Interesting take, but I'd disagree given most of season 2 was about CX trying to get with XY. Plus I think it…
You’re welcome!
Yes, it does seem to be a very common dynamic / theme in historical C Dramas. I can understand why, given the themes of China’s history and the government’s current policies. But it is still a bit frustrating to see wars of conquest / expansion / “unification” constantly being promoted as being “necessary for the greater good”, especially when these dramas are airing in the context of certain current international conflicts (e.g., Russia’s invasion of Ukraine).
Interesting take, but I'd disagree given most of season 2 was about CX trying to get with XY. Plus I think it…
It does seem quite possible that XL would have been introduced to the world of assassins and their employers when he took over the identity of FFB before he joined the remnant army.
I agree that Sir Bi’s words about XL’s strength of character in the novel are definitely worth noting. It seems quite likely that, like all the inhabitants of Jade Mountain but unlike XL, CX would have been enchanted by Sir Bi’s voice.
The FL goes by Wen Xiao Liu (WXL) or Xiao Yao (XY).The first ML (per the author) is Cang Xuan (CX).The second…
You're welcome!
Yes. XY is a deity, but the exact nature of her biological father's classification is unknown. In both the drama and the novel he is often referred to as a "devil" and a "demon" due to the role he played in enforcing the last King of Chenrong's reforms and also the role he played in battle, but in the prequel novel (Once Promised) he does not have the characteristics of a demon (e.g., a true demon form and a humanoid form). Some fans speculate that he was an exceptionally powerful deity. Others speculate that he was the manifestation of nature. Also, over the course of the story, a sea demon uses his blood to heal XY and that changes her body so that she also has some of the powers and traits of a sea demon.
TSJ is a deity, but he confirms that all nine-tailed fox demons are his relatives due to a common ancestor. The Tushan clan is descended from the original nine-tailed fox, which was a beast with both divine and demonic aspects. The original nine-tailed fox ancestor was around when the universe was created many millenia ago / many generations back. The rest of the Tushan Clan ancestors appear to be deities. TSJ can manifest an astral nine-tailed fox and nine spiritual fox tails and when he becomes the Tushan Clan leader, TSJ is viewed as the king of all fox demons.
Lirong Chang is a deity, but his clan is descended from a two-headed dog demon, a bit like the Tushan clan and the Tushan original nine-tailed fox.
Members of the Xiyan royal family (including CX), members of the Haoling royal family (including Ah Nian) and members of the former Chenrong royal family (including Feng Long, Xing Yue, and Hong Jiang) are all deities with high levels of spiritual power. Lao Mu is a deity with a low level of spiritual power.
Xiang Liu, Lao Sang (CX's servant), and Zuo Er (Left Ear) are demons.
Chuan Zi, Ma Zi and Sang Tian Er are mortal humans.
Havent started this yet but please answer my questions with spoiler, I accept it.1. Whats the identity of FL at…
The FL goes by Wen Xiao Liu (WXL) or Xiao Yao (XY). The first ML (per the author) is Cang Xuan (CX). The second ML (per the author) is Tushan Jing (TSJ) / Ye Shi Qi (YSQ). The third ML (per the author) is Xiang Liu (XL) / Fangfeng Bei (FFB). The fourth ML (per the author) is Chishui Feng Long.
---
(1) At the end of Season 2, the FL has strong archery skills but still has low powers for a deity and her identity is pretty ordinary. She regains the ability to transform / change her form in a way that is undetectable even by the most powerful deities, marries Tushan Jing / Ye Shi Qi, leaves CX / her life in the palace behind, and returns to living a quiet life of a person who would not stick out in a crowd of relatively ordinary people.
(2) CX loves the FL romantically. The FL loves him back, but she views him as her brother and does not consider him to be someone she could marry.
TSJ / YSQ loves the FL romantically but he is engaged to another woman. Although the FL is not one to make the first move, she agrees to wait for TSJ to break his engagement and for most of the story she considers TSJ to be her best chance at having the lifelong companion that she wants (i.e., someone who will not / cannot give her up). There are some significant rough patches, but in the end XY marries TSJ.
