Finale tomorrow!!!

I went from gushing about Li Zhi a week ago, and now I hate him. I can’t stand his inability to see through other’s intentions and his lack of empathy for Mei Niang. He doesn’t even know when he’s being used. It’s one of my pet peeves – you see a lot of people that can be fooled by an act or things they hear, it’s like they lack an ability to discern from right from wrong – it’s they lack the ability to think critically. There are several scenes in these two episodes make me so angry.

In this episode, nearly everything becomes resolved and Li Hong’s murderers are prosecuted. Assassins attempt to kill Ming Chongyan – the sorcerer that has been working under Mei Niang all along. In order to find out who killed Li Hong, Chongyan had spread rumours that he knew who the killer was, and had evidence. Chongyan wears armour beneath his shirt and he is not killed by the arrow.

Meanwhile, back at the palace, the Emperor receives a secret note about Mei Niang. Rui An conveniently eavesdrops at the right time, because, drama. The Emperor leaves the note on the table, conveniently for Rui An to read.

The note was that Mei Niang was the one that poisoned Li Hong, and she also killed An Ding as well, to dethrone Empress Wang. The Emperor obviously gets thrown into a huge bout of anger because he has no ability to critically think about it. Mei Niang has slept by his for all these years and this is how he reacts to unconfirmed rumours about her? I am really unimpressed.

The Emperor spends time at Ming Yue’s personal chambers… and she take advantage of his upset mood to kiss him. I mean, he could’ve pushed her away right? I find it so disgusting because he’s treated her as a daughter all along, and now that the opportunity has presented itself for him to sleep with her… he just does it unquestioningly? She’s Mei NIang’s niece, technically his niece too right?! I just can’t. Also the age difference hasn’t bothered me a lot until now… but it does. She’s like 14 years old, and he’s like late 50’s?

I just also want to mention that Aarif’s acting has gotten a lot worse, acting like an old man. If you notice in his scenes, all he does is hunch over and squint. He doesn’t give off that ‘Emperor’ vibe as well. His acting is very unconvincing. It really pales in comparison to how Bing Bing’s character’s developed.

So Li Xian and Ming Yue meet in secret, and GASP, turns out they planned the assassination of Li Hong together. I knew this yesterday from the comments so I wasn’t too surprised. It seems like that they have some sexual tension going on – with their hand holding and such. Maybe Hunan TV cut out some parts again?

The Emperor claims to be sick all the time, and leaves Mei Niang to do his real political job of taking care of the country. She’s working hard on your behalf 嘔心瀝血 (and receiving all this hate) just so you can rest and not worry, and you think that she’s power-hungry? She’s doing this for YOU! And not only do you think that she’s wielding political power for her own sake, you think that she killed her own children, and you sleep with her niece. 你不但不體諒她，你還搭上她的姪女!! I really can’t even with you, Li Zhi. 太過分了!!!!A

After sleeping with Ming Yue, the first time Mei Niang and Li Zhi see each other, he tries to explain himself after Mei Niang very bitterly says “I’ll take care of the political matters while you can spend more time with Ming Yue”.

Li Zhi responded with the most unappreciative thing ever. He says that he enjoys talking to Ming Yue because her passion, recklessness, innocence, and willing to do anything for love reminded him of the young Mei Niang that he fell in love with. It annoys me. In a way he is saying that he’s doing this just because he loves Mei Niang (which if you really loved her, you would not find a different concubine). In a different sense, this comment pushes the responsibility back to Mei Niang. He’s subtly faulting her for losing all those traits and becoming a different person.

Can you have less empathy for a woman that has to rule a country for you? Obviously as one gets older and with more responsibility, they lose their innocence and become less reckless. Mei Niang is only taking care of the country for you, for love.

Anyways. Ming Chongyan tells Mei Niang about the assassination, and that he lied about having evidence about Li Hong’s death. He’s spread rumours that he has evidence of who the murderer is, and related it back to a person that only him and Mei Niang know – Zhang Sun Shen. Chongyan fakes his death in order to for the assassins to stop looking for him.

They make Li Xian the Crown Prince. I feel really bad for Mei Niang because everyone has turned against her even though she’s just trying her best for her family. Somehow she’s made a villain out from this whole ordeal where she’s just been keeping her family and country together. She reassures Li Xian that she doesn’t intend to try to take his power away, and that she’ll stop being involved in political affairs. What would’ve been a moment of letting go and relief becomes sour when Li Xian asks her about Zhang Sun Shen – the name that only her and Ming ChongYan should know. She immediately understands that this must be the ‘clue’ or ‘key piece’ that ChongYan had made up in order to lure the murderer out. She immediately looks understandably distraught and upset.

Li Xian has turned into Li Tai – willing to put everything behind the throne. I guess that’s royal family life, it’s just so sad that the ending that Mei Niang had sought to prevent had come true regardless.

