Luv Peony

yeah, esp for FL...she's s some entitled spoil brat that eventually understand that she's very lucky compare to the commoners she came across in desolated areas. she makes good use of her rich and do charity to help. so she went from a snobby rich elitist to one who do empathizes with the less fortunate and the poor/sick.

out of all the dramas and books for costume period, the FL is by far the most materialistic FL ever lol. she's pretty much like elle in legally blonde.

if you see her in a negative light, she's consider, snobby, self centered, entitled, priviledge, spoiled and super picky.
it was hard to read some of the chapters since the description is always about her lavish life style and her needs/wants.

first of all, book and drama, yunyi was brought in as a pretend/fake concubine. her title as a concubine is of a term for coverage.

in the drama, they left together. it sort of open in a way b/c she only went b/c she accepted the mission assigned to her and of course, easy for her to say without feeling the weight of guilt for missing out.

i like the book ending for them better:
in the book, shu 'er stays single no matter how his family tried to set him up with all eligible ladies in the capital. his aspiration/goal is to achieve his own career and set a path for himself, uphold the family name/honor and serve his country. he ended up becoming the youngest right chancellor, the king's right hand mand. he and yunyi both know that their union is impossible due to their statuses. he remain a bachelor for her. that's his way of being devoted.
yunyi choose to explore/wander and see the world (seems like she left for a couple of years). she told him she does not want to hinder him or be the reason why he didn't reach his aspirations in life. at the end of the novel, she sent him a letter telling him about this yummy roast chicken she had and if he wants, she could bring him one. their fate was left at that.
her character is special bc she serves ML as his shadow guards but she also have the freedom to leave the guards if she wants.

concubine is not the same as the main/legal wife. concubine is seen more as property/slave/servant vs a wife. They are just an extra body to serve the husband.
they don't get the pre wedding rituals, do the ceremony or even pay visits to the ancestoral shrine. they can't wear the red wedding gown. they don't get announced to the public that they are 'married' to the family. they don't have the privilege to enter through the main/front door. an example provided: concubine liu and the ming chu (since she's born illegitimate, her treatment is also different) entered through the side or secondary door mainly b/c of their status. the concubine serves tea to the main wife. the only time a concubine could elevate her status if she could bear sons (guarantee she could grow old in the manor is she doesn’t do anything wrong) or if she's highly favored by the husband (even this is frown upon since society /court does not approve of the husband doting on the concubine and ignoring the main wife). even if she has children, the children cannot address her as mother. the only mother they could call is the main wife. the children address their biological mother as 'yi niang' auntie-maiden/female. they don't get divorce or the option to leave. if they want out, it will be at the mercy of the lady in charge.

there are 3 extra stories from the book.

one of the extra story from the book is about ML and FL's kids:
the son's name have meanings to his lifelong goal/fights/victory. he picked his formal and courtesy name for his son. he's probably around 10-11 years old .

the daughter's name was derived from: 豆蔻年华 (dou kou nian hua) and meaning: maidenhood; a budding beauty. she's supposed to be 7-8 years old.

when ML learn of the second pregnancy and that the chance of it being a girl is super high...he picked the kou for the name b/c when ML first met FL in the book, she was at this stage in her adolescent and also encountered the following events:
he met her when he was hiding from assassins at the temple. he was in one of the changing rooms when she was changing and base on her smart ways/statement of propriety/etiquette and threating the monks (fake identity), they didn't search her room and went off to another location to search. one of the jade charm from her accessories fell off and he took it as a remembrance. this very jade charm saved ML's life from an poison arrow attempt. this was one of the reason he married and guarantee to keep her safe for the rest of her life, and also why ML indulges her ridiculousness in the book.

it would be entertaining if the drama include this...the couple seems to like to leave the kids and go on mini getaways without them.

oh yeah, it was funny to ready in the book on how ML totally disregard his first born/son. most books will depict the father as having some kind of proud moment/connnection/recognition with their first born but not this ML. everyone in the birthing room was super happy FL birthed a son...but when the midwife present the newborn to ML, he told them he's too noisy (from crying) and to take him away so FL could rest. FL had a long intensive labor where she almost fainted due to exhaustion and lack of energy. the midwives didn't know what to make of it and thought...???

