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Review: Nothing Gold Can Stay (那年花開月正圓) (2017)
In general, this drama was pretty good. The pacing was excellent, the acting was terrific, and the costumes and set were amazing. However, there are some inherent flaws in the direction of the storytelling, which ultimately made this drama less than perfect. I'd still highly recommend it as a very easy watch because of its excellent pacing.
Spoilers.
Story
The story is way too long, so I'm not going to do a play by play lol. This story mostly followed the life of Zhou Ying, based on the real life figure, the Widow of Wu. The other major story line was the conflict between the various families in Jingyang, the Wu family, the Shen family, and the Hu family.
The story started with Zhou Ying as a rowdy orphan, one who hated the idea of conforming to rules and etiquette. Through the course of the drama, she started to adapt to structure in her life a little, but we saw that she never forgot her craftiness, and she used it to protect her loved ones.
As I mentioned, this was a very bingeable drama. I've legitimately never binged a drama so hard. The pacing was excellent. Something was always happening, whether it was an event in a major story line or a minor story line. Problems were rarely dragged out, and misunderstandings (that the audience knew of) were not used as hinging plot points.
In my opinion, the only plot point that was dragged (or beat like a dead horse) was Wu Pin's death. Initially, we thought he had died of his illness. Then, Zhou Ying was framed for poisoning him, and in the same story arc, we found out that Liu Wan'er had had him poisoned. Later, Zhou Ying deduced that Wu Pin had not drunk the poisoned tea and was thus poisoned by the snacks that he had bought for Zhou Ying, which were poisoned by Hu Yongmei. Then Father Joseph told Zhou Ying that Wu Pin's nosebleed would not have been a symptom of arsenic poisoning, and thus it was revealed that Zha Kun was the true culprit. I think the reveal of Hu Yongmei being a poisoner was a pretty interesting plot twist. But by the third and last plot twist, I felt that Wu Pin's death was being cheapened and used as a plot device instead of being honoured as a major change in Zhou Ying's life.
The romance was the biggest downfull of this drama. Romance made sense at the beginning of the drama, to show Wu Pin and Zhou Ying's devotion to one another, and to explain why Zhou Ying decided to stay with the Wu family. However, all of the romantic relationships that followed were poorly handled. The men who were in love with her included Tu'erdan, Shen Xingyi, and Zhao Baishi. Zhou Ying had very different relationships with each of them, and the fact that the story tried to force a romantic angle on all of them didn't sit well with me. The drama also tried to enforce a "women can't be happy unless they have a man to take care of them" angle. It especially didn't make sense for Zhou Ying because she had hated being tied down before Wu Pin, and it was because of her love for Wu Pin and her in-laws that kept her with the Wu family. It's hard to believe that any of these men were as able to move Zhou Ying as Wu Pin did.
The romantic relationships wouldn't have been so annoying if it weren't for the fact that Zhou Ying was actively considering all of those relationships. When Tu'erdan came to propose, Zhou Ying said that she was legitimately moved by his gestures (while also saying that she felt nothing for when Shen Xingyi said the same things). The romantic relationship with Shen Xingyi was bad in so many ways. At best, their relationship started off messy, and at worst, it was traumatic. Somewhere along the way, they became bros, and I could totally believe it. But I was never convinced by Zhou Ying's love for Shen Xingyi. As for Zhao Baishi, that just felt kind of unnecessary. The story could have been exactly the same without him being in love with her. I'm going to be complaining a lot more in the character section.
The ending did also kind of drop the ball in my opinion. The major issues that took up most of the drama were shafted in favour of new conflicts. Specifically, the story was always very family-focused. I always felt that the resolving of the fabricated conflict between the Wu and Shen families would always be the major triumph. However, the drama took a political and anti-monarchical angle. This was an attempt by the drama to connect Zhou Ying to Empress Dowager Cixi, whom she was supposedly the goddaughter of. Add to that Zhao Baishi randomly proposing to Zhou Ying, and Zhou Ying starting the girls' school (but not really understanding why), I felt that the drama changing focus was not fair to all of the build up before.
The focus of the story always should have been the family business, and even if the drama wanted to take a political angle, characters like Shen Xingyi never should have gotten as much screen time as they did.
Production
The production value was terrific. Beautiful clothes, beautiful sets. No complaints. The style of direction was alright. It was what I have come to expect from most large scale Cdramas, and it served its purpose. There were certain camera angles that I thought were creative, but there were some boring camera angles as well.
The acting was great from our main stars and our supporting cast. There were quite a few faces I recognized from TVB as well, which was cool.
Characters
There are a lot of characters T_T Anyway, I've grouped these characters by their families.
Zhou Ying
Zhou Ying started off as a rowdy orphan, never staying in one place for too long. She definitely picked up a lot of habits from her father, who was even more rowdy and lawless than she was.