XL loves the FL romantically but he will never betray or abandon his adoptive father or his brothers-in-arms, whose remnant army is fighting against the army of Xiyan. The man who the FL treats as her grandfather is the King of Xiyan and the man who she treats as her brother (CX) wants to be the next King of Xiyan. So (among other complicating factors) XL and XY are on opposite sides of a war. When XY transfers her poisonous bug from CX to XL, it is successfully planted and turns into a Lovers Bug that connects XL's life and heart with XY's life and heart. The drama is less clear than the novel on this point, but this strongly implies that XY also had romantic feelings for XL. Although she may not have been fully aware of them or might not have accepted those feelings. In the end, XL gave XY the things she needed before he dies on the battlefield as he planned, and XY mourns his death.
Feng Long liked XY and was excited about marrying her even though his main motive for the marriage was to gain political power. XY agreed to marry Feng Long but did not love him and was relieved after their wedding ended up not happening. Later on, Feng Long helps his twin sister try to kill XY, but he's reluctant about it at the time and apologetic about it afterwards. Feng Long ends up dying in a military camp near the battlefield after protecting his friend / king.
(3) Opinions will vary here. IMO, she was happy to an extent but it's a bittersweet ending. XL dies and XY decides to leave her life in Xiyan and Haoling and her loved ones there (including CX, the former King of Xiyan, Ah Nian, and the former King of Haoling) behind. And, thanks to Feng Long's death, Xing Yue gets to retain her position as the honoured Empress despite the fact that she tried to kill TSJ and XY.
(4) There isn't really one single character who is "the villain" in this story. Xing Yue is probably the closest, and in the drama they took some of the terrible things that CX did in the novel (like trying to kill TSJ) and changed it so that they became terrible things that Xing Yue did. Tushan Hou is also pretty villainous. But most of the characters in this drama are a mix of good and bad, and CX is not an exception. He loves the FL and wants to protect her, and one of his main reasons for pursuing power was that he wanted to protect her. But he is also selfish (e.g., he forces the FL to stay by his side even when she doesn't want to / isn't happy) and willing to hurt the FL (and he's also the type of king who decides to start wars in the name of "peace"). IMO, it's a good thing that the FL was finally able to leave him in the end, despite the fact that they cared so deeply for each other.
(5) CX is still in love with XY in the end but resigns himself, more or less, to the fact that he chose the throne. And then XY chooses to leave without saying goodbye to him. Since she regains her transformation power before the end of the story, CX will not be able to find her (no matter how hard he tries) unless she wants to be found. XY's reasons for choosing to leave are clearer in the novel (where CX tries to kill TSJ and the timing of certain events, like XL's death, is different).
In the novel she is selectively mute from the age of 9. She is physically unable to speak in most situations, but because her inability to speak is due to psychological causes (not a brain injury from her childhood car crash, as her mother forced her to pretend) there are sometimes circumstances where she is able to speak or even scream.
The drama seems to mostly be similar to the novel so far, except that the FL in the drama sometimes speaks out loud to herself (when she is alone) and I don't recall that happening in the novel.
Interesting take, but I'd disagree given most of season 2 was about CX trying to get with XY. Plus I think it…
"As for the characters' morality, in the series XL says he works as an assassin from time to time, and he kills people for money, or in exchange of a reward. CX has never done that."
---
XL was born with nothing. He never met his parents and doesn't know who they are. Out of loyalty to the man who saved his life and became his adoptive father (and his brothers-in-arms), XL spent ~400 years fighting with a rag-tag remnant army that was constantly struggling to obtain enough supplies to ensure that its soldiers were fed, armed and had sufficient medicine to stay alive between battles.
XL does occasionally carry out assassinations in exchange for money... and then he uses that money to buy things like supplies for his men, medicine to heal Wen Xiao Liu, or a specially commissioned bow that XY can use to defend herself. Although the drama did not show it, XY was only able to survive Xing Yue's assassins in chapter 44 of the novel because of her archery skills and the extraordinary bow and arrows that XL commissioned for her.
CX never takes on assassin jobs in exchange for money because he never has a need to. He is a prince (the grandson of one king and a disciple to another) who hangs out with the wealthiest deities in the realm. When he has money problems before he gains the throne, he goes into debt (building up an army) until Tushan Jing wakes up from his coma and then immediately asks TSJ to bail him out. After he takes the throne, he can rely on taxes and the spoils of war to meet all his financial needs.
In QS Town, CX sends numerous assassins to try to kill XL and also tries to kill WXL (before he finds out that WXL is XY). CX also has no qualms about using his personal spy network to kill people when he thinks its warranted, such as when he kills everyone involved with the attempted assassination against XY.
