narnianfairy

For Chinese, to me at least, reading is already the toughest skill. Being able to remember the characters is already extremely difficult.

it was also grounds for divorce in official as well as civilian households

yes, those were the requirements, but she's older, so she hasn't had any "good news"

He calls her by her the former name because he had seen her previously. But the novel is a bit different in this aspect. Yet, he still figures things out. However, A'Li was the way both of them were called privately, except if the meaning is different than the characters used are different too. I've seen it translated as pear and racoon. Xue Fang Fei's baby name is Ah Lî (阿狸), Lî means racoon or fox-like animal. In Jiang Li's name (姜梨) Lî means pear. (Info taken from list of character names in Blooming Translation of the novel) Depending on the translation, however, I've seen it translated as cat and peach as well. It seems that the tone is the same though in Mandarin.

I am really hoping to see The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage turned into a Drama, as well as Reborn Female General. In those two novels we have a similar set up with a smart FL ready to do anything for revenge.

for my time zone the episodes drop at 7 am

i woke up too early. I'll just mirror the screen to rewatch the last two episodes on a bigger screen

I don't think I'd be able to learn Chinese even though I studied foreign languages in college and I am fluent in three and intermediate in two other languages. As a student I also studied Korean, but never went beyond beginner level. I do understand some Korean and some Chinese because of watching dramas, but it's just a smattering. The characters in Chinese are too much for me I think, so I didn't even dare to attempt it. In my own language the idiom "It's all Greek to me" is rendered by saying it sounds like Chinese. Maybe it's a cultural thing and I simply regarded it as too difficult because of that.

It's a younger cousin from her own clan. So Liu Tai Fae schemes and avoids the situation. Nevertheless, she feels betrayed by her family and realizes she cannot rely on them, she also knows she will eventually lose the emperor's favour due to aging, so she starts giving information to Princess Wanning (Yongning)'s brother (Cheng Wang), who is trying to usurp the throne. She is however discovered by the emperor, who pretends not to know, so as to send same fake information to his enemy, and later loses her life and implicates her clan as well.

she actually feels betrayed when her family tries to do exactly that, but it's not Jiang Ru Yao who's being shoved in

exactly

initial subs are machine translated, then they replace them
I am waiting eagerly for the Viki release for the good subs, but i am watching the series as it's airing elsewhere

yup, guessed it in one

Dramas are always adaptations. I love reading the novels either before watching or as I am watching to compare. Some people prefer reading the novel after because they might feel disappointed if the drama does not follow the text exactly. In my case, though, even if they don't follow the novel religiously, I am still satisfied if the overall message is rendered through the visual medium. Film and book are essentially different, because in the filmed version you need to show, not tell, whereas on the page you need to tell, not show. Some things cannot be simply mirrored in the drama. Faithfulness to the source text is relative. In the case of the The Double there are already numerous changes. But that is not a bad thing. It can keep us, novel readers, on our toes as well and create suspense even for those of us who know the overall plot.

well, she actually is his main wife - his first main wife is dead and he married Shuran after that.

Analects of historical drama 101 LOLZ 🤣

same here

It's really good. I hope they turn it into a drama as well

his entrances wouldn't be as effective if he didn't know when to show up 😼

Blooming translation is good, but I finished reading it on MTL, which does not have the same quality but was tolerable if I rearranged word order and switched tenses in my mind as I went along. I simply couldn't leave it unfinished