Meanwhile, Li Zhi, being a untrusting assh*le even after 20ish years, investigates Mei Niang for killing Li Hong. He asks detectives to figure out Ming ChongYan dies. It doesn’t detail clearly on how he narrows it down to Li Xian’s personal servant, but Li Xian’s personal servant is kidnapped and tortured for answers. The Emperor conveniently just captures the right person, because… drama.

And how many times in this drama have we seen people willing to commit suicide before interrogation? Remember the young servant that tried to cause Mei Niang to miscarry while she was tai zi fei? She bit into a poisonous ball (lodged in her mouth) immediately when she was suspected. This is probably the only guy throughout the whole drama that successfully got tortured and properly interrogated. Anyways, he confesses that, acting on the orders of Li Xian, he murdered Ming ChongYan and Li Hong.

Meanwhile, Mei Niang finally finds evidence that confirms that Li Xian murdered Li Hong. She orders the soldiers to surround his personal chambers.

And that little brat during this scene still doesn’t feel any remorse for he did. Even while being surrounded, he threw out hurtful words towards Mei Niang, saying that she schemed this against him, and that she’s been manipulating him the whole time. Li Xian still kept a ‘victim-mentality’ and blamed everything on his mother, instead of taking responsibility onto his wrongful actions. All she could do was cry and try to stay strong – I mean, that’s her son, and she raised him. How big of a failure would you feel if your son turned out to be such an irresponsible d-bag that would murder his own brother for power?

Li Xian got sent into exile after much pleading from Mei Niang – the Emperor originally wanted to kill him for the murder of this brother. He’s about to depart outside the royal palace, and Mei Niang sends him off quietly from afar.

Ming Yue comes to see him off, and Mei Niang conveniently overhears everything. Look at that screencap. How loudly could they have been talking for Mei Niang to hear everything so clearly from so far away?! I mean, if I was involved in the assassination of a prince and planning the assassination of another royal, I would actually whisper. Plus she’s actually not very well covered by those bamboo trees too so if they actually just looked around, they wouldn’t have gotten caught. But I mean… these are 14 to 16 year old kids. When I was 14 I tried to microwave an egg to cook it, so I’m not judging.

Mei Niang overhears the kids talk about murdering her, by delivering to her poisoned tea.

And in the following scenes, Mei Niang is so cool, so 帥. I just have no words to describe her – so suave, so dominant, so ‘boss’. She doesn’t lose her cool once, and she definitely doesn’t blink when her life is on the line. She receives the poisoned tea leaves, and she decides to give it to Ming Yue as a gift. Since the Empress and the Emperor were revered like Gods back then, when you were gifted something from them, you had to graciously accept it.

The Empress goes to Ming Yue’s personal chambers to watch her drink the poisoned tea.

This scene was so boss and so cute at the same time. Ming Yue suddenly jumps up in anger, and Rui An suddenly jumps in and yells “Protect the Empress!” which somehow came off as super adorable (maybe because he seems to be over vigilant), but Mei Niang was so boss and she doesn’t even blink an eye. She said, “Rui An, don’t worry. There’s nothing to fear when you’re against a person that’s about to die”. Wooow. She is just so cool.

In the conversation that they had, there was this one part where the Empress looks her in the eye and says “We tend to exaggerate our kindness or our hate. What did Li Xian promise you? Being Empress?”. I feel like the sexual tension in the earlier scenes between Li Xian and her was real – maybe she partially did it for love. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I wonder if she’s actually dead. There was this part in the previous trailer that talked about her being poisoned with the bracelets that Mei Niang had gifted? Or is this just a result of bad editing?

By the time the Emperor arrives, Ming Yue is dead (thank god). He confronts Mei Niang, and thats when it ends.

I didn’t know where to fit this in, but the Emperor and the Empress had several scenes after Li Xian was prosecuted where they were in dismay in who to make Crown Prince. Apparently the other brothers, Li Xien (it’s actually spelled Li Xian but I’m spelling it Li Xien to prevent confusion), and Li Dan are very incompetent, and they definitely cannot rule a country.

Episode 95, 96 FINALE!

Alright, they were right. Li Xien is a d-bag. In the trailer, he requests that when the Emperor dies, the Empress should be killed to be buried with him. This is what olden day people did (even in ancient Egypt too) when royalty died, some concubines would be killed to be buried with the death of an Emperor or King. That unfilial son!

Mei Niang and Emperor have a very sweet firework scene where he passes away.

All I can say about these trailers is that Li Zhi’s make-up is so bad!! It just looks like a white cast over his face that makes it all lumpy and stuff but there aren’t even wrinkles on his face. It just looks like, well, a mask. Last episode tomorrow! I guess we all kind of know how it turns out.