The turning point for Zhou Ying was meeting Wu Pin. He was the first person to care for her. He was naive, but Zhou Ying was genuinely charmed by his kind-hearted nature. And in her repayment of the favour, she was tied to the Wu family forever. At first, it was against her will, but over time, she learned that such a structured world could offer some nice thinsg to her as well.
I don't want to say that Zhou Ying only stayed for love. I think that Wu Weiwen recognizing her sharp intellect and giving her opportunity to grow was just as important in encouraging her to stay.
I'm going to say it: Zhou Ying is a bit of a Mary Sue. I genuinely enjoyed seeing Zhou Ying win over her rivals, whether it was through smarts, or just strong arming them in a way that only she could do (someone with a background in being lawless). However, the way that other people reacted to her showed shades of Mary Sue writing.
Everybody's feelings towards Zhou Ying were very black or white. They were either unfailingly loyal and trusting to her, or they hated everything about her and would literally plot for her to die. Sometimes, Zhou Ying would do kind things, and all of the commoners would talk about how kind that Shaonainai was. It felt kind of forced because I think Zhou Ying's actions spoke for themselves and didn't require our extras telling us how to feel.
Several male characters being in love with her was also a sign of Mary Sue writing. Wu Pin, Tu'erdan, Shen Xingyi, and Zhao Baishi all were genuinely in love with Zhou Ying to the point of proposing (except for Wu Pin I guess). And what makes this Mary Sue writing was that Zhou Ying genuinely considered all of these marriages. If someone I considered a friend but never had romantic feelings for proposed to me, I would not hesitate to turn them down and reinforce that we were friends. The fact that Zhou Ying considered all their proposals showed that they were never supposed to be male friends but were always supposed to be love interests. In fact, most of the men in this drama who were of similar age to Zhou Ying were either love interests or family members.
As for her enemies, none of them were ever normal about her. Rarely anybody ever mildly disliked her. They all hated her to the point of needing to kill her. Liu Wan'er concocted this huge plot to kill her, which involved an intricate web of lies and fabrications. Hu Yongmei hated her to the point of delusion. It's a little "why are you so obsessed with me?" but I guess the point is that the payoff, when Zhou Ying gets them back, is supposed to be satisfying.
At the very least, I liked that Zhou Ying still maintained a sense of self. The story wasn't how she agreed to be tied down for a man. The story was about how she found another way to thrive, and found love and friends along the way. By the end, we saw that she never really lost her casual attitude towards rules, but she also learned when it was important to be serious.
Even though Zhou Ying was Wu Pin's widow, the main romantic story line in this drama was technically between her and Shen Xingyi, which I really did not love. I didn't know when she decided that she was madly in love with Shen Xingyi, because it never made sense to me. When they got along really well, I still only saw them as bros, seeing as how Zhou Ying loved to play tricks on him and he could never keep up. When did his crazed devotion stop being annoying and became endearing to her? Because it never stopped being annoying to me. He even had the gall to propose to her after his entire family went to the Wu family to cause a ruckus. This man cannot read the atmosphere and I cannot see how Zhou Ying would fall in love with a man who could not read the room. Wu Pin could not read the room, but he was always sincere and kind, which went a long way in protecting him and those he loved. As for Shen Xingyi, he showed that time and time again, he could not take no for an answer and I don't know why that would endear him to Zhou Ying.
Anyway, Zhou Ying was still a strong character because the script really showed her personality shine and Sun Li seemed to really suit this character, but the way in which her romances were handled were a major flaw.
Zhou Laosi
Zhou Laosi was Zhou Ying's adoptive father. We see that Zhou Ying picked up her lawless nature from her father. His life philosophy was just about hustling enough money to drink alcohol and gamble and that was it. He had a habit of selling his daughter when he incurred gambling debt, and left her on her own to escape. So overall a very irresponsible father, even if he did care for his daughter a little.
Zhou Laosi struggled when his daughter decided to stay with the Wu family because they were never people to settle. He always encouraged her to go back to the life that they lived and she constantly rejected this.
Zhou Laosi's friendship with Shen Xingyi was wild and also slightly distasteful to me. At first, Zhou Laosi took advantage of Shen Xingyi's hospitality because he was short-sighted. He loved drinking and eating good food, and whether or not he could get Zhou Ying to agree to go to Shen Xingyi, he would deal with that later. Later on, their friendship morphed into Zhou Laosi thinking that Shen Xingyi was what Zhou Ying needed to become her past self, because only he would get Zhou Ying all mad. In general, Zhou Laosi encouraged Shen Xingyi to constantly pursue Zhou Ying, and that was so yucky.
After a while, Zhou Laosi did get used to living at the Wu household though he still came and went, and he still stole things as was his habit. He even struck up a sort-of romance with Zhang Ma. But in the end, he decided he'd leave for a long journey. On his way out, he circled back to find some things he'd hidden, and he bumped into Zhou Ying and Hu Yongmei's confrontation, and he died protecting Zhou Ying.
