mimi0108

I really enjoyed this drama, but I have to admit that the fact that it was literally a story spanning an entire lifetime was something that bothered me a little.

At times, I almost felt like I was watching a docudrama that had to cover every major historical event, as well as the characters’ births, marriages, and deaths, from beginning to end. I can see how that might appeal to some people, but personally, I feel like it takes away from some of the emotional impact while also leaving me emotionally exhausted.

I never really got the chance to imagine what the characters’ lives might have been like beyond what we were shown. Instead, we were given their marriages, their lives, and eventually their deaths at an almost breakneck pace, without much of a real conclusion to any of it. Some things are given a lot of attention, while others are barely mentioned, and that unevenness made it difficult for me to feel truly connected to the characters’ journeys.

By the end, I also felt like I couldn’t really imagine Xiuwan having a happy life with her husband or speculate about what might have happened to the other characters, because we already knew that the FL would outlive all of them. And ultimately, the story ends with her death at a very old age, which kind of closes the door on any possibility of imagining what their lives might have looked like beyond what we were shown.

I understand what the drama was trying to do, and I can appreciate the concept, but it’s just not my favorite way of telling a story. I think I would have preferred a little more room for the audience to imagine what happened between the lines, rather than being shown the entire lifespan of these characters in such a condensed way.

The first two tiers of the drama felt much more organic and was much more interesting to follow, mainly because the only major time skip, the six years between her being rescued from the Shen massacre and entering the Lin household as a servant, actually made sense. We were genuinely following the characters’ stories, the pacing felt natural, and there was enough time for the characters to actually exist, for relationships to develop, and for the different plots to unfold properly.

Then, starting around episode 39, everything suddenly became frantic, and I almost felt like I was watching a completely different drama. All that buildup, all that tension, only for the story to eventually turn into constant time skips, with so many things being glossed over, barely mentioned, or underdeveloped. It felt like the drama was rushing to get through the rest of the characters’ lives rather than actually letting us experience them.

Yeah, having their names cleared more than 100 years after everyone’s death means nothing. Only their lives matter. I understand having morals, but if you have people under your responsibility, you need to protect them at all costs. If only Grandpa Shen's life were on the line, he could have done whatever he wanted, but here, he’s taking his entire family and all his servants down with him.

You're right, there are some very modern views in this drama. It's clear that it was written in modern times, with a clear idea of the values it wants to convey. That being said, this doesn't necessarily mean that it's inaccurate.

Women didn't have to wait until the 20th and 21st centuries to desire freedom, love, and financial independence. Since the dawn of time, women have demonstrated their competence and intelligence, sought freedom, and expressed outrage at the restrictions their societies imposed on them because of their sex.

So, in itself, it's not inaccurate. Perhaps it's a little too much to suggest that all women throughout this story openly asserted their freedom, but when you're in contact with someone who does so, and your environment allows you to, why would you hold yourself back?

Throughout history, there have been men who genuinely loved their wives and allowed them to express themselves. There have always been fathers who genuinely loved their daughters and didn't try to marry them off. Women have always helped one another, and so on...

So they were husband and wife for over 25 years, which is more than many couples in dramaland (especially for that time period), so I'd definitely call it a happy ending too. Him dying at around 50 isn't exactly "young." While it's still sad, at least they had many years together and got to watch their children grow up.

Yeah, they definitely robbed us. I had more fun and got more goosebumps when she was a maid and he was starting to fall in love than I do now. Them finally getting together was the culmination of years and years of yearning on his part (damn, he’s had feelings for her for seven years now), and for her to finally accept him AND become a mother, it’s such a huge moment, and we didn’t even get a glimpse of it.

What I understood is that this scene was hinting at the troubles to come within the palace, with the emperor’s eldest son showing a strong preference for an ambitious eunuch, even though eunuchs are not supposed to interfere in politics. This seems to foreshadow problems to come.

She had 3 daughters (we saw the 3 young kids with her stepdaughter who's a young lady). But no son.

