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The way he read them as exes was INCREDIBLE 🤣🤣🤣 Like he picked up on all this weird baggage and history there even better than Xiao Jue did tbh. He just came to the wrong conclusions about it.

Yes, I feel like he did love her in the novel but it was mostly just private feelings. In the end he never truly goes thru with any serious plot to separate them and intervene BECAUSE he developed real feelings. Sincerely loving someone means you won't hurt them. He is still on the side with the bad guys but he is somewhat restrained because of how he admires He Yan. (a lot of times in these dramas the SML or SFL gets deranged and does all sorts of destructive stuff to the person they CLAIM to love and I call it nonsense. That's not love! you're just obsessed. In contrast, I'd argue that Chu Zao ... for all his many faults and ruthlessness, his love for He Yan in the novel is sincere and his feelings are about her and for her... not just obsession and damaged pride. because he does want her to be happy more than he wants to possess her.)

He symbolizes the moon to her because she sees him as pure, clean, beautiful but untouchable and out of reach. something to be admired from afar.

there's this hilarious line in the novel where Xiao Jue is says something like, your role is someone who's gentle, elegant, a calligrapher, a zither player, a painter.. Which of these 16 words apply to you?? and He Yan just says, "...being a person". 🤣🤣

This is a rebirth novel. The drama adaptation removed that element. In the novel she literally dies and then wakes up in the body of a 16 year old commoner girl also named He Yan who is beautiful but delicate and weak. (the supernatural explanation for this stuff is generally that 2 ladies named He Yan were on the verge of death at the same time but one body survived and the other didn't... but the wrong soul came back. Like the underworld god made a mistake or the spirits took a wrong turn lol.) So in the novel, she literally is 16 again and has to join the army again and train up her body from scratch. In the drama, the writers changed the beginning so she didn't die and has the same body. Only injured and then she healed. That's why the timeline goes faster in the drama.

He doesn't realize how she sees him, how far of a distance she perceives between them. It's not just about unrequited feelings. Part of this is he doesn't realize their history as schoolmates when she was the worst student and unpopular and he was the natural talent and most popular cool kid. But it started from then and carried into today, where she perceives herself as rough and easy going, uncultured, and without status vs seeing Xiao Jue as pristine, elegant, wealthy, high status. Clean, pure, and untouchable as the moon. To be admired from afar but never in reach.

I believe mid 20s? They joined miltary at 15 or 16 after the academy. (in the novel, He Yan is reborn again at 16 and has to start over in training her body again. but in the drama she doesn't have that issue.)

Yes!! I loved the Cui concubines sisterhood in the novel. And the drama kept the line of Cui crossing the lover's bridge 4 times LMAO. (which is impressive in the novel, because it's much scarier). I agree that it's nice to see some happy families, not only toxic ones.

the challenge for Xiao Jue (and He Yan) is that not caring about politics doesn't mean it won't care about you. what I mean is, the only people who can afford to say --oh I'm not political-- are the people so privileged that whatever laws are passed won't affect them. Xiao Jue and He Yan have to keep winning battles and being SO AWESOME that they cannot be touched. And even then, if a truly awful prince ends up being the one who becomes the next emperor... can they afford not to care? I'm curious to see how the drama handles the storyline with the prime minister and chu zhao's schemes. It might change a lot. Should be interesting :)

In the novel context it makes more sense - she was a heavy drinker like many soliders after years in the military but then reborn in a gently raised girl's body, she no longer has the same alcohol tolerance but has her old habits. Rebirth censorship problem

He's not a good person lol. He's not gonna make ethical choices.

She also has an agenda that we can see in the drama - she hopes to gain info about her brother and current news from the capital. She doesn't want to probe people in the camp or Xiao Jue because she is paranoid about Xiao Jue connecting her to her former identity

my take as a novel reader - I felt like subtly the response of He Yan vs Xiao Jue to Chu Zao's provocations was interesting because stereotype is that women are emotional and men are going to respond rationally. But we see that He Yan isn't bothered in the slightest and Chu Zao doesn't impact her mental state or reasoning. It's the ML that gets worked up more by Chu Zhao's little games with He Yan.

