mimi0108

I think we can all say she has learned to live with the pain.
But Jing is not an enemy of her family, he is not constantly trying to kill her cousin, he is not the general of a doomed army. Jing brings her share of pain, of course, but at least she can envisage a peaceful life with him and hopes that once his problems are resolved, he will not abandon her. It's a sweeter love.
With XL, it's a love as a storm, which she cannot control despite herself. XL can be violent, angry, impulsive, controlling, evasive and so on. As she says herself, she is afraid to love him. He is, in a way, the definition of a bad boy. He represents danger, violent passion and at the same time he is her soul mate, her best friend, someone she needs in her life, the one who understands her best and accepts her the most, the one with whom she would like to spend the rest of her life. It's a love she doesn't control but that she tries to keep quiet as much as possible because she is aware they will not have a good ending and prefers to keep her feelings as quiet as possible than to suffer a thousand times more if she admits her love for him in broad daylight.

Yeah, the fact she's trying to resist having to answer that question say everything she can't say to him out loud. He's the one that got away. The one she'll have choose if she was free of responsability and if he wasn't doom. But her family's name and his responsabilities prevent her to be with him even if a lot of the time, she almost fails to resist him. Despite his personnality, the fact he hurted her and he's her family's enemy, she still wants to spend time with him and loves him deep down.

The long wait will be finally over soon.
I can't wait to watch it.
At the same time, I'm a bit worried 21 episodes will not be enough to conclude the story. I love XL and his relationship with XY so I hope their scenes will be great and emotional and important.

Exactly!
He made her his servant for 3 years, shot her with his arrows, strangled her several times, sexually assaulted her, forced her to kneel for a whole day/night twice, forced to listen to his intimate night with his wife to the point she injured herself and passed out.
He tortured her mentally and physically, humiliated her and he is surprised she prefers to commit suicide? He pushed her to it!

He learned she was assaulted by her ex-husband XH hated. He was mad about her safety because she made plan where she exposed herself to danger.

Hua Jing was a brat. The fact she was also a victim doesn't change her bad nature.
She has no respect or love for her family. She only comes to see them when she needs something, has no regard for the lives of others and doesn't seek to escape from her situation. Her husband is abusive and lustful but she prefers to blame her family for refusing to sacrifice an innocent young girl to him.
Instead of respecting her loved ones and sincerely asking for help, she comes in like a demanding princess and throws a tantrum when she doesn't get what she wants. She has her brother's concubine raped, she tries to ruin her niece's reputation (which could lead her to suicide), she curses her entire family and disrespects her mother (which is a huge taboo for this era) and she causes the death of her mother.
What she suffered at the hands of her husband is horrible BUT that doesn't absolve her of the horrible actions she has done and her deeply evil and selfish nature.
If she had been better, her family would have helped her. But no one wants to help a bad person who also refuses to recognize she need help.
You can have empathy for her situation but you can't hate innocent people because they don't have patience for someone who wishes them harm.
This woman doesn't deserve their help and is not asking for it, she is only asking to sacrifice a girl to a pervert abusive man.

It was something that was done in families, when a branch had no heir. And the child remains with the family. It was most of the time the husbands or heads of the family, mother-in-law who made the decision.

I saw a drama that took place during World War II. The eldest daughter had lost her son while escaping from the Japanese and had gone crazy, waiting for her son, refusing to accept his death. She became also barren. So her husband asked her younger sister and her fiancé if they would agree to give one of their children (when they'll have them) so the sister would have a child who would still be related by blood to her. Out of love, the young sister and her fiancé accepted (even if ultimately, because of the war they never had to give up their child).

Exactly

You're welcome. Their family tree is a mess and wasn't properly explained.
We have :
First son, his wife and his concubine. He has a legitimate daughter (the FL) and son as well as an illegitimate daughter with his concubine.
Second son and his wife. They adopted the illegitimate son of the third son.
Third son, his wife and his concubine. He has a legitimate son (the one who was exiled since he was 10 years old) and daughter (the little one) as well as an illegitimate daughter and son (who was adopted by his second brother) with his concubine Qin.
Four son, the youngest, and his wife and their unborn child.
The Hua family has also two daugthers married, the eldest is the crazy one and the second is the nice one. They both had one son.