CX raised a treasonous personal army. Although he did not preemptively use that army, he was prepared to stage a coup against his grandfather and uncle if his grandfather had named his uncle as his heir instead of CX. A coup like that could lead to an extremely high death toll, especially if the coup sparked a civil war or an inter-kingdom war.
In a time when Xiyan and Haoling were at peace, CX chose to order his army to invade Haoling unprovoked so that he could rule the whole world. No matter how much effort he might have put into trying to minimize civilian casualties, innocent people would have inevitably died as a result of that invasion. That is the nature of war. And of course many soldiers definitely died in 10+ years of battle. Including soldiers that CX would have been friends with on both sides (since he lived in Haoling and trained under the King of Haoling for hundreds of years).
CX also escalated and ended the fight against the Chenrong remnant army, which had remained a stalemate for 350+ years. In the end, his army wiped out the entire Chenrong remnant army, including XL.
In the novel, CX orchestrated TSJ's death and in the drama the former King of Xiyan makes it clear that CX was secretly pleased that TSJ had been killed and that he had planned to take action against TSJ but got lucky because Xing Yue beat him to it, and the King of Xiyan used divine tea to force CX to confront the consequences he would face if CX continued down the path that he was on. Although TSJ ended up not dying (thanks to interventions from XY and XL) in the novel or the drama, all of TSJ's guards, all of TSH's men, TSH himself, and FFYY died as a result of that incident. XY also tried to kill herself because of that incident and only failed thanks to XL's intervention.
Even when you add up the number of people that XL killed in the slave death match arena (when he had to kill or be killed), on the battlefield, and as an assassin, it would likely still be less than the number of people that died as a result of CX's orders.
The list of potential moral comparison points goes well beyond their respective financial situations and death tolls, but this is getting a bit long. ^^
Im not planning on watching this whatsoever because reverse harem is a headache for me but even to this day, I…
In the "harem" part of this reverse harem drama, there are four main male characters.
The author considers Cang Xuan to be the first male lead of this story, but he does not end up with the female lead and also does not die. However, due to his choices, he loses the female lead forever and the leads are left 长相思 (eternally yearning for each other), hence the original Chinese title of the novel and drama.
The author considers Tushan Jing / Ye Shi Qi to be the second male lead of the story and he does end up with the female lead in the end. The female lead loses him temporarily.
And of course the other two main male lead characters (Xiang Liu / Fangfeng Bei and Feng Long) also have important roles to play before their deaths, when those who love them lose them forever.
It largely depends on which characters and ships you like and which characters and ships you don't like. Some…
This drama is a reverse-harem drama with a clear female lead. There are also four male characters who are in love with the FL, want to marry the FL, or both.
Unlike most romance dramas, this drama doesn’t have a clear main couple comprised of the FL and a clear ML and the character that the author refers to as the ML of the story does not end up with the FL. But the FL does end up married to one of the main male characters.
It largely depends on which characters and ships you like and which characters and ships you don't like. Some fans of one of the characters / ships will say that this drama has a happy ending. Some fans of another character / ship will say that the ending is tragic. Some fans will call the ending bittersweet.
Personally, I would say the ending feels mixed. Not 100% tragic with no reprieve but also definitely not 100% happy across the board. Each of the main characters gets something they wanted / chose for themselves in the end, but to different extents they also each had some kind of extreme loss or disappointment.
In the case of the novel, I felt like the ending was bittersweet but satisfying in its own way. In the case of the drama, I felt like the ending was less satisfying.
The concoctions that the nine-tailed fox forced young XY to eat after capturing her caused most of her spiritual power to seep into her blood where she could no longer access it.
XY never regains the ability to access and use the level of spiritual power that she was able to access and use as a child before she was captured by the nine-tailed fox. However, she becomes better able to defend herself over time. She improves her mastery of poisons (and her medical skills) and she also becomes a highly proficient archer.
There is a point in the story where XY is offered the opportunity to try to regain her previous level of power, but she decides against it.
-----
Chapter 13 of the novel:
The Royal Mother grabbed Xiao Liu’s arm and examined her body. She let go and said coolly, “If you stay in Jade Mountain, I might be able to help you regain your lost powers. My remaining life span is at most one to two hundred years. If you want, you can be the next Royal Mother and control Jade Mountain.”