Upon dead, Zhou Laosi told Zhou Ying where he found her. I thought that something would come of this, and was low key disappointed that this was not explored. Not that I think Zhou Ying needed to know where she came from for her to be happy. I can accept that this was all that Zhou Laosi felt he could do for his daughter.
Wu Pin
Wu Pin, so big, so naive. Seriously. Peter Ho is SO big. And Wu Pin is so gullible. They first met because Wu Pin was so easy to trick and Zhou Ying took advantage of that. But over time, as she got to know him better, she saw that he really was a sincere person who wanted to help people.
Wu Pin was naive, but he wasn't totally dumb. He was just kind and amicable and people would mistake that for him being head empty.
Wu Pin in turn fell in love with Zhou Ying. He probably just found her amusing, and had probably never met a woman like her. Truth be told, I think he was just kind of charmed by the novelty of her at the beginning. But I think he truly fell in love with her after he found out that she saved his life.
At the beginning, when Zhou Ying's relationship with her in-laws was extremely rocky, Wu Pin was always the one to protect her, even going so far as to lie for her so that she wouldn't be punished or thrown out. And over time, as he mediated the relationship between his parents and Zhou Ying, he got them to understand each other better.
During this drama, we were led to believe that three different people poisoned Wu Pin. The first were Liu Wan'er and Sun Yongchuan. They had poisoned Wu Pin because he was looking through the books of the store run by Sun Yongchuan, and thus was well on his way to finding out that Liu Wan'er and Sun Yongchuan were embezzling money. I think they had had Baolai poison his tea, though I don't quite remember. Sun Yongchuan had come clean about this to Zhao Baishi, who was going to arrest Liu Wan'er, but Wu Weishuang killed her and then committed suicide. Zhou Ying realized that since her father had stolen Wu Pin's teacup, that Wu Pin would not have drank the tea.
The second person to have poisoned Wu Pin was Hu Yongmei. She was jealous of Zhou Ying for having stealen her betrothed, and her plan was to kill Zhou Ying so that she could marry Wu Pin. Wu Pin would by zhenggao for Zhou Ying everyday, so Hu Yongmei bought the stall that Wu Pin bought from, and poisoned the zhenggao. However, that day, Zhou Ying didn't have an appetite for it (because she was pregnant and nauseous), and she'd fed the zhenggao to Wu Pin instead. Hu Yongmei confessed to this when Zhou Ying confronted her at Wu Pin's grave, and then committed suicide as at that point her business was failing. However, Zhou Ying found out that nosebleeds were not a symptom of arsenic poisoning (which was Yongmei's method of poison), so Zhou Ying realized that Wu Pin hadn't died of arsenic poisoning.
When it was revealed that Hu Yongmei wasn't the poisoner, I dreaded what was to come. Like I said, I felt that this was just beating a dead horse, and it was kind of disrespectful to Wu Pin to keep turning his death into a way for the story to progress.
Anyway, it was Zha Kun who was the true poisoner. He'd poisoned Wu Pin (though I'm not sure how) because he recognized Zha Kun's sword, and had a chance of realizing that he was the killer of Shen Yuesheng.
Anyway, Wu Pin was a fun character. I liked that he was so naive. It was endearing. Unfortunately, he needed to die to have Zhou Ying to become a widow (and I'm sure he was too expensive to be there for the entire show lol).
Wu Weiwen
Wu Weiwen was Zhou Ying's father-in-law and the leader of the Wu household. He was wise and stern, but ultimately very reasonable.
Of course, he was angered by Zhou Ying's lawlessness at first, but he understood that she was sharp witted. Through Wu Pin's pleading with him, he allowed Zhou Ying to attend the academy, and then later attend the family business meetings.
He was framed by Shen Sihai and Du Mingli. Unfortunately he couldn't think of a way out, so he instead pushed everybody away so that only he would be implicated. He then passed the leadership role of the household to Zhou Ying.
Wu Weiwen was a pretty cool dude. Such a pity that he died so early. But again, for plot reasons, he had to die in order for Zhou Ying to be able to manage the family businesses.
Madam Zheng
Madame Zheng was Wu Weiwen's wife, and Wu Pin's mother. She was soft-hearted, and unfortunately easily swayed. At first, she of course did not approve of Zhou Ying's wild ways. But over time, she did observe that she was trying harder to fit in.
Liu Wan'er was extremely aggressive in framing Zhou Ying for adultery and for murdering Wu Pin, and unfortunately Madame Zheng believed her, because the evidence seemed so obvious. At that point, Madame Zheng definitely felt more grief for her own son than hatred for Zhou Ying.
