its_emm

They fell down when a chamber/room collapsed one time and MQY landed on top of her. CZ comments that this never happens in her romance novels. The lady always lands on top of the guy and gets to stay there and say sweet nothings to him, yet she's totally being squished like a meat patty, lol lol lol

MQY and CZ have this one whole flirty conversation where he says something like: "If you have the guts, just hit me." CZ notes only the lady says that to the guy in novels, not the other way around, and he said what would the girl do next, and she says act "cute" to get out of it, and he offers to act cute for her if she wants. Better yet, he said she should act cute for him, and she says she will, then realizes "Hey, how did this turn around to me having to be cute towards you!" Lol, lol, lol

MQY is worried that CZ has read too many novels like ones where a poor scholar falls in love with a maiden to where a City Lord wants her and treats her really well yet he can't tempt her away from her poor scholar and in his head: poor scholar = Zhou Yuqi, maiden = CZ, and City Lord = him (MQY), lol. Made him re—think if he could get her away from ZYQ before the whole broken engagement situation.

During an injury, CZ abruptly walked off from MQY (he thought she left him but she just went outside to find a medicine plant) and he says: "This is worst than a novel, she could have at least stabbed me." lol

In the extras and after marriage, MQY compares himself one time to "those wives in novels who turn to stone waiting on their true love to come back" after CZ went off on a semi-short trip without him and he couldn't find her. He's so dramatic. 😂

In the extras & before their wedding, MQY asks CZ why her parents didn't lecture him like in-laws always do in novels for the husband to not bully his wife and treat her well. CZ doesn't say anything but notes to herself that her parents actually lectured HER to treat him well since he has no parents and had such a sad life so far, lol

Cai Zhao should stop stabbing MQY already and just go write smutty romance novels with her hot demon lord as her muse. It would make them both soooo much happier! (I don't think she was writing those kinds of novels around Song Yuzhi since she let him proofread her writing during her year of seclusion 😂.)

Also, MQY seems to have read his fair share of romance novels too with how quickly he quips back and forth with CZ. 😂

CZ and MQY make a ton of funny references to romance novels in the novel that we don't pick up on as much in drama. The drama only mentions it here and there (in the beginning when she's discovered with her books and she blames it on her brother, and that one scene where she gets excited over reading Mu Donglie's story and he says "you like that kinda intense stuff, huh?" 😂).

I'll share a couple of my favorites in individual spoilers so this post isn't forever long if anyone's curious:

At this rate I think MQY just LIKES being stabbed, lol. He lets her stab him, fight him so often and he still manages to get flirty in the process. 😂

Soooo true! He's a color changing flag, lol
Thermochromic is the term I think where things changes colors depending on the temperature -

He's a green flag at cool/room temp, but shifts to the reddest red flag when it's hot 😂🔥🚩

In his defense, she has been HEAVILY influenced to leave him over and over again by her family & friends.

And it's not like they even gave up either. Thankfully once she decided to marry him she was very decisive and didn't let anyone change her mind. Yet all her Sect Leaders/people all never stopped trying, writing her letters constantly trying to dissuade her from marrying him. Letters that she promptly burnt up (yay Cai Zhao! 😂).
Loved the extras on just their random happy life (as happy as it could be given how petty MQY and his son are to each other. At the end of the day, he literally made himself a mini me to fight with him over his wifey, yep 😂!)

Beautifully said! Totally agree! Especially the part where you said she wants peace within her world, but he wants a more broader sense of peace so they can be together in the [bigger] world. Because her world is peaceful but we know it does not extend to him (her family, her friends, her clans would never accept him into her world). Yet by making peace in the broader world, he can extend that world to her so she can join him there without having to give up her slice of the world. Cause their biggest hurdle is she doesn't want to lose her world, yet he can't enter hers so where would they be able to be together unless he creates a world for them? 😢

On the trust issues:
I hope they keep the lines/feel of the novel in when she leaves him, because he asked her why bother saving him if she was just going to leave him anyways and she replies that she believes there's people out there who wouldn’t betray him and he needs to believe that too (like You Guanyue and others):
"Her eyes brimming with tears, her voice hoarse, she continued, “I know you suffered greatly as a child. In saving you this time, I only hope you can learn to trust others a little more.” (Chapter 120 of the translated novel).

I think for these reasons, even though he's so manipulative, I'm still rooting for them as CZ is not going in blind to his faults and flaws and she understands why he is the way he is, and deep down he loves her so much, he just needs to learn how to love and trust her and others, given those are concepts we know he's never grasped yet nor needed before in his life.

*Raises my hand*

Me, me, me! I'm still a fan of this toxicity and still here for it 100% 😂😂😂. I want to hate MQY but I just can't...

But gosh, MQY/CZ is the epitome of Britney's Toxic song from CZ's viewpoint:

"A guy like you should wear a warning
It's dangerous, I'm falling
There's no escape, I can't wait
...
With a taste of a poison paradise
I'm addicted to you
Don't you know that you're toxic?..."
-credits to the song (not my words)

Yeah, how Si'en and Nie Zhe's parentage played out so far is kinda confusing in the drama...

In the novel, it's noted that few people knew but Nie Zhe is actually infertile and so it's made quite clear in this "You are not the father!" reveal that Si'en is the son of that other dude (Yu Huiyin (YHY)/strategist guy). The matching birthmark just seals the deal. And the man in black was using that info to blackmail YHY.
In turn, the other lady that was always by his side, Hu Fengge (HFG) stayed loyal to Nie Zhe only because she was in love with YHY and wanted to be around YHY, 😢 so sadly, he used her all these years too and she felt betrayed that he strung her feelings along.