Perhaps controlling Jade Mountain was the greatest dream of many people in the vast wilderness, but Xiao Liu knew exactly what being chained to this mountain was like. She didn’t hesitate and said, “I would rather remain this way. Knowing what tomorrow will bring but not knowing what next year will bring. Not too exciting, not too boring.”
The Royal Mother merely nodded her head but her expression never changed, as if nothing in the world or time could ever affect her.
-----
Episode 18 of the drama includes a similar conversation.
I read a lot about censorship but I don't think that's the case here. I mean I've watched dramas with plenty of…
Episode 35 of LBFaD had a kiss that wasn’t super long and Dylan Wang was doing most of the work, but it was extremely emotional and pretty passionate. It’s one of my favourite C Drama kisses and I definitely wouldn’t describe it as a peck. If we’d gotten something like that kiss in this drama I’d have been thrilled.
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Yes, it does seem to be a very common dynamic / theme in historical C Dramas. I can understand why, given the themes of China’s history and the government’s current policies. But it is still a bit frustrating to see wars of conquest / expansion / “unification” constantly being promoted as being “necessary for the greater good”, especially when these dramas are airing in the context of certain current international conflicts (e.g., Russia’s invasion of Ukraine).
I agree that Sir Bi’s words about XL’s strength of character in the novel are definitely worth noting. It seems quite likely that, like all the inhabitants of Jade Mountain but unlike XL, CX would have been enchanted by Sir Bi’s voice.
Yes. XY is a deity, but the exact nature of her biological father's classification is unknown. In both the drama and the novel he is often referred to as a "devil" and a "demon" due to the role he played in enforcing the last King of Chenrong's reforms and also the role he played in battle, but in the prequel novel (Once Promised) he does not have the characteristics of a demon (e.g., a true demon form and a humanoid form). Some fans speculate that he was an exceptionally powerful deity. Others speculate that he was the manifestation of nature. Also, over the course of the story, a sea demon uses his blood to heal XY and that changes her body so that she also has some of the powers and traits of a sea demon.
TSJ is a deity, but he confirms that all nine-tailed fox demons are his relatives due to a common ancestor. The Tushan clan is descended from the original nine-tailed fox, which was a beast with both divine and demonic aspects. The original nine-tailed fox ancestor was around when the universe was created many millenia ago / many generations back. The rest of the Tushan Clan ancestors appear to be deities. TSJ can manifest an astral nine-tailed fox and nine spiritual fox tails and when he becomes the Tushan Clan leader, TSJ is viewed as the king of all fox demons.
Lirong Chang is a deity, but his clan is descended from a two-headed dog demon, a bit like the Tushan clan and the Tushan original nine-tailed fox.
Members of the Xiyan royal family (including CX), members of the Haoling royal family (including Ah Nian) and members of the former Chenrong royal family (including Feng Long, Xing Yue, and Hong Jiang) are all deities with high levels of spiritual power. Lao Mu is a deity with a low level of spiritual power.
Xiang Liu, Lao Sang (CX's servant), and Zuo Er (Left Ear) are demons.
Chuan Zi, Ma Zi and Sang Tian Er are mortal humans.
The first ML (per the author) is Cang Xuan (CX).
The second ML (per the author) is Tushan Jing (TSJ) / Ye Shi Qi (YSQ).
The third ML (per the author) is Xiang Liu (XL) / Fangfeng Bei (FFB).
The fourth ML (per the author) is Chishui Feng Long.
---
(1) At the end of Season 2, the FL has strong archery skills but still has low powers for a deity and her identity is pretty ordinary. She regains the ability to transform / change her form in a way that is undetectable even by the most powerful deities, marries Tushan Jing / Ye Shi Qi, leaves CX / her life in the palace behind, and returns to living a quiet life of a person who would not stick out in a crowd of relatively ordinary people.
(2) CX loves the FL romantically. The FL loves him back, but she views him as her brother and does not consider him to be someone she could marry.
TSJ / YSQ loves the FL romantically but he is engaged to another woman. Although the FL is not one to make the first move, she agrees to wait for TSJ to break his engagement and for most of the story she considers TSJ to be her best chance at having the lifelong companion that she wants (i.e., someone who will not / cannot give her up). There are some significant rough patches, but in the end XY marries TSJ.
