This is like watching the Kardashians

It’s like… you know it’s bad. But you still watch it to make fun of it, and you can’t not watch it. It’s like a guilty corny pleasure that you like to make fun of.

First off before I start, this drama is TERRIBLE. There is no chemistry between Zheng Shuang and anyone (and there are supposedly two male leads that are after her) and I absolutely hate her character. But it’s something that is pretty simple and kinda dumbed-down so if you’re looking to watch something mindlessly to release some stress, or if you just want to put it on in the background while you do some other stuff, it’s ok because you don’t really have to pay much attention to it.

I’m caught up to Episode 18 now, and it’s pretty terrible but it makes it interesting.

THE IMPERIAL DOCTRESS IS OUT AFTER SO LONG! I can’t wait to watch Cecilia Liu. So much drama to recap doe.

**WARNING, HEAVY PROFANITY**

Now that Ling Lang has started to serve the Emperor, everyone’s giving her perks and stuff. I DON’T KNOW WHY Zheng Shuang always has this 委屈 wronged look on her face. I mean… even if I didn’t really want to serve the Emperor, I’d be pretty excited to receive all these gifts.

Like anyone would, after receiving all these dope gifts and perks, she decides to play the flute out of sadness.

The Emperor and Rong Ruo hear it from afar (like how loudly is this flute playing that EVERYONE in the camp hears it?). And she plays for a long enough time that the Emperor can set up his own instrument to play along with her.

Rong Ruo and Emperor set up a bet, that the Emperor will arrange a marriage between him and the instrument player. Rong Ruo, knowing that it’s Ling Lang, agrees.

Ling Lang lies to the Emperor and says she doesn’t know how to play any instruments, so she can’t play for him. At the same time, she tells him that she really doesn’t want to serve him and he gets pissed, and he sends her back to washing dirty clothes.

 

ROYAL PALACE HR LADY: Oh that new girl Ling Lang we just switched to serve the Emperor has to go back to washing clothes? That’s fine I guess I’ll arrange that.

I really don’t understand why she was so against serving him. I mean yeah I understand you’re in love with Rong Ruo, but you’re not like, having sex with the Emperor right? IT’s a job anyways, and it’s a promotion. I don’t know why she always has a wronged/hesitant look on her face. If the reason why she doesn’t want to serve the Emperor is because she’s afraid of doing something wrong then she’s a crappy female lead. I mean, who likes cowardly people anyways?

Meanwhile Rong Ruo is meeting up with Ling Lang on the side and they have these Romeo-Juliet moments where they profess their love for each other, albeit without any chemistry whatsoever. I wonder how they always know when and where to meet. I mean, there wasn’t any texting/calling back then.

Emperor misses how Ling Lang makes the tea (honestly I really don’t understand the source of his infatuation, they’ve literally experienced NOTHING together except that one night when they were young).

He misses her so much that he always goes to spy on her/visit her. Like… aren’t Emperors super busy with you know, governing their countries?

Ling Lang and Rong Ruo meet up again, repeatedly (like… do these people have nothing to do? They do have jobs within the palace right?) and Ling Lang realizes that she needs to be good to the Emperor to ask to be in an arranged marriage with Rong Ruo.

So she has that stupid wronged/hesitant look on her face again decides to kneel in front of the Emperor’s tent to beg him to let her serve him. Like why does it seem like she’s always the victim or she’s being wronged or something? It’s infuriating. Make up your freaking mind.

The Emperor sees this, and couldn’t stand her see her suffer (albeit she is suffering from her own decision ahem) and decides to take her back again.

ROYAL PALACE HR LADY: Seriously? The Emperor wants me to arrange for her to go serve him again? You know how much work it takes? I got to switch around the schedule and find someone to fill her spot and tell Sarah that she doesn’t have to go in on Monday… It’s fine, it’s fine. 

The Emperor gets repeatedly mad at her for not remembering that one night that they had together 8 years ago. Like c’mon I can’t even remember what I did last Thursday, can you give the poor girl a break and chill?

One night, out of sadness, she starts playing the flute again under the tree, and since apparently there’s a megaphone somewhere, everyone in the camp hears. The Emperor decides to look for it, and GASP.

IT’S HER.

The Emperor starts treating her like shit for lying to him and keeps telling her everything she’s doing is not good.