Like many others, I found today's episode less exciting than the long wait had led us to hope.

More than the lack of a gradual build-up in the romance leading to the long-awaited consummation, what really bothered me was the lack of progression, tension and character development. Months and years fly by in the blink of an eye, without us ever getting to see how the characters have lived through these periods, how they have grown and changed.

The FL left the Lin household just a few days after her wedding and was on bad terms with the family's elders, who saw her as nothing more than a "slave" their young master had forced upon them.

Yet, after all these time skips, we suddenly find her thriving within the family, without ever being shown how she returned or how she came to be accepted by her in-laws. I find this such a shame, because having one's former slave as a daughter-in-law/granddaughter-in-law is no small thing. It would have been interesting to see at least a little of how she earned the respect of the older generation.

Despite the conversation between the two leads about the sisters returning to their hometown, it still took me a moment to realize that, two years later, the ML was all alone in the capital and had finally managed to "escape" court life, only to reunite with his wife, who was finally ready to accept him.

A little more explanation, a little more emotional weight given to their two-year separation and the decision he has to make, and a little more flirting and emotional intimacy now that they're being more honest with each other would have made this episode much more emotionally impactful and narratively cohesive.

4 years of abstinence. LJQ is really a patient man 🤣

At the beginning, he was around 18 or 19 years old. The FL's mother said she wanted to keep her daughter with her for two more years (the FL was 15 at the time), but her fiancé's family refused because the ML would be over 20 by then.

Six years later, the FL entered his household as a slave, making him around 25 years old and her 21. She stayed there for no more than two years, then spent another two years as a free commoner. She's now been married for one year.

That means the ML is around 30, while the FL is around 26. That's why she said they aren't "young anymore."

For something that's "just a drama," you seemed invested enough to write a post about what bothered you so I'm not sure how explaining the character's established backstory qualifies as an "illogical justification" or an "intense defense," but okay, haha.
You're free to find her unrealistic. I was simply answering the point you brought up.

Either they weren't aware of when the rebellion would take place, or it was brought forward in a rush, or at least that's what she believed. Maybe, since she knew nothing about the rebellion, from her perspective it happened completely suddenly.
It turned out that her family received proof of the ML's guilt at the very moment the coup began.

Yeah, they were. Her grandfather tried to tell the king to flee the palace (in order to help with the rebellion) while her father and brother were waiting for the rebells to win. They fled when things started to go south, then abandoned the two sisters, but they were killed before the sisters were.

I'm curious to know what you actually hold against her. She was forced into this marriage. Her mother fainted when she found out, and her in-laws don't want her there and see her merely as their former servant. She had survived the noble life, then escaped the slave lif to live freely among the common people, only to find herself once again dragged back into a noble household where the slightest mistake by any family member could get them all killed.
And on top of that, this is the very family that abandoned her own family, which only brings all the trauma from her past back to the surface. Hell, she even ends up living in her old home. And her husband doesn't know her or understand her. She still has every right to be cold and upset about the situation.

Also the secret of her survival is even more complicated now. Her family knew who she really was, and even if they rarely talked about it, she could at least live as herself, honored her family and so on. But her husband's family has no idea who she really is, so she has to wear a mask all the time, knowing that she has committed the crime of deceiving the emperor and marrying the ML under a false identity. Her life is in danger at every moment because of this marriage and even "her birthday" is source of sadness since nobody knows it's not really hers.

We can find a character morally reprehensible and still have empathy for that character. As a woman (and simply as a human being), I wouldn't wish rape on anyone.

Was Xingtang awful? Yes.
Did she destroy people's lives? Yes.
Was she selfish? Yes.

But none of that prevents us from recognizing that she was also a victim of her family and her time. Her family never showed her any affection. They believed that a girl was only good for marriage and didn't need an education. They forced her to have an abortion, leaving her infertile, and used and sold her for their own purposes. How could she understand love and loyalty when no one had ever taught her what they were?