ML also prewarn FL that the baby is ugly but b/c he's a newborn. his face will get betther with time. when FL saw her son for the first time, she did think he's ugly HAHA...and wanted to call him chou (ugly) as a nickname.

the drama started on positive notes with light humor and a good story plot, but it went downhill for me towards the end bc:
1. nonsense characters not from the book and plot:
- the nanlu prince...waste of film time and storyline doesn't make sense. this character is not even in the book. his character doesn't make sense in the story nor did his ending/actions make sense at all.
- liu mo...i don't know why he was even given a redemption mini side story. his character should have been left as a sacrificed pawn.
- haiyou sect and the son in law/leader....their story is waste and do not serve much purpose.

the drama cut out other characters that have better storyline to add to the drama:
1. shen yu and his sister shen hua: shen yu character in the drama is the same in terms of personality and aspirations. he has a side story where he ended up with the visiting envoy from nanlu. the 6th princess from nanlu had a crush on shen yu and they got together in the book.
shen hua's story line is eh...so i get why the screenwriters axed her existence.
2. zhou jingwan (wanwan) : the bff/beauty scholar and friends with ming tan and bai min min. she got paired with lu ting and their story is more like beautiful scholar and the ruffian guard commander (total opposites/beauty and beasty etc)
3. Madame Pei - ming tan's stepmom, the second wife and lady of the ming manor who raised ming tan and treated her like her very own. she later got pregnant (possibly in her 40s) and gave ming tan a baby brother.
4. ming heng - ming tan's older brother, who went the scholar path and is at odds w/ the marquis/ming tingyuan (father).
5. yongle county princess - the dowager empress grand daughter
6. The other concubine that was introduce the same time as Yunyi. She is more vixen like and act more like a concubine, but she’s a shadow guard who specialize in medicine and poison.

da xia is close to (i believe it's after the tang since the floral print on the forehead came from consort yang) tang dynasty. this is the style/fashion of the time. the elite/royal women have more extravagant updos with hair ornaments. you don't have to like it but appreciate the research the costume designers put in the details.

there's usually a distinguishment between unmarried and married maidens...but for this drama/time period, there doesn't seem to be. widows keep their hair up like they are married. the only difference is their attire is more simple (avoid of patterns) and bright colors.

he mentioned it in the novel towards the end when mingtan asked him why the emperor trust him so much.

per novel: jiang xu's father (crown prince at the time) was killed by the current emperor's father (jiang xu's uncle and the current emperor's dad). jiang xu and the current emperor are 'tang' cousins (from the dad's side) and they grew up together and have a very close bond. since they were both the crown prince, they understand each other and the danger of their position when it comes to power play in the palace.

the mother passed when jiang xu was around 5 years old. she passed away due to meloncholy/depression.

emperor's dad was super remorseful of his involvement killing jiang xu's dad. he was mislead by his empress su (the current empress dowager...the crown prince may not be her real son since he was pretty intent on killing her for the crimes she committed) he reviewed the truth to the grand emperor (jiang xu and current emperor's dad) and both of them drafted an imperial edict that the throne should be passed down to jiang su after they passed away. on the emperor/uncle's deathbed, he revealed the truth to jiang su and presented both edicts to him and current emperor. jiang su burned both edicts in front of the current emperor and stated that he's more fit to be king and rule the country. he left that day to the front line to defend the north. killing the enemies is his way to vent out his anger.

BZ ending is so inconclusive…well most likely he went back to boya and raise his son there. His wife and his son is his only reason to live. The drama version BZ is a super simpleton with strength and fighting skills. The book version BZ is way more capable of a natural leader, strategist, and a fighter who is not muddy headed like the drama. He prefer not to choose violence, but if violence come knocking, he will fight it heads on. He’s a stronger character than Wei Shao.