Like seriously c’mon she’s not that great.

There is this very cringe worthy scene where Yu Gu Gu and Chang Xing are trying to murder the Emperor again and puts poison into Ling Lang’s cooking that she’s prepared for the Emperor.

Ling Lang is required to taste it first before giving it to him. But since the Emperor is still pissed at her for lying to him about not knowing how to play instruments, he doesn’t eat it.

^ Her acting of being aggressive and angry is really pathetic. She literally just only scrunched up her face like that. It wasn’t like I caught her at a bad time.

Anyways apparently this drug causes people to be aggressive (which I believe that such drugs exist) BUT I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THERE IS A DRUG THAT WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO ASSASSINATE SOMEONE. AND THE DUMBEST PART IS THAT THEY ALL TARGET THE EMPEROR. Why not the servant next to him? Like seriously? This is a drug that makes you want to murder the guy in the gold robe?

Anyways, she’s stopped and she’s passed out. The only remedy is to take medicine and soak her into cold water.

I mean she’s unconscious, so I was expecting a bath scene like this:

 

But nope.

Very PG-13.

I mean these few episodes are pretty painful to recap.  Nothing significant really happens, we just see Ling Lang repeatedly say no to the Emperor with a very wronged victim look on her face (like WHAT are you making that face for) and the Emperor getting frustrated but he keeps trying. We are rewarded with this shirtless fighting scene between Rong Ruo and the Emperor.

Like y’all don’t have a lot of muscle anyways, I don’t understand why they keep doing these shirtless scenes.

His bone structure is perfect doe.

Our Emperor here, with his infallible IQ, mistook Ling Lang’s love for Rong Ruo as love for him, and starts pursuing Ling Lang even more aggressively.

Example in point, taking her horse back riding to get close to her, to which she decides to just leap off the horse when the Emperor gets off.

And says, “I am just gonna walk back”. They were on the horse for what seems to be several minutes full speed. It’s going to take her probably half a day to make it back to camp.

Rong Ruo and Ling Lang decides that the Emperor’s pursuit is too much, and instead of telling him the truth that they’re in love (like seriously, the Emperor doesn’t seem like an unreasonable guy) they decide to elope.

According to Golden Rules of Dramas number 2348973 if the female lead tries to attempt to leave the male lead with the second male lead, something bad will always happen to prevent it. Obviously at this moment Chang Xing (Ling Lang’s brother whose real name is something Hai) sees this.

And decides to plan something.

That night when they were to elope, the Emperor was lured to follow another girl wearing the same outfit that Ling Lang wears (but c’mon, ALL THE SERVANTS WEAR A UNIFORM, how can you be so sure that it’s her?!).

The Emperor decides to follow.

He’s lured, and is attacked from behind by Chang Xing.

And according to Golden Rule of Dramas number 239847, villains will never will be able to kill the main lead (not until at least the end) because they always pull some dumb shit like this and leave their death up to chance. So Chang Xing pretty much buries the Emperor underground and thinks that he’ll die from the water coming to drown him.

For fucks sake, you’ve been planning this the whole life and you don’t just straight stab him?!

Ling Lang and Rong Ruo are half gone, when Rong Ruo sees the search party and knows the Emperor is probably missing, and decides to go back and not elope.

Obviously the Emperor is saved (c’mon he’s the male lead and we’re only like 10 episodes in) and according to the Golden Rule of dramas number 32384729 if one of the leads are saved, it has to be by the other person within their OTP pair aka Ling Lang. Long story short, Ling Lang managed to find him.

Here’s Yu Gu Gu voicing my opinions to Chang Xing about what a dumb fuck he is for not just stabbing the Emperor, but trying to drown him slowly. C’mon man get your head out of your ass.

Because I’m lazy I’m just going throw this out there that Hua Zhu (girl above) and Chang Xing are slowly falling in love. He feels like crap though because he can’t possibly love her (in his opinion) because he’s castrated and can’t give her true happiness.

I bet everyone 10 bucks that she will die because normally the naive ones that fall in love with the villain will always die in the end.

Yu Gu Gu frames Hua Zhu for pretending to be Ling Lang, and Hua Zhu is imprisoned.

Since Chang Xing has taken a liking to Hua Zhu, he threatens Yu Gu Gu to own up to the crime instead of framing Hua Zhu. IF she does, then he will continue her mission to kill the Emperor.