In the end, her own father and brother abandoned her and her sister in the middle of nowhere during a rebellion, after killing her loyal servant and stealing all their jewelry. Because of this, the two sisters were raped and killed after being abandoned by the two men who were supposed to protect them at all costs.

So yes, we can feel empathy and pity for what happened to her in the end, and for the fact that, in her final moments, she finally got to experience what empathy and solidarity were.

She always saw the ML as an enemy because she had never been able to see him as anything else. She was forced to marry him while she was having a forced abortion. She pushed him away, and he then disappeared for six years before returning full of hatred toward her. From her perspective, he was a bad person because she had never had the chance to truly know him.

By giving the letter to the FL, she wasn't thinking about destroying the Lin family. She was trying to help the new wife avoid being trampled by the family and give her some leverage. The letter is a bombshell for the family, but at that moment, it was one of the most selfless things she had ever done: helping another woman protect herself.

First of all, it’s a drama, so things can be exaggerated a little.
Secondly, she is the granddaughter of a great scholar and was raised in a prominent scholarly family. She has been taught the classics, laws, calligraphy, the arts, accounting, etc. since she was very young. She isn’t just anyone; she is a noblewoman from a family that placed education above everything else.
She then spent years living as a teen slave, doing household chores and seeing firsthand how the enslaved people lived. After that, she spent a couple years as a servant, where she learned a great deal, and then a couple more years as a free commoner, owning a shop, living among opera troupes and interacting with a scholar. She also was a disciple of a fallen nobleman during those years.

Qingru confuses the fact that they grew up together as childhood friends with love. She never tried to understand what he wanted or what he liked. She wanted him, so she felt she had to have him, even against his will.

Meanwhile, the 2ML was honest with the FL. He told her how he felt, listened to her complaints, supported her, promised to help her get revenge and to respect her. He understood her fear of having a husband with multiple wives, understood her desire for revenge and promised to help her, sympathized with her pain, and even shed tears over her suffering. And, most importantly, he listened to her answer.

She agreed to marry him. She made it clear that even if she didn't love him, she would still be a good wife to him and would gradually develop affection for him, etc.

His flaw is that he's still young, overly sheltered by his parents, and lacks the responsibility and maturity needed to know what to say or do when faced with difficult situations or when confronted with his parents' authority. In the end, he wasn't able to protect her or even protect himself. His own parents couldn't even protect themselves or their son, allowing another family to trample on their dignity and enslave them.

I enjoy the drama even though it's depressing and frustrating sometimes, but I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed by a few things:

1) The FL was introduced as a badass young woman who had carefully planned her revenge, but in fact, she spends far too much time being a damsel in distress who fails to anticipate her enemies' moves (like the attempt to stop her wedding, which she hadn't planned for, etc.).

2) The father has "villain" written all over his face, so I don't understand why, when we know from the very beginning what kind of person he is, nothing is done to take him down sooner. The drama drags this storyline out for far too long. I would rather not have known so soon what he was that having this slow burn "taking this pos down".

3) More time has been devoted to exposing the second wife (who, in the end, isn't guilty of any serious crimes) than to actually bringing down the real murderers in the story, and I think that's a shame.

4) I really hope the remaining six episodes will deliver some justice, with the culprits facing real punishment and consequences in a convincing way. Otherwise, it would be a bit of a letdown.

Yeah, I really hope he'll end up divorcing the second sister and finding someone better. I want his mother to understand there are consequences to such a betrayal and choice.
She thought a woman who "loves" her son would be better for him than the FL, but she failed to understand that her son's feelings and the bride's character are what matter most.
The FL would have respected him and been a good wife to him because he was sincere with her and she was a good person. The sister, on the other hand, is selfish, spoiled, and immature, and her love is self-centered. She never prioritizes the man's feelings or needs and he didn't love her.
Also, now the wife is the daughter of two murderers and the niece of a dangerous man, all of whom will bring the groom's family to ruin.

Her mother is dead 9 years ago, the legitime wife of her father wants FL dead and her father is also a villain who has no loyalty for everyone but himself so yeah, her own clan is against her.