XL loves the FL romantically but he will never betray or abandon his adoptive father or his brothers-in-arms, whose remnant army is fighting against the army of Xiyan. The man who the FL treats as her grandfather is the King of Xiyan and the man who she treats as her brother (CX) wants to be the next King of Xiyan. So (among other complicating factors) XL and XY are on opposite sides of a war. When XY transfers her poisonous bug from CX to XL, it is successfully planted and turns into a Lovers Bug that connects XL's life and heart with XY's life and heart. The drama is less clear than the novel on this point, but this strongly implies that XY also had romantic feelings for XL. Although she may not have been fully aware of them or might not have accepted those feelings. In the end, XL gave XY the things she needed before he dies on the battlefield as he planned, and XY mourns his death.
Feng Long liked XY and was excited about marrying her even though his main motive for the marriage was to gain political power. XY agreed to marry Feng Long but did not love him and was relieved after their wedding ended up not happening. Later on, Feng Long helps his twin sister try to kill XY, but he's reluctant about it at the time and apologetic about it afterwards. Feng Long ends up dying in a military camp near the battlefield after protecting his friend / king.
(3) Opinions will vary here. IMO, she was happy to an extent but it's a bittersweet ending. XL dies and XY decides to leave her life in Xiyan and Haoling and her loved ones there (including CX, the former King of Xiyan, Ah Nian, and the former King of Haoling) behind. And, thanks to Feng Long's death, Xing Yue gets to retain her position as the honoured Empress despite the fact that she tried to kill TSJ and XY.
(4) There isn't really one single character who is "the villain" in this story. Xing Yue is probably the closest, and in the drama they took some of the terrible things that CX did in the novel (like trying to kill TSJ) and changed it so that they became terrible things that Xing Yue did. Tushan Hou is also pretty villainous. But most of the characters in this drama are a mix of good and bad, and CX is not an exception. He loves the FL and wants to protect her, and one of his main reasons for pursuing power was that he wanted to protect her. But he is also selfish (e.g., he forces the FL to stay by his side even when she doesn't want to / isn't happy) and willing to hurt the FL (and he's also the type of king who decides to start wars in the name of "peace"). IMO, it's a good thing that the FL was finally able to leave him in the end, despite the fact that they cared so deeply for each other.
(5) CX is still in love with XY in the end but resigns himself, more or less, to the fact that he chose the throne. And then XY chooses to leave without saying goodbye to him. Since she regains her transformation power before the end of the story, CX will not be able to find her (no matter how hard he tries) unless she wants to be found. XY's reasons for choosing to leave are clearer in the novel (where CX tries to kill TSJ and the timing of certain events, like XL's death, is different).
(5.5) In the novel, XY and CX are blood-related first cousins. In the drama, it's a bit more convoluted. The short answer is that they're still related (XY's mother came from the same clan as CX's grandmother - the Xiling Clan) but they're not first cousins. More details are available here: https://kisskh.at/discussions/lost-you-forever/120191-are-cang-xuan-and-xiao-yao-blood-relatives-in-the-drama
Edit: As Kokuto noted, other fans may have different interpretations. ^^
The drama seems to mostly be similar to the novel so far, except that the FL in the drama sometimes speaks out loud to herself (when she is alone) and I don't recall that happening in the novel.
---
XL was born with nothing. He never met his parents and doesn't know who they are. Out of loyalty to the man who saved his life and became his adoptive father (and his brothers-in-arms), XL spent ~400 years fighting with a rag-tag remnant army that was constantly struggling to obtain enough supplies to ensure that its soldiers were fed, armed and had sufficient medicine to stay alive between battles.
XL does occasionally carry out assassinations in exchange for money... and then he uses that money to buy things like supplies for his men, medicine to heal Wen Xiao Liu, or a specially commissioned bow that XY can use to defend herself. Although the drama did not show it, XY was only able to survive Xing Yue's assassins in chapter 44 of the novel because of her archery skills and the extraordinary bow and arrows that XL commissioned for her.
CX never takes on assassin jobs in exchange for money because he never has a need to. He is a prince (the grandson of one king and a disciple to another) who hangs out with the wealthiest deities in the realm. When he has money problems before he gains the throne, he goes into debt (building up an army) until Tushan Jing wakes up from his coma and then immediately asks TSJ to bail him out. After he takes the throne, he can rely on taxes and the spoils of war to meet all his financial needs.
In QS Town, CX sends numerous assassins to try to kill XL and also tries to kill WXL (before he finds out that WXL is XY). CX also has no qualms about using his personal spy network to kill people when he thinks its warranted, such as when he kills everyone involved with the attempted assassination against XY.