Anyways, Yu Gu Gu steps up, and commits suicide while imprisoned while Hua Zhu and Chang Xing get a mild punishment for being ‘too close’ because they’re not allowed to have relations.

It’s really sad that these side characters have more chemistry than Ling Lang and the two male leads.

Anyways they finally go back to the royal palace AND LO AND BEHOLD:

Look at HOW MANY CONCUBINES THAT THE EMPEROR HAS.

I hate how in dramas the Emperor is always like “I love you, why can’t you love me back, you’re the only one I want”, it’s like c’mon dude you have hundreds of other women throwing themselves at you. Can you just chill and move on?

You can tell Duan Ping is a shit starter.

And this one:

Is a follower and will likely die.

And of course, the grandma of the Emperor. Mi Xue is still so elegant at her age and she exudes so much power and grace that I had to cap her into this.

The Emperor tries numerous times to make Ling Lang happy, like moving the tree from their campsite to the royal palace:

Great. Let’s just stop the scene there. Don’t you d-

… Ok. More petal catching. I should have seen that coming.

Ling Lang tries to quit serving the Emperor again and wants to go back to washing dirty clothes.

Yes that is my very expression: Are you fucking kidding me?

Initially the Emperor said no, but after he sees Ling Lang fall down from wiping down his palace, he says: “Aight just go”. Well, something along those lines.

Obviously the Emperor catches her because you know, it’s OTP fate, but I would have preferred if Ling Lang actually fell to the ground.

ROYAL PALACE HR LADY: SHE WANTS TO SWITCH AGAIN?! I SPENT SO MUCH TIME LAST TIME MOVING AROUND THE SCHEDULES AND FINDING SOMEONE TO TAKE HER SPOT, AND NOW SHE WANTS TO UNDO THE WORK? WHAT IS SHE, DUMB? I SWEAR IF SHE PULLS THIS SHIT AGAIN I WILL PULL HER HAIR OUT. 

On the first night that the Emperor is back, all of his concubines try to get him to stay over/remind him of who they are. He ignores them and goes to:

Consort Hui. She’s so elegant. I wouldn’t say pretty per say, but she’s definitely very graceful. Consort Hui is also Rong Ruo’s sister.

Their relationship is so cute.

He literally comes to read and eat a it while she works on her sewing, like an old married couple. I think they’re so cute together, and in this scene has shown more chemistry than he has with Zheng Shuang throughout the whole drama. If only I could root for this couple, but it probably won’t happen.

My fav character is Xiao De Zi, and he is the cutest servant ever.

Here, he’s pulling off the petals off a flower to figure out if the Emperor will visit Ling Lang today and whether he’d be in a good mood.

And the Emperor, a 24 year old man apparently at this point, decides to play with flower petals too to figure out if Ling Lang ‘likes him’ or ‘likes him not’.

It must be nice to have like a little ‘sidekick’ like Batman and Robin. They’re so cute together too – they also have more chemistry than Ling Lang and the Emperor.

LOL. AS you can see from the sequence of the screencaps, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Ling Lang was fucking around with her squad and being the most hated (I dislike her the most out of her squad, and I barely know her squad) and the management took this as an opportunity to teach her a lesson. Really cannot blame them lor.

Anyways Consort Hui tries to help Rong Ruo and Ling Lang and help them escape the palace by giving Ling Lang something that makes her sick, because only sick servants can leave the palace.

BUT OF COURSE this OTP cannot be separated. Ling Lang faints on a separate occasion from being punished, and *coincidentally* the Emperor comes and sees this.

And picks her up back to his place.

Ω

Rong Ruo expression upon realizing what has happened ^ LMAO.

He returns Ling Lang back to his place…

The thing is, it’s only ok because Hawick is playing the Emperor. Keep in mind that Rong Ruo and Ling LAng are in love and they’re trying to elope to the best of their abilities. Imagine if it was some hairy old guy that was the Emperor that keeps trying to push his love onto Ling Lang and keeps ruining the plans to elope against her will.

LIKE IMAGINE THIS GUY. Imagine him making you serve him, play music to him, and everytime you are sick, he tends to you and holds you in his arms, but really you’re trying to elope and get away with someone you actually like.

ANYWAYS this drama is already out to Episode 20. It’s so hard to keep up with posts >: