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The Duke of Zhenbei is the noble guarding Chuzhou, the border city of Dafeng, against the Kui, who are the enemies of Dafeng. The Duke of Zhenbei is currently a 3rd rank fighter, but he wants to break through to second rank. If he were to do that normally, it would take years to accomplish, so to shorten the time, he decided to collude with the Witcher’s sect and use sinister means to reach 2nd rank.

So, they killed all the 380k people in chuzhou, and used their blood and soul to create a core that when consumed, will help the Duke of Zhenbei reach 2nd rank. The duchess has a spiritual essence that the Duke also wants to use to refine the core, but luckily Xu Qian rescued her.

Ningyan meeting his squad at episode 36 is the cutest thing! I love how their first instinct is to scream his name and jump on top of him as always. The way they were narrating their journey and ordeals is really funny.

The express episodes will be released today.

The drama is not over yet but in the novel, he didn’t go back to modern times.

DW’s acting is so good, and he generally knows how to interact with female characters to create chemistry. I’ve seen people ship him with Huaiqing and Caiwei. But for the purposes of this drama, he is strictly Lin An’s man, else she will skewer him lol.

No love triangle or second lead drama, the romance is slow burn but really sweet. So far, the ML doesn’t go back to modern times too.

Chong Zhao one minute, “Bai Shuo, I have to stay around you to keep you safe”!

Chong Zhao the next minute, literally saves the life of Fu Ling who has been trying to brutally murder Bai Shuo several times, and even murdered her father! Never seen a more irritating character.

Princess Lin An was on vacation to recuperate after the loss of her friend when Huaiqing sent her news of Xu Qian’s death. So she took an extremely perilous short route to come back to Dafeng in a hurry. She would have been in grave danger if Huaiqing didn’t send undercover bodyguards to protect her. On the other, Xu Qian’s buddies went to look for the Witcher sect to avenge his death, and that sect is known to be elusive. But they have all reunited at Chunzhou in episode 35, which is the border town where the Duke of Zhenbei was colluding with the Witcher sect to massacre people. It’s possible they already Xu Qian was alive but stayed back to investigate, but I guess we will find out the real reason in the next episode.

Yea, Xu Qian has good relationship with the female characters in this drama, and they are all well written with no shoehorned villain or annoying clingy second FL. Even his dynamics with the duchess is interesting.

What?! It’s like the story is just getting started. We need season 2! The lore is so vast and interesting, with so many mysteries, twists and turns.

That’s insane. Let’s see how the story develops then. I hope Xu Qian will defeat him unscathed.

I’m so happy to see the full squad back. Yay!!

Wow that’s crazy. I have so many questions but are his father’s motives good or bad? I can’t imagine him having good motives considering he is apparently from the Witcher sect, who are depicted as malicious in the drama, to the point of even colluding with Duke of Zhenbei to massacre people. But if his father’s motives are bad, why would he abandon his son and even involve him in the plot?

In the drama, we were just told Ningyan’s father died and left him to be brought up by his uncle.

Now this makes perfect sense. It just put the pieces together for me. I recall the episode where the royal sword of the founding emperor of dafeng went crazy and released Shen shu’s severed hand at the bottom of the lake. When the emperor went to calm down the sword, he made one funny statement along the lines of, “What’s the point if you were 1st rank, you still got defeated by old age”. I think that’s when we started getting the sense that the emperor has sinister motives. If The Duke of Zhenbei is another part of him, it makes sense that he would use him to practice sinister arts with the Witcher sect to advance in power and maybe attain immortality. Who knows what his real motives are atp.

It also explains why the Duke of Zhenbei is killing so callously to get more power. Cos even if the Duke of Zhenbei was only the emperor’s brother, he won’t be committing mass murders, except if he wanted to rebel completely.

Yang Yan is back! At a good time to help Rou too. They are so cute!

What? I mean.. that would explain some things. Like how the duchess was first brought into the palace, probably to be a concubine, then was randomly gifted to the Duke of Zhenbei.

But if the Duke is colluding with the Witcher sect and using such extremely malicious means to break into the 2nd rank, is it just to have the power or is he trying to rebel against his brother, the emperor?

The hooded man in black called him Ningyan. It’s only family that call him by that name. Could the hooded man be his father? I can’t think of anyone else close enough asides family to call him that name.

I feel really bad for the duchess now, her backstory is sad. I hope Xu Qian helps her.

Wait.. so the Duke of Zhenbei married the duchess for her spiritual essence, but he hasn’t seen her yet. He probably would just kill her when he meets her. And the Kui also want to kidnap her for the same spiritual essence. I always thought this Duke was going to be a villain character and I wasn’t wrong, but I wonder how he is related to the Emperor.