She knows the future but she only know up until she dies (ML win everything, Langya fell. Liu yan had no choice but to her, which she understands,and then suicide). She doesn’t know what become of DQ and ML. She thought she could change her sister s fate by preventing her from getting married to ML. She didn’t think that she will end up taking her place…and thus start the challenges she must face navigating. Her goal was to change the Qiao family fate.

Theirs is not a love story…since they started as enemies. He went from hate to lust to possession to love. All the encounters the drabs depicted of the couple is actually their intimate moments in the book. lol…it gets pretty rough and steamy.

All that canal building is not in the story plot at all. WS won everything, started a new dynasty and proclaim himself king and SQ his queen. There’s a funny side story of WS soul got trapped in the pet cat and tThe WS1 from the parallel universe (that SQ first life) took over his body. It was actually funny to read.

TY 🤗

she's not just a commoner, she's a guard/servant. If ML could have her come in as a fake concubine, she could change her ID later on to whatever fits. well, you know drama, they will make it possible haha.

in the novel:

BZ and DQ has a baby boy. BZ came through and defended the city and earn his keep with the Qiao family. BZ only do what he has to do for the sake of his lil family. He doesn't care for fame, power or title. He is content w/ DQ and their small family able to have a stable place to call home.

parallel story (Xiao Qiao's first life/dream):
DQ married to the Wei family, but didn't get WS to fall in love w/ her. DQ pretty much lived a miserable lonely life at the Wei Manor. After After WS conquered majority of the counties and claim himself as ruler of the North. He destroyed and conquered the Qiao family's county and kill all of them. While out on these expeditions, DQ was sick and was killed off by Su E'Huang. Su E'Huang is already WS's consort/concubine. She won't get the queen title until DQ dies. WS has no plans to have DQ be queen or name a queen during that time. Su E'Huang do not want to wait and killed off DQ, buried her outside of the Wei masoleum. WS was not happy bc he was not informed of the buriel. He did intend to be buried with his legal wife, even though it's DQ. But it was already done by the time he got back and left it as is.

BZ visited DQ's grave and wept for DQ. He's the only one that ever visited her grave (since all her family are dead, XQ included, XQ was killed by Liu Yan when LiangYa fell to WS. XQ and Liu Yan are married and the rulers of LiangYa at that point).

BZ eventually led his own army/troop and fought off WS. Through the chaos a random arrow shot and killed WS (on his 9th year as ruler/king). Arrow pierced through WS' throat.

the drama is faaaaaaar from the book. the drama does include tidbits from the book but change a lot of the plot and endings for the characters. if you would like to know what happen to the characters, you could let me know here :)

it's weird that the drama made wei liang died...bc in the novel, he was severly injured where he barely miss death's door. it's bc of the qiao family's fault, FL have ci served under his tutelege to make up for what the qiao family put him through...to make things right as well. Ci is young and inexperience when it comes to fighting on the field...but the drama made it seem like he's naturally a soldier.

if you like the adaption of this drama, you need to read the book! the book is more steamy and plot is more clean/straight forward. everyone except the villians have a happy ending. there's also a funny sub story in the end...where WS got stuck in the cat (the one he gifted FL and later became the grandma's cat).

i like that this drama has a lightness of comedy to it. the costumes are beautiful and detailed.
so far, i am enjoying the drama in all aspects!

Yunyi is only concubine in name. She is a shadow guard under ML's fraction. Her actions are weird and not your normal concubine b/c she is not. Having Yunyi come in as a concubine served two purposes: protect FL at all times (without attracting attention) and to add women to the manor. The queen dowager wanted to set up a second wife (or their own people/spy) for the ML.

i can't find it...and the it's a loooooong drama/episodes! i was trying to read it...but it's so complicated with how everyone's involved/related.