And I'm sure they didn't want to push it as far as the novel, but YHY died by HFG's hands and Nie Zhe's wife actually killed her son AND herself, so there was no loose ends with leaving a kid behind like the drama.

In drama, since YHY was taken away by HFG now, not sure if we'll find out any more about this on next episode or if this storyline is now considered done...

Yeah, the timeline of the main CZ/MQY story is a bit hard to follow with the drama, I can't really remember if they even gave us ages.

I realize novel and drama sometimes change things up, but if it's helpful at all, in the novel, when the story opens:
* Cai Zhao is 15
* Qi Lingbo and Min Xinrou (MXR) are 16 (CZ notes they are 1 year older than her)
* Zhou Yuqi is 17 (CZ notes he's 2 years older than her and 1 year older than his cousin, MXR)
* Song Yuzhi is introduced in the beginning as being 18-19
* MQY is 19 (CZ initially mistakes MQY for being younger than her which he promptly corrects her on. And he's introduced as age 18 because real Chang Ning is 18, but MQY is actually 19)

I should be bothered by the age difference in novel, so I'm hoping they are aged up in drama even if I can't really figure out their ages in the drama. 😂

There's a ton of references to months passing, but overall bigger novel milestones are:
* A year passes since the Chang massacre (and the massacre occured shortly before CZ joins Qingque in both novel and drama).
* A year passes after CZ gets punished/caned before she had a reunion with MQY again.

Between those 2 years and all the various months thrown in, my best guess is the main story that we're watching in the current live timeline takes place between a 2-4 ish year timeline.

And I say "main" story because the extras do skip out 3 years and then an additional 6 years so that has bigger time jumps.

Agree! I like that MQY's still got his wicked streak. Yes, he softens personally for CZ but to everyone else he's pretty consistent with behind the scenes plots and active scheming and wanting to take down the world, unless CZ agrees to run away, then let the world burn, he's got bigger priorities, lol

He also reminds me of Murong Jing He from Kill Me Love Me, but if his dark side stuck around longer than like 5 episodes max. Ughhhh, so disappointed in that character and what it could have been as well. We could have had a such a interesting gray character too, but he flipped too fast to puppy mode and never came back from that 😢

That's how it is 😢. Cdrama tend to drop a ton on day 1, then 2 per day while it's ramping up to pull you in, then not drop altogether on certain days or move down to 1 to stall the airing time out a bit, yet drop it all in express 🤦🏻‍♀️

Show tends to drop in numbers/viewership when they drop down since it loses its momentum, so it rarely makes sense to me either. Or it gets hot and express drops the whole drama out so it kills the buildup to the end by the time those watching the regular schedule get to the end. Most times, the entension carries them into a new month so paying subscribers have to stay for another month if they joined for just the one drama I guess. But I hate the way drama drops these days, so inconsistent to the viewers 😢

Same! I need more of MQY & CZ scenes! I also was trying to figure out if the kiss got SHORTER than in the teasers/trailers too 😡
Like it went by so quickly and felt shorter than I remember!

I giggled in delight at the scene by the graveyard where MQY was just being such an annoying velcro boyfriend. Like the dude can totally stand like a normal person but does he?! Nope, he actively choose to stand literally as close to her as possible, his shoulders touching hers and use her name as much as possible towards SML, ahhhhhhhhh!

And then the "let's hire the most beautiful courtesan to trap Zhou Yuqi" and for ML to pretty much go, "Omg, she's not even 1/10 as beautiful as Zhao Zhao, Zhou Yuqi's totally not gonna leave my girl for that unless he's blind!?" (In MQY's defense, that was a really baaaaaad photo as most "portraits" are in ancient dramaland, lol)
The funny part is I don't think the novel actually sets Zhao Zhao up to be super beautiful or anything. She's definitely described a couple times as pretty/fresh faced (but I think Lingbo is actually described as being much more beautiful, given her mother was a top beauty and likely passed along those genes).
And on the flipside, MQY is described a ton of times as exquisite and close to drop dead gorgeous. So for him to say the top beauty in town can't match up to Zhao Zhao, he's definitely soooo whipped for her, she is the most beautiful girl TO HIM as well as he obviously is obsessed with everything and anything about her and I love that for her & him 😂

Yeah, sorry to disappoint, but if they stick to novel, FL stays pretty much the same all the way to like the VERY end. She flips back and forth a lot between loving him but leaving him (they still have one major breakup yet to come where she also breaks up/walks away from him. She even gave him trauma/ptsd, that he never lets her walk in front of him after they got married cause he said it reminds him of when she was always leaving him (walking away from him 😢)).
I honestly don't think they would have ended up together except the ML fought so hard to keep them together and he never gave up on them despite how many times she actually left him 😭.

But the good news is when she finally decided she wants to be him despite all the barriers between them, she doesn't deviate as many of her clansmen/sect members tried to talk her out of marrying him up until her literal wedding.

In terms of love and obsession, even after marriage, one day while he did his usual declaration of undying love, she also tells him she loves him, but she wishes he would learn to love himself too by finding a purpose in his life other than her, lol. He thought long and hard at that question 😂. But I liked that she pushed him to adjust his worldview a bit since we know he's made her the ENTIRE focus of his world.

Again, above are from the novel so not sure how much the drama may keep/change.

I'm still here for the plot and the ML, and ML loves her so much that I want him to be happy! ❤️

Yes, FL and ML's voices are their own.