao man is in episode 20 when they held hands and didn’t need words to communicate their feelings. ml started to open up to fl about his struggles with the grudge he harbored towards the qiao’s and told her that he greatly admires her, that he’s never admired a woman before like he admires her (that to me was basically a confession 🤭) and that he made a mistake in harboring prejudice and his grudge against her. took awhile to get there but he finally did it and was honest about his feelings 😹 and her pledging her loyalty to him assuring she’d never leave him because he told her he was afraid she’d leave him like his family did; their deaths made him feel alone and abandoned his whole life and he now holds her close to his heart even if he doesn’t say it directly but in this scene i felt that he cares about her deeply even if he doesn’t show it, and she reassured him she won’t leave him it was very important in their relationship development 🥰 in his own ways ml was also always faithful to fl because he would always protect her even when he acted like he didn’t like her, his family tried to push him to take concubines too but he always refused, and made sure people knew she was the lady of the wei house.

i had quite alot of things to say abt the drama it’s actually pretty good i enjoyed it a lot, there is a lot of political and family drama tho esp ml’s family is super annoying his mother would conspire against fl but eventually the mom accepts her as her daughter-in-law but i don’t completely forgive her bc she did some despicable things like she drugged her own son and tried to make him sleep with her adopted niece which was freaking insane ☠️ but she stopped being annoying eventually, other than that i had no other problems; tho ml takes awhile to grow on you he pmo a lot cause he can be a bit harsh towards fl and he’s also not good at expressing his feelings but he does get a bit better. also the side characters are great esp ml’s guards cause they always watch him being in denial abt his feelings and one of the guards likes ones of the fl’s maids and is very obvious abt it it’s funny lol 😹 i stayed up late binging this drama i fell asleep watching lol i’d say perhaps give it a try sometime to anyone who’s considering watching this if you’re curious abt it or in the mood cause it’s not a typical cdrama with cliche tropes or a not so smart fl, no she is strong, brilliant, and is a very caring and loving fl towards her man, and i think the enemies to lovers trope here is done well. both fl and ml had to scheme against e/o but they eventually worked out their differences cause ml took awhile to come around but they became a strong couple and i liked that a lot. the OST’s in this drama are also very good it really added to some scenes especially between the ml and fl the soundtrack is chef’s kiss 🤌🏽