CX raised a treasonous personal army. Although he did not preemptively use that army, he was prepared to stage a coup against his grandfather and uncle if his grandfather had named his uncle as his heir instead of CX. A coup like that could lead to an extremely high death toll, especially if the coup sparked a civil war or an inter-kingdom war.
In a time when Xiyan and Haoling were at peace, CX chose to order his army to invade Haoling unprovoked so that he could rule the whole world. No matter how much effort he might have put into trying to minimize civilian casualties, innocent people would have inevitably died as a result of that invasion. That is the nature of war. And of course many soldiers definitely died in 10+ years of battle. Including soldiers that CX would have been friends with on both sides (since he lived in Haoling and trained under the King of Haoling for hundreds of years).
CX also escalated and ended the fight against the Chenrong remnant army, which had remained a stalemate for 350+ years. In the end, his army wiped out the entire Chenrong remnant army, including XL.
In the novel, CX orchestrated TSJ's death and in the drama the former King of Xiyan makes it clear that CX was secretly pleased that TSJ had been killed and that he had planned to take action against TSJ but got lucky because Xing Yue beat him to it, and the King of Xiyan used divine tea to force CX to confront the consequences he would face if CX continued down the path that he was on. Although TSJ ended up not dying (thanks to interventions from XY and XL) in the novel or the drama, all of TSJ's guards, all of TSH's men, TSH himself, and FFYY died as a result of that incident. XY also tried to kill herself because of that incident and only failed thanks to XL's intervention.
Even when you add up the number of people that XL killed in the slave death match arena (when he had to kill or be killed), on the battlefield, and as an assassin, it would likely still be less than the number of people that died as a result of CX's orders.
The list of potential moral comparison points goes well beyond their respective financial situations and death tolls, but this is getting a bit long. ^^
The author considers Cang Xuan to be the first male lead of this story, but he does not end up with the female lead and also does not die. However, due to his choices, he loses the female lead forever and the leads are left 长相思 (eternally yearning for each other), hence the original Chinese title of the novel and drama.
The author considers Tushan Jing / Ye Shi Qi to be the second male lead of the story and he does end up with the female lead in the end. The female lead loses him temporarily.
And of course the other two main male lead characters (Xiang Liu / Fangfeng Bei and Feng Long) also have important roles to play before their deaths, when those who love them lose them forever.
Unlike most romance dramas, this drama doesn’t have a clear main couple comprised of the FL and a clear ML and the character that the author refers to as the ML of the story does not end up with the FL. But the FL does end up married to one of the main male characters.
Personally, I would say the ending feels mixed. Not 100% tragic with no reprieve but also definitely not 100% happy across the board. Each of the main characters gets something they wanted / chose for themselves in the end, but to different extents they also each had some kind of extreme loss or disappointment.
In the case of the novel, I felt like the ending was bittersweet but satisfying in its own way. In the case of the drama, I felt like the ending was less satisfying.
The concoctions that the nine-tailed fox forced young XY to eat after capturing her caused most of her spiritual power to seep into her blood where she could no longer access it.
XY never regains the ability to access and use the level of spiritual power that she was able to access and use as a child before she was captured by the nine-tailed fox. However, she becomes better able to defend herself over time. She improves her mastery of poisons (and her medical skills) and she also becomes a highly proficient archer.
There is a point in the story where XY is offered the opportunity to try to regain her previous level of power, but she decides against it.
-----
Chapter 13 of the novel:
The Royal Mother grabbed Xiao Liu’s arm and examined her body. She let go and said coolly, “If you stay in Jade Mountain, I might be able to help you regain your lost powers. My remaining life span is at most one to two hundred years. If you want, you can be the next Royal Mother and control Jade Mountain.”
Perhaps controlling Jade Mountain was the greatest dream of many people in the vast wilderness, but Xiao Liu knew exactly what being chained to this mountain was like. She didn’t hesitate and said, “I would rather remain this way. Knowing what tomorrow will bring but not knowing what next year will bring. Not too exciting, not too boring.”
The Royal Mother merely nodded her head but her expression never changed, as if nothing in the world or time could ever affect her.
-----
Episode 18 of the drama includes a similar conversation.
https://www.tumblr.com/escapetojoseon/730006968462426112/dingyuxi-yu-shuxin-wang-hedi-as-xiao-lanhua
https://www.tumblr.com/escapetojoseon/730656019689193472/janghyuns-but-its-my-mission-to-save-you-love