In the novel we see that Xiao Jue is mistakenly worried about He Yan being heartbroken because she doesn't see Chu Zao for who he is. (He thinks He Yan has a crush, because he listens to too much gossip). But this is contrasted with the reader seeing that actually He Yan is well aware and just doesn't care enough about this dude either positively or negatively. All that bother is for nothing lmao. It is not implied in the novel - we know 100% that she is aware he is working for the evil prime minister and has some ulterior motives. But she doesn't actually see Chu Zao as a serious deadly threat to Xiao Jue - if she did, she'd take action. And ultimately, Chu Zao DOES actually fall for his own game and cares about her (her ease of friendship to his duplicity actually works on him lol) and he still schemes but doesn't try to kill her or anything. In the end, Chu Zao loses the game of thrones because he picked the wrong side. There's no indivudual showdown between him and Xiao Jue. It's not like that. He Yan not treating him the priority to be worried about is correct. His scheming and infighting within his own party helps contribute to their downfall (dog bites dog). In the novel, he's not the top villain nor does he become a hero. He is a man who makes choices, good and bad. I am guessing they might give him a redemption in the drama and white-wash him. We'll see....

It's not that she falls for a fake nice guy. It's that she chooses to politely ignore his fake bullshit. [SPPILERS NOVEL SPOILERS -- Ultimately he does actually help her out again, so it can be argued that He Yan isn't being foolish at all to passively befriend him.]

A key aspect is that A) He Yan generally returns like for like - if someone is friendly towards her, she'll respond in kind and B) she percieves that Chu Zhao, though a political enemy of Xiao Jue, is not a personal threat to her. One key characterization in the novel is that He Yan has experienced the worst already - as a teen in the army, her whole battalion was killed and she survived hidden under a mountain of corpses. And then she is murdered by her own family. After that, nothing much phases her. There is a passage in the novel that explicitly explains this. That's why she's so resilient and chill all the time. So, when you consider it, is she really gonna be so bothered about Chu Zhao's little schemes??? She never views him as a big danger to herself. She's happy to hang out with him if he invites her. She fully knows whose side he's on in the court battles, but so what? He Yan is confident she could beat his ass if needed. And if he wants to be her friend, that's fine as well. He's helped her out before. He might help her out again in the future.

yeeeesssssss omg in the novel, how she keeps on about how looking at spring paintings is a BONDING experience 🤣🤣 that took me out. she's more used to male bonding in the military than he is

As is typical, this is really about the fight in the court. Prime minister who is consolidating power and allies, who cannot get certain powerful military leaders and officials on his side and so wants to demote or eliminate them. Prime minister will also be aligning himself with a certain prince that he's betting will achieve emperor. It's simply that the He family has decided to ally with Team Prime Minister. It's a risk to pick a side. But there are great rewards if you win. Families who align with the winning side will end up with high official positions, Consorts to the future emperor or even the future empress. Xiao Jue and his family are targeted by the evil prime minister, so all his guys will hassle them. He Yan's brother wants to be part of that powerful group but at first the prime minister didn't even agree to see him in person lol. He family must prove they are useful. (poor Xiao Jue didn't even WANT to be in a fight in the court. he wanted to stay out of all throne battles and just be a fight military battles. but they feared his dad and fear him, so won't let him rest.)

mini dramas right now are getting away with bending or breaking rules, because they're low key and not platformed in a major way. but eventually there might be a backlash and we'll see them censored. in practical terms, though, reviewing EVERYTHING would be a lot of work

there's actually a moment in the novel when they encounter each other again in the army and she observes that he's changed -- he used to clap back and insult her aggressively and sarcastically whenever teen loser her would question him. But now he's mature and just gives cold looks... this is her chance to pay back EMOTIONAL DAMAGE by being as annoying as she wants lmao. She literally decides to troll him more, now that he's above that childish behavior. He Yan is hilarious. Plus, she feels comfortable being clingy because he IS someone she knew for years in school. To her, this is a long acquaintance. The fact he doesn't know it's his old acquaintance, well... guess that's awkard but not her problem ;)