After that whole debacle was cleared up, Zhou Ying and Madame Zheng were the two members left of their nuclear family, and I felt that their relationship was pretty cute. Zhou Ying was doing what she could to support the two of them, and Madame Zheng worried for her health (and about her following etiquette). It was a kind of push-and-pull relationship as they learned to meet in the middle, and I found it quite heartwarming.
Later in the show, Madame Zheng told Zhou Ying that she saw her not as a daughter-in-law anymore, but as a daughter. That was around the time that Zhou Ying started to show romantic feelings for Shen Xingyi. In my opinion, Madame Zheng's encouragement was the most important, because if Zhou Ying were to have married Shen Xingyi, technically she no longer would have been part of the Wu family, but if she was Madame Zheng's daughter, she could still be considered a daughter of the Wu family. But anyway, nothing ever came of that.
Madame Zheng kind of faded out of the story towards the end.
Wu Weiwu
Wu Weiwu was the second uncle of the Wu family. After Wu Weiwen died, he was the man with the biggest sway. Though Wu Weiwu was supposed to a calmer and wiser man, I found his writing wildly dramatic.
When he was in agreement with Zhou Ying's business ventures, he would be so encouraging that he would throw in Wu Weiquan's money with his own, as a show of his support. But when he didn't agree with Zhou Ying's business ventures, he would basically pull the rug from underneath her. I just felt that the way he was written had no nuance. He was either 100% with or against.
Wu Weiwu died after having an argument with his son Wu Ze. Basically he felt that Wu Ze wasn't respectful towards their family anymore. I wouldn't say that it was solely the argument, as Wu Weiwu was older at that point. But the argument definitely didn't help. To be honest, his death kind of came from nowhere and I didn't really feel much emotional impact because it didn't feel like I got emotional closure to Wu Weiwu's life or family life.
Wu Ze
Wu Ze was Wu Weiwu's elder son. He was friends with Zhao Baishi, and was trying to pass the imperial exams for a long time. He finaly did manage to pass the exams and left the story for a little while as he went away to fill an imperial post.
When Zhou Ying was being framed, Wu Ze and Wu Yi were the only two people speaking up for Zhou Ying but unfortunately, they were not able to sway anyone else.
Towards the end, Wu Ze's political views had him in trouble. I wasn't really paying attention to his story line so I don't remember exactly what it was that forced him to go into hiding. He briefly came back at the end to protect the Emperor but was stopped and ultimately left having done nothing. This part in which he came back was super random and unnecessary and again, part of the show's attempt to make the political angle the most important.
Wu Yi
Wu Yi was Wu Weiwu's younger daughter. At first, she and Zhou Ying were close friends. Zhou Ying was the only woman in the Wu family that was around her age, so Wu Yi was naturally drawn to her, and she found her fun as well.
Wu Yi also had a rivalry with Qianhong, whom she looked down on for having worked as an entertainer. But they later grew closer as Wu Yi turned to her for help in getting Zhao Baishi to marry her.
Wu Yi really started to become an unlikeable character after she (and we) realized that Zhao Baishi was in love with Zhou Ying. She basically tricked Zhao Baishi into thinking he had raped her when drunk, and because he was serious and had a strong sense of honour, he came over to propose soon afterwards. During their marriage, he was still a bit cold to Wu Yi, though Wu Yi tried her best to cater to all of his needs. I won't say that Wu Yi is completely as fault as clearly Zhao Baishi had never shown her any tenderness.
But Wu Yi really crossed the line when she planted evidence in Zhou Ying's room. The wife of Zhang Changqing had assured her that doing so would only result in a slap on the wrist for Zhou Ying and that at least it would be retribution for getting so close to Zhao Baishi.
As we know, that did not happen. Zhou Ying was left traumatized and Shen Xingyi dead (though we later found out that he was alive, which frankly cheapened the entire ordeal in my opinion :/). Wu Yi realized that she had crossed the line and she spent the rest of the drama trying to atone. She would make food for Zhou Ying and Zhou Ying would send it back every time.
Wu Yi also came clean to Zhao Baishi about how she had tricked him into marrying her and that she had done what she'd done to Zhou Ying out of ugly jealousy, as well as owning up to her mistakes.
Wu Yi had a miscarriage and on her deathbed, Zhou Ying forgave her. I felt like this forgiveness was a little cheap since Zhou Ying only did so because Wu Yi was dying. It would have been more satisfying for Zhou Ying to actually have accepted her apology before death had befallen her.
Anyway, I don't fault the writers for wanting to put Wu Yi through shit, but I felt that her ending wasn't that emotionally satisfying.
Wu Weishuang
Wu Weishuang was the third uncle. We didn't know too much about him, as he was kind of an accessory (at least a plot accessory) to his wife Liu Wan'er, who was the real first villain.
