This is for those who want to discuss the episodes as they progress and to return to the discussions throughout the show to add their insights.
I would title the first four episodes "Se Bu Liao" naming it after the Undying Flower. There are many references to death in these episodes and Mei Lin reminded MRJH they were both living for the dead. I feel that Jing He hasn't felt alive for a long time until his assassin decided to...kiss him. RAWrrrrrr.
This first "phase" of the drama introduced us to the main characters
MurongJingHe, the Third Price (ML)
Mei Lin (FL)
Xiyan Prince (2ML/GreenTeaPrince)
Crown Prince (Bad Guy)
We get the back stories of these characters, how CP used a fake pendant (lingpai) to kill off an entire district/city of 100000 just so he could frame his brother JingHe and thus became the Crown Prince.
MurongJingHe spent ten years assembling a revenge plan, using Mei Lin as his personal assassin. He formed a Shadows Works Society to train her, poison her when she failed in her attempt to assassinate him and overall, acted like a crazed invalid into killing and drinking for those ten years.
Some questions and interesting stuff we can chat about:
1) What exactly was JingHe's revenge plan? It seemed so simple. Would it have work? Even his brother the CP could see through it!
2) How did Mei Lin suddenly fall into JingHe's hands as an assassin? In these episodes we see her rescuing the XiyanGreenTeaPrince and his assistant/servant--when was this? Was this before the great fire/death of her parents? She didn't seem crazy sad at the GreenTeaPrince meeting, right?
3) I love Mei Lin's personality. She was totally an assassin at this point--aloof, observant, always in control. She couldn't taste her food and we know those who have this affliction (like during COVID) lose a certain enjoyment of life. For ten years, all she could taste was revenge and she went through hellish training to get to where she was.
4) Which make us question--what kind of person is MRJH to allow a woman to suffer this kind of training just to assassinate him? He was all ready to give her a great funeral after her death, so he'd planned on killing her after the assassination attempt, so he didn't actually want to get himself killed, just use her. But ALL THAT TRAINING to just kill him? Overkill, no? Heh.
5) GreenTeaXiyanPrince was in love with a rescuer from TEN YEARS ago whom he met for, what, half an hour? Maybe a day? Ten years...and a special knot for a keepsake. Really?! Of course, I watch all these Douyin CEO short dramas where the CEO is often looking for his special girl who blew on his bruised knee when he fell down ten years ago and then gave him her necklace or vice-versa. So I guess this is a usual C-Drama trope. Anyway, Mei Lin sure didn't get this special feeling about him. This dude was so in love, he was willing to "poison" her ala Romeo and Juliet and transport her corpse out of the palace grounds. And then what? His plan was pretty bizarre!
6) That MRJH trained Mei Lin like a Momai Warrior (the CP's sidekick's secret group) was also interesting. Why? Why not just any normal assassin? Why Momai? I have theories but would love to hear yours.
Please add any questions or any relevant observations about the first four episodes as you see fit, but try not to discuss outside of the episodes too much as I hope to start another topic of the next four or five episodes.
I think the end of Episode 4 is a good round up of the first segment of the story. We see who the players are--how they think and what their plans are. Also, we kind of see the end of the first phase of Jing He's and Mei Lin's relationship. It definitely changes after this episode, right? Here, it culminated with him whipping her (in order to save her life) and then declareing her his!
These 4 episodes--our two leads had been very raw with each other. He hadn't hesitated ten years ago to shoot her in the legs. He'd poked a hole in her neck. He'd whipped her. She had kissed and bit him! I like this early physical relationship very much, LOL.