Concubine Qin, the real mother, is the concubine of the third brother. So she belongs to the third brother's wife. Her son was adopted by the second brother and his wife since they didn't have kids neither concubine.

Concubine Qin, the real mother, is the concubine of the third brother. The second brother and his wife didn't have kids neither concubine so, when the third brother had a son with his concubine, the family decided to give him to be raise by the second brother in order to his lineage to perdure, since the third brother already have a son with his legitimate wife. By doing so, the boy became legitimate as the son of the second brother.

I really like the drama but what happens to Madam Qin turns my stomach: her son was forcibly taken from her to be raised by her husband's brother and his wife, she was the property of the Hua family (with a slave contract) and could be sold at any time, when she has a moment of fear (when her son falls into the water) and reveals their link, she is thrown into the street while injured. FL spares her but she's still banished from the Hua house and away from her other child (her daughter). Then she is drugged and raped by her sister-in-law's henchman who uses it to blackmail her.
What a pitiful life.
I hope the drama will stop torturing her and give her more peace. And I sincerely hope her son's adoptive mother realizes her mistakes and sincerely apologizes. She is the mother of your son whom you love! How dare you treat her like nothing?

For me, the step-mother is the emperor's spy who killed the mother. It's why she kept the sister locked up and maybe forced her to drink medecine who confused her mind.The Emperor try to have his nephew by his side to avoid him been a rival. He privilegied him in front of everyone while just plotting to use him.

He lets his wife's people be killed, and his wife nearly killed. He then psychologically tortures her by, for example, forcing her to watch him have sex with another woman (who hits her), forces her to see the body of her brother and his men, locks her in a dungeon where she is tortured and abused by his guards to the point she runs away and would rather die. But he has the nerve to say he did everything to protect her, that he loves her and he had no other choice?
Toxic behavior and a pointless story.

Yeah, it was heartbroking. For all of them. But, in a way, it helped her entangled the anger she had against her mom as well as the mom's issue to be a loving mother.
NN needed this time far from everyone to mature, calm her heart and be in peace with herself.

I think it was clearly imply she was having "revenge" on her family, specially her mother. She loves them but she needed to do this.

Actually Tagon's mother died in the genocide he orchestrated. She was the translator for the Neandal'chef. She even shared a sad look with Tagon's father when he left.

When they met Eunseom, only Rottip knew who he was and he was silently happy but thought it was meaningless. He only told his friend who Eunseom was after they left. Now, Rottnip isn't here and the other boy raised by Asa Hon is actually more expressive so...they can show happiness.

Exactly.
She saw him spare her cousin because she was standing in front of him. She saw him spit on blood and faint from exhaustion to treat her, watch over her, tell her stories with tenderness and confide. She knows he loves her and it's not just lust. And his refusal to see her, when she wakes up, screams “I love you but we can't be together”. She is aware he is putting a distance between them and that makes her bitter since, because of that, she doesn't really know for sure what he thinks.
And, in many ways, she never stops hoping for a sign from him. A little sign would have been enough for her to express her love too. This shows how much she loves him and how deep down she is aware of the strength of his feelings too. More than once, she hopes for something but she always ends up heartbroken and having to cling to TSJ who, until episode 35, was always there to tell her his love.

I agree with your comment and your sadness for XL.
I just want to give my opinion about XY's thought about XL's love for her:

I don't think XY doesn't know XL loves her. Several scenes seem to indicate she is aware of his feelings. I rather think she doesn't know how much he loves her and how important she is to him because he always hides his feelings and acts of love behind a mask of carelessness and transactions. It's the thing she really blames him for. For example, for me, when she learns he made a deal to save her, she's not bitter because she thinks he's only saving her for that but she's bitter because he always chooses to take advantage of his acts of love, making it hard for XY to know the extent of his sincerity.

This is the tragedy of their love. They are both aware the other loves them but each refuses to acknowledge it out loud, contenting themselves with insinuations and regrets from time to time (like when she tells him she wishes she was the one who saves him or when he asks her to abandon her princess status to travel the world with him). And each doubts the depth of the other's feelings. XL fears TSJ occupies a lot of XY's thoughts and she always fears that XL isn't fully serious with her.