Liu Wan'er
Liu Wan'er was a greedy woman, always caring for money and power. Near the beginning of the drama, we saw that she was always getting Madame Zheng to recognize Wu Yu as her son, whether formal or informal. She was doing this to try to accumulate power.
Anyway, Liu Wan'er was working together with Sun Yongchuan to embezzle money from one of the stores. They were cousins, and originally betrothed to one another. However, Wu Weishuang had proposed, bringing with him a lot of money, and so Liu Wan'er married him instead.
Wan'er got Sun Yongchuan the job as the storekeeper, and promised him that after they'd accumulated enough money, they'd leave forever. As the story went on, we saw that Wan'er never had an intention to leave. She loved money too much. In addition, it was wild to me that she would leave her adult son. It just didn't seem like something that she would do, not when she had a life so lofty.
When Wu Pin got too close to finding out the embezzlement, she and Yongchuan worked to have him poisoned. And when Zhou Ying got too close to the truth, she was framed and nearly killed though she survived. Lastly, Wu Weiwu asked to review the books, at which point, Wan'er told Sun Yongchuan to burn the store to destroy the evidence, and had sent him a jug of poisoned wine, though he never drank it.
Sun Yongchuan came clean to Zhao Baishi who went to arrest Wu Weishuang and Liu Wan'er at their party. At the party, all her crimes had been revealed. Wu Weishuang was upset that his wife had been cheating him all these years, and so he killed her and then himself.
Sun Yongchuan
Sun Yongchuan had always been under Wan'er's spell. She got him the job as the manager of the pawn shop, and it was under her direction that he would steal money. If he really used his brain, I think it would have been easy to see that Wan'er was too comfortable living the rich life to want to leave with him, but he was in love and listened to her every move.
After Sun Yongchuan skipped town, Zhou Ying had him followed, and then had her helpers to basically manipulate him into believing that Wan'er had turned on him. She'd already given him poisoned wine, but Zhou Laosi and Zhou Ying's other underlings pretended to be assassins sent by Wan'er.
Afterwards, Sun Yongchuan went to Zhao Baishi and revealed everything to him, both the embezzling and the murder and attempted murder.
Wu Yu
Wu Yu was the son of Wu Weishuang and Liu Wan'er. As mentioned, at the beginning of the drama, his parents were always trying to promote him to Wu Weiwen and Madame Zheng, trying to get him in their good books.
Of course, he was insanely shaken up by the murder and suicide of his parents. What kid wouldn't, with parents like that? He left on his own after the debacle.
However, Zhou Ying later found him in Xinjiang, where he was cheating people while using the Wu family name. He showed resentment towards Zhou Ying, as he believed that she had caused his parents' death, though we know that's not true. His mom was cheating his dad from day one, Zhou Ying was just the one to uncover it. Anyway, Wu Yu was captured, but when offered a deal to return, he did not take it.
Wu Weiquan
Wu Weiquan was the fourth uncle of the Wu family. He was very superstitious, and didn't trust Zhou Ying on the basis that she was supposedly a bad omen. But as expected, he did warm up to her over time.
Wu Yucheng/Wu Huaixian
Wu Huaixian was born Wu Yucheng, the grandson of Wu Weiquan. As Wu Pin and Zhou Ying had no heirs, they had no son to continue the business of the eastern yard. Zhou Ying had planned to leave the Wu family, but her mother-in-law would only let her do so if she chose a son from among the other children to carry on their family bloodline.
A competition was held among the boys, and Wu Yucheng clearly did not want to play. He would always find some alternative way to answer the question or complete the task. While his grandparents saw him as being disobedient and lawless, Zhou Ying saw that as creativity, and saw him as a reflection of herself and Zhou Laosi.
Zhou Ying chose Yucheng to continue her family business, and renamed him Wu Huaixian, as it was a name that she and Wu Pin had agreed on when they were still alive.
At first, Huaixian really hated the eastern yard because Zhou Ying was so strict with him. We saw that she taught him using some of the lessons that Wu Weiwen had taught her. In some ways, she was more strict than other parents, and in some ways, she was more lenient.
After being accused of stealing, Huaixian ran away from home, and Zhou Ying saved him, after which point he became incredibly loyal to her. That being said, the stealing was never really addressed >.>
The drama ended with Wu Huaixian leaving for Japan, and promising to return, though I feel like Zhou Ying wasn't counting on it because everybody she loved had left.
Chunxing
Chunxing was a servant in the Wu household. When Zhou Ying first arrived, they acted as friends, peers. After Zhou Ying got married to Wu Pin, Chunxing seemed really happy about treating Zhou Ying as a shaonainai. Part of it might have been that she knew how much Wu Pin liked Zhou Ying and she just wanted them to be one happy family.
Chunxing was unfailingly loyal to Zhou Ying, even risking her life when they were captured by the bandits.
