mukkanna

Basically revenge on everyone who forced the Di family to die and destroyed their 80,000 man army. She knows the Han family is behind it, but she doesn't know exactly who. That being said, ML was 12 at the time, and Anning was 8...so she knows he's not the mastermind. Still, ML is the Han family's crown prince, and he won't just stand aside and let FL destroy his family.

That's seriously unfilial, though. Would never make it through censorship!

No one's saying she shouldn't hide her identity. I'm saying she deceived Han Ye, and that wasn't very nice. Two wrongs don't make a right. Han Ye, on the other hand, has always treated her well. His rejection of Ren Anle is actually a result of his trying to pay the Han family's debts to the Di family by keeping his promise to Di Ziyuan...so if he needs to apologize for that, then basically there's nothing he can do that's right.

His family killed her whole family, and he was only a kid...but he risked his life for her (as a kid), stood up to save her life against his father the emperor (as a kid), and has been protecting her and working to regain her freedom for 10 years to repay her for things he didn't even do and did his best (as a kid) to stop.

Han Ye has never done anything to hurt her. He's always been up front with her that he, the crown prince, must marry Di Ziyuan...because this is what he owes the Di family. If he's the one being deceived, why is it his fault? And if he knows the truth and is just playing along, why blame him for helping her continue to deceive the world?

There are some pieces of great acting. Episode 19, for example, has sparked a lot of discussion on Douban about how well the actors were able to depict the relationship between the emperor and crown prince in under a minute. I'd at least watch ep 11, where you start to get a taste of ML's true persona, and decide if you're piqued enough to continue.

But...she's been the one trying to trick him on purpose? If anything she should apologize to him...

In my opinion, drama Han Ye doesn't really have any good options here. If he choses Ren Anle, he's choosing a woman who's trying to destroy his family (even if she has some real feelings for him). If he chooses Di Chengen, he's choosing a fake. If he chooses Mo Shuang, I'm pretty sure her brother is plotting the downfall of Jing...because I can't think of why else he'd try to dissuade his beloved sister from trying to marry Han Ye, who's handsome, kind, upright, and a gentleman. It only makes sense if he's planning to attack Jing or kill Han Ye later and wants to keep her out of the crossfire.

But...the person who did the most tricking was his father. Han Ye might hate what his father did, but he loves his father. How does she get revenge without harming his family?

Well..."abode" is a weird translation. The word used in Chinese describes a fortified city or village. They never go into where the soldiers are from...but in the novel, she's been amassing strength and building factions for 10 years.

1. Maybe he's referring to all the things he's done to make the Di family irrelevant...

2. The emperor gave her this "reward" after he was informed that Han Ye ran into the fire to save her. I suspect he's warning her to restrain herself and take care not to pose any danger to Han Ye, and possibly to distance herself properly.

You're correct. DCE has no redeeming qualities at all...which I guess is the same as the novel, so I suppose I can't complain about that too much. But she didn't have as much showtime in the novel!

There are some good scenes for the main leads, if you can get through Di Chengen's scenes with Mu Qing (which are definitely a drag). Those scenes don't really contain much plot so are skippable.

The pace of the novel was similarly slow until it reaches the point we're about to start with tomorrow's episodes. The whole first half was setting up relationships and backdrop...the last half was carnage, blood, and tears. Hope the drama follows suit :)

Why would he be happy when he knows she's a fake? And a manipulative, scheming one, at that?

Agree they could stand to cut out some of these useless side character scenes that don't do anything to advance the plot.

But the main leads' problem is that they can't align unless their goals change. Di Ziyuan wants to destroy the Han family. Han Ye wants justice for the Di family, but he also wants to protect his family. If he were to overthrow his own father, the drama would never have made it through censorship unless he comes to a very bad end...

Yes, she's annoying and stupid and gets a disproportionate amount of screen time. You could probably fast forward all her scenes that are just her and Mu Qing and not miss much (I watched everything without skipping, and that's my opinion). You could watch the ones with other people in them so you can still see the progression of the story and how people figure her out.

I wouldn't consider her a second female lead...she's a side character who will hopefully become much less prominent since she's been found out.

Yes, to deter people from ringing the bell for things that aren't important.

Definitely more than 600...in episode 1 there's an overhead scene where you can count about 50 boats. Some are smaller, but the bigger ones are bigger than the Dongqian boats. Even estimating 30 people per boat (her flagship definitely has more than that) we're looking at 1500 navy. That's pretty much overkill for the handful of boats they're there to defeat. Probably the rest didn't get deployed?

In the novel the emperor and imperial army had been trying to defeat Anle Abode unsuccessfully for quite some time. But they're more like a thorn in his side...his army can defeat them, but not without losses.

To make a long story short, chapter 66 is the first one where we know he for sure knows. But he has strong suspicions before that.

Yes. Sort of. Turns out she was set up by someone else.

Ok...sounds good. I was looking forward to a nice discussion till the next episode comes out, but it sounds like this kind of drama isn't your cup of tea.