ninan

I actually think it is his character all the time. I always felt some craziness under his calm attitudes. He gave me a strong "I don't care about ... as long as I can ..." vibe. Otherwise, he wouldn't end up like that in his first life. You can see in future episodes that there are so many times he was about to bash into the old tracks again. FL truly tamed him and lead him to a different fate in this life.

I don't think people will link the connection so easily. The cui mansion is far away from the capital. There is no connection of cui family and jiang family or song family. Most people will just think of them as two separate things. The cui mansion is just home of old lady from Cui family not the real Cui family.

Yes, a big case, but where to look for murders when there is no witness and in a weather like this, the earliest guest of the mansion will be in the morning. They would have a lot of time to cover their traces.
It actually does not matter that much. They don't need to hide themselves. They just need to hide the baby. Unfortunately, the people in cui Mansion noticed the baby from the very beginning.
There are a lot of ways to hide their true identifies as well, for example, leave traces as some gangsters, like a group people continued to run while the baby was kept in the safe place. so many ways but with one thing for sure: nobody from the cui mansion can talk.

If his man did not recognize Mr. Chen, they will just stay quietly and leave shortly after. Since his man saw Mr. Chen and regarded Mr. Chen as enemy, they came to the conclusion that this mansion was dangerous and would jeopardize their whole mission. For them, the baby was the most important, no room for other things. FL also said, if she was in his shoes, she will probably do the same thing.

He knew his mother was poisened very early but he said nothing, did nothing except using cat to protect himself. Then his attitude to his mother was so endearing. Two faces from the very beginning.

He was like this from the beginning. Just hide his true color for long. Like he always kept a cat, nearly from his first appearing in this life. This is one of the breadcrumbs left for us in the early episodes.

From the very beginning, i always feel sth is odd about his character but could not pin point where. But in the first ep, it was said SM killed his father and brother in the first life. Looking at how awful the father is, i'm totally prepared for a rat character from Song Han.

A lot of times in a family with multiply kids, the one, who is neglected most by the parents, is the one, who cares the parents and craves for their love most. Unfortunately most of them never get what they want in their lives.

Gao Shen, the butler of the Dou Family, spy of the gramma.

For me, it was meh only for the arc of Song Mo. From the end of ep30, when the focus is shifted away from him. All went up till the climax. Very satisfying.

If ML had past memories. The drama will end at ep2 or maybe ep3 before he even met the FL. With the regret and anger from the last time, he will just kill. :-D

Also i don't really trust Emporor untill he really gave up his throne to his CP. They are the most egoistic creature. If he was really fond of CP, he'd do a lot more and a lot early to limit the power of the empress. From his dialogue with CP and his entrusted eunuch afterwards, i never thought he was that satisfying about his CP. He was still hesitating. He wanted to see how his CP handle his competitors. When he realized that CP was on the downside, in this case, way too late, he decided to give Duke of Ding to CP. Believe me, if Prince Qin was on the down side, he will give the Duke to him. Only the two sons were on a balanced fight, he could hold his throne to the last minute. This was the mindset of most Emporors. In short, he just wanted to play the controlled power fight as other Emporors did before his death but got heavily backfired.

Yes, I merely want to say this plot is logical from historical point of the view. The drama has more. This drama indicated from the beginning that Duke of Ding at the time was no longer the loyal subordinate in the eyes of the Emporor. The fear over the threat from his powerful general plus some manipulation from the empress side let him make the wrong judgment. He also underestimated the power, maybe also the boldness of his empress. His original plan was just to let him suffer a bit on the way to the capital to show his authority. After they met, scolded him then kept him alive in the prison for the CP. His feeling towards the Duke of Ding was definitely the complex one here. Trust while doubt. Only his plan was totally skewed. Too much ego and missjudgment on his side. Thats why he was so guilty after the death of Duke of Ding and easily guilty tricked by SM.

It was a common practice for an Emporor in the chinese history to do things like putting capable officers and generals into prison for his heir before his death. Especially when CP has strong competitors. Confining those subordinates to reduce the cost of the power fights. For some Emporors, they'd rather see them die in the prison than see them fighting each other under different power groups. They actually prefered, even encouraged the fighting among their heirs. The best won. They just needed to control the degree of the power fighting. Unfortunately a lot of things went out of control in the end, especially when the Emporor got old and weak.

Yes, the story will push the ML and FL to the valley bottom till ep 29, then all the way back up to the climax and the ending. It is a good wrap up for all characters including villains. No loose end for all the plots from early episodes. Very satisfying.

As female, Dou Zhao has no courtesy name. Shou Gu is her nickname. Shou is longevity. Gu is girl, miss, or lady.

Till early twenty century, courtesy names are still widely used in China. Now very rare.

The courtesy names are names given after man reach his adulthood by his elderly or teacher or a higher position holder. Generally used among the higher class and more educated group of people. The labour class hardly own any courtesy names. As the name suggest, it is used in socializing to show respect. The birth name will be limited to be used among the close family and friends and in the case of official documents.

If you watch historical cdramas, it is very common to see the male characters are addressed with their courtesy names.

Song Mo -->Song Yan Tang
Wu Shan --> Wu De Zhen

If you watched The Untamed
Wei Ying --> Wei Wu Xian
Lan Zhan -->Lan Wang Ji

The meaning of the courtesy names are normally the expectation and sometime judgment of the personality of this name holder from the name giver. At the old time, the adulthood day was a big deal. People tent to look for respected scholars or officers as the name giver in the ceremony. A good courtesy name added weights in the future socializing life.

Wu's courtesy name is De Zhen. De is virtuous, Zhen is sincere. Fits his characters totally. I don't know the meaning of SM's courtesy name, but it definitely contains some cultural reference which i have no knowledge of. My rough guess is as strong and hard as the inkstone and upright.

Not everything is to do with politics. A lot of restriction and banning is due to some reports from certain people. There is no rating system in the dramas and movies in China. Some people especially some parents report whenever they see any plots or set up are away from their expectation or knowledge. The reason is always it's not good for their children. Th easiest and laziest solution for government is to ban this topic. This problem was mentioned again and again in the industry and a lot of people has been asking for the rating system but years past, no news at all. I doubt if a rating system really could help. Especially there are also competitors pretending parents to report in oder to drag other drama down.

Time travel was banned largely because of some tragical incidents. In 2011 after two time travel dramas became national hit dramas (Bu Bu Jing Xing by Liu Shi Shi and Palace by Yang Mi), two school girls committed suicide together, leaving notes to say they will go back to the ancient time and find their ideal lives. This incident caused a huge discussion in China and shortly after, the government banned the time travel genra.

Well, when FL officially met ML in this life, MLs uncle was already in the hand of of his enemies. She had no idea of the details of ML family matters in her last life and the book only vaguely mentioned that sth bad will happen in his family. No details, no envidence and no trust between FL and ML at the time. The death of his uncle is inevitable. It was mentioned multiply times in the drama. You can't change the flow of a river easily. But FL and ML managed to change the fate of a lot of other people, even the country in the end.

She was reborn to the time point, when all things which drove her mother to the death had already happened. She got zero chance to do anything.

She did already. Remember the PowerPoint presentation in the wedding night? They are basically a copy of her book.

Feels like you jump watching too much. :-D This drama is very fast paced and has tons of information hidden.