I really thought that we were going to get a romantic subplot with Chunxing with Fulai, and I think it would have been really cute, but alas, that was one thing we did not get v.v
Fulai
Fulai was originally Wu Pin's manservant. After his death, he served Zhou Ying with just as much loyalty.
Fulai was there when Shen Xingyi had attacked Wu Pin, and had brought up his suspicions of Shen Xingyi when they were travelling to Xinjiang.
Other than that, he was mostly a moral support character, but that's not bad. I thought he and Chunxing were so cute as Zhou Ying's cheerleaders :3
Zhang Ma
Zhang Ma was Madame Zheng's servant. At first, she was just as disapproving of Zhou Ying as everybody else. After she'd been cleared of her crimes, Zhang Ma was noticeably more trusting of her. She'd agreed to steal money from Madame Zheng for Zhou Ying to invest, trusting that she'd do good with the money. Zhou Ying had agreed to take on the blame if Madame Zheng found out, which low key led to funny shenaniganery.
Anyway, later in the show, we saw that she and Zhou Laosi had a little something-something going on. They were chatting a lot, both being in the eastern courtyard and all. Zhou Laosi had even told her things that he hadn't told her own daughter, like how he didn't actually wanted to leave (but probably needed to leave for a bit before he stayed).
Baolai
Baolai was a servant in the Wu household, and was Wan'er's nephew. He was one of the main culprits in framing Zhou Ying. He'd drugged up Wang Shijun with aphrodisiac and locked Zhou Ying in a room with him. Then he'd falsified testimony against her.
When Zhou Ying came back for revenge, he was the first person that she targeted, and he folded so fast. Zhou Ying pretended to be a ghost, and frightened him into revealing everything. Last we heard of him, he'd gone completely mad.
Han Sanchun
Han Sanchun was originally a bandit. We met him as Niu Shouwa, his right-hand man, had gotten a job to kidnap Zhou Ying (and had kidnapped Shen Xingyi as well).
As Zhao Baishi cornered him in, Zhou Ying cut a deal with him that she'd give him some shares of her family business, in order to convince him to give up being a bandit. In the end, he acquiesced.
Han Sanchun hung around the Wu family eastern courtyard as a bodyguard. Like most of the other men, he was also unfailingly loyal to her.
Qianhong
We first met Qianhong when Zhou Ying had arrived at the Shen family household. Apparently Shen Xingyi had promised to marry her and she was here to cash in on the promise but for obvious reasons was not being let in. The next time we saw her, she was back to working as an entertainer. She and Zhou Ying butted heads a bit, but not too much.
The third time we met Qianhong, she was married to Han Sanchun. It was not a glamorous lifestyle, but others noted that Han Sanchun seemed to really love her and care for her (this is questionable as I had seen no signs of this and I'm not sure how others had come to this conclusion). Anyway, upon seeing that Zhou Ying and Shen Xingyi had been kidnapped, she wasted no time in giving Shen Xingyi a piece of her mind.
When she and Han Sanchun were first set up to live at the eastern courtyard, others looked down on her for her former profession. Zhou Ying's mother-in-law didn't like having a bandit and an entertainer around, and Wu Yi was downright rude.
Zhou Ying first tried to diffuse the situation by tying her and Qianhong together as sisters. This was an attempt by Zhou Ying to get Wu Yi to recognize her as a sister too, though the point here was that Qianhong was the older sister, so Wu Yi as Zhou Ying's younger sister should have shown her respect by calling her older sister as well.
Qianhong was the one who gave Wu Yi tips on how to trap Zhao Baishi into marrying her. Honestly, I'm surprised that nothing ever came back to Qianhong. Though Wu Yi was the one who did it, Qianhong was the one with the ideas. I would have expected something to show that Qianhong understood that what she did was not appropriate.
Qianhong was also a huge proponent of love, and again encouraged Zhou Ying to be with Shen Xingyi >.> No comment.
By the end of the drama, we saw that Qianhong was pregnant, and even though pregnant, she'd offered to sign up for Zhou Ying's girls' school to learn how to read and write better.
I actually found Niki Chow's portrayal of Qianhong to be pretty fun and refreshing. I've only seen her in a handful of TVB dramas, most notably being The Gentle Crackdown, but this drama reminded me how much fun she can be.
Wang Erhu
Erhu was an orphan boy that Zhou Ying had met on the streets. They'd met once when he'd stolen food for his mother and brother. The second time they'd met, Zhou Ying had married Wu Pin, and Erhu's family members had died. Zhou Ying and Wu Pin gave him money for proper burials for his faily, and Wu Pin had intended on finding some work for Erhu but couldn't find him.
We later met him at the bandits' hideout. He'd been taken in by Han Sanchun. In return for Zhou Ying's previous kindness to him, he'd tried to help her escape from the bandits but failed.
After the bandit story arc was finished, Erhu became part of Zhou Ying's posse lol.
Wang Shijun
Wang Shijun was a student at the Wu family academy, and later became Zhou Ying's right hand man. He was a serious man, which I thought was kind of a fun contrast to Zhou Ying.
They first met when Zhou Ying asked Wang Shijun to pass a message to her father, though at that point her father had already skipped town. When Zhou Ying married Wu Pin and was freaked out by how formal everybody was being ot her, he was the only one who retained their former friendly relationship since he realized that she was more comfortable with that.
Wang Shijun was drugged with aphrodisiac and framed into being an adulterer (with Zhou Ying). I'm not really sure that that's how aphrodisiac works, but whatever. He was forced by Liu Wan'er into confessing that he was in an adulterous relationship with Zhou Ying, and that he had stolen items from Wu Pin's office to be pawned, because his mother was being held hostage. However, he thought that Zhou Ying would just be kicked out of the household and not killed.
He escaped with his life, but he returned and went to Zhao Baishi and confessed everything. Afterwards, he was of course very apologetic to Zhou Ying who forgave him and made him her right hand man in the business.
I was so worried that Wang Shijun was going to be turned into a love interest and I love that he wasn't. I just like him as the serious businessman :3
Jiang Fuqi
Jiang Fuqi was another former student of the Wu family academy. At the beginning, he was at odds with Zhou Ying, but Zhou Ying bridged the gap by being bros. He later agreed to be Zhou Ying's accountant (initially agreeing to work for no money!! no!!!), and he stayed with Zhou Ying through to the end.
Shen Xingyi
This fucking guy. He had no business being as major of a character as he was. You could say he had close to no impact on the story line relating to the family businesses. And much of the family drama was stirred up because he would not let go of marrying Zhou Ying.
Shen Xingyi would have been fine if he remained a villain. I personally expected him to remain a friend. After what had happened, after how he'd attacked the Shen family, I can't think of why Zhou Ying would want to be with him. Not for his winning personality, at least.
And yet I was proven wrong. The drama intended for Shen Xingyi's persistence to be romantic, but it really wasn't, not when his family was coming over and making Zhou Ying's life hell.
Listen, I was perfectly fine with Shen Xingyi learning to be a better man. After Zhou Ying had called him useless, he was like "...I am...useless?" and that's when he actually started trying to help out his family business. Along the way, he started being kinder to people, like saving that girl who was being sold as a servant by her uncle.
But one thing that Shen Xingyi never learned was that you can't always have what you want in life. He wanted to have Zhou Ying at the cost of everyone around him, his own family, Zhou Ying's family, Zhou Ying herself. Being with Shen Xingyi was more trouble than it was worth in my opinion.
Anyway, Xingyi barely made a dent in the business story line because he was so incompetent in business, and that just made him feel so unnecessary to the story.
When Zhou Ying was framed and arrested due to some apparent misdealings with her cloth factory, Xingyi promised his father that this would be the last time he'd do anything for Zhou Ying. He ended up dying in the ordeal after trying to save her, getting arrested, and then dying in jail. EXCEPT HE WASN'T!! I was so annoyed when I found out that he was still alive! I was so done with him! Him still being alive also kind of cheapened Zhou Ying's ordeal because she was so traumatized, with Xingyi's supposed death being one of the events that led her to believe that maybe she really was an omen.
After Xingyi returned, his story became more of a political one. Before he'd left, he was already forming some new thoughts about how society should be run. After he returned from Japan, he became a teacher, spreading his thoughts about how China could be modified.
Of course, we got some romance angst >.> It was kind of bullshit but Xingyi basically acted like a douche to try to push Zhou Ying away and it was so painful seeing Zhou Ying look all desperate because she had never been desperate like that for anything, not even for when her father died >.> Shen Xingyi did not deserve this. So between Xingyi coming and going, there was a lot of angst.
During this period of time, there was a conversation in which it was said that Xingyi had changed his name to protect his family, and now he was returning from Japan for his family. But to be honest, I've never seen Xingyi as having done a single thing for his family. He'd always been a headache to his father. Like, I literally can't think of any large event in which he didn't create more problems with his father. He changed his name because HE had fucked up and he needed to stay on the down low.
Anway, Xingyi came and went so many times in the last few episodes that none of those meetings felt meaningful anymore, no matter how many times we were told it was "the last time."
He'd left Zhou Ying some literature on starting a school for girls, which Zhou Ying put a lot of thought into doing. When she first opened the school, she said that she wasn't really sure why she needed to open a girls' school, which made me facepalm so hard. I hated that her agency was being taken over by Xingyi's big grand vision. By the end, she had a better answer, but god, what a bad way to start.
Xingyi returned for the last time in order to assassinate the Emperor. However, his plan didn't work as he was found out by too many people. In the end, he sacrificed himself and was killed. This death felt cheap because he'd already died once, and also because the goodbyes had been milked far too much that none of them felt meaningful to me anymore.
Shen Xingyi, truly a nuisance.
Shen Sihai
Shen Sihai was one of the main villains. He believed that Wu Pin had killed his son Shen Yuesheng and afterwards the two families became enemies.
He had gotten revenge on the Wu family by working with Du Mingli to frame Wu Weiwen, and he succeeded in having him killed. Throughout the course of the drama, he was always being controlled by Du Mingli. Shen Xingyi saw that it was a bad idea, but Shen Sihai had already thrown his entire lot in with Du Mingli.
By the end of the drama, Zhou Ying had gotten revenge on the Shen family by basically ruining their business. But she lent money to them anyway because she felt for the people who worked for the business.
Shen Sihai also found out that it was Zha Kun who'd killed Yuesheng and he of course was kicking himself for having worked so hard for Du Mingli.
Side note, shen Shen Sihai was super troubled towards the end of the drama, his wife said that she'd stick by his side etc etc. To be honest, his wife didn't really have much of a personality throughout the drama so all of this just felt kind of hollow.
Even though Zhou Ying was (relatively) lenient on Shen Sihai, the law caught up with him, and he was executed.
Shen Yuesheng
Shen Yuesheng was the older of the Shen family sons. He was more responsible and more in tune with the ways of the business. He'd gotten killed by Zha Kun when he'd bumped into him in the Wu family storeroom, where Zha Kun was planting faulty inventory. And his death kickstarted the events of the drama.
Linglong
Linglong was Shen Xingyi's servant girl. It was a little painful how loyal she was to Shen Xingyi, because he had zero appreciation for her. After Shen Xingyi had left home, she'd come to find him and Shen Xingyi had told him that he wanted her to live a good life, but at that point, his political views were still kind of half-baked and so his point didn't really make its way across.
Hu Zhicun
Hu Zhicun was a good friend of Wu Weiwen's, and their children were betrothed to one another. After Wu Pin had been hit on the head and fallen into a coma, the doctor had said that he might have had a chance of waking up if he'd gotten married (i.e. having sex). However, Du Mingli liked Hu Yongmei and didn't want her to marry Wu Pin, so he convinced Hu Zhicun that the Wu family was going to be destroyed so that he wouldn't let her marry.
The second time that Du Mingli came around, he told Hu Zhicun that Wu Weiwen was going to frame him. Hu Zhicun even said that Du Mingli had caused him trouble the last time he came around and yet he still listened to him!
Hu Zhicun struck me as a cowardly man, easily swayed. The problem was that he was not smart or hardy. He didn't know how to protect himself let alone his daughter.
In the end, he died in a cowardly manner. He'd talked with his daughter about how they'd spend their lives together away from all this mess, and then he committed suicide, leaving his daughter alone.
Hu Yongmei
Hu Yongmei was the daughter of Hu Zhicun, a young lady. At the beginning of the drama, she was shown to be very proper and sweet. (Admittedly, I found Myolie Wu's acting a little cringey at this point because she just didn't fit the cute and innocent look no matter how much she tried to twist her face.)
After Wu Pin married Zhou Ying, he was very frazzled, and of course, she blamed it all on Zhou Ying. We later found out that she had tried to poison Zhou Ying but was unsuccessful.
Despite being a mean girl, Hu Yongmei did also go through some shit, as her father had been arrested indefinitely and being all alone, Hu Yongmei had no one to ask for help except for Wu Weiwen. Unfortunately, Wu Weiwen could not help her because he realized that he was the target here.
After her father died, Hu Yongmei took on the mantle of her family business, but at the back of her mind, she always wanted to get revenge on Zhou Ying. Her main pillar of support was Du Mingli, whom she thought was helping her out of gratitude for when she'd given him a little bit of food as a child. We saw that Du Mingli was completely enamoured with her, to the point of delusion.
Despite Du Mingli's crush on her, he had also used her. And when her business failed, she'd pleaded with him for help. Though he used to help her again and again, at this point in the drama, he had to cut her off.
Hu Yongmei was confronted by Zhou Ying at Wu Pin's grave, where she confessed to poisoning Wu Pin. She'd then tried to attack Zhou Ying but attacked Zhou Laosi instead, and then she committed suicide.
As a villain, she was actually kind of interesting. Two ladies of their respective houses, in a battle of business minds? Very spicy.
Du Mingli
Yu Haoming is so good at playing villains, much kudos to him. Du Mingli was definitely an interesting villain for sure. He was working on behalf of a prince, though it's clear that he worked even more for his own personal interests.
He lived on the streets as a child and was offered food by Hu Yongmei once, but he credited most of his survival to himself. He learned to survive i life by being extremely cutthroat.
At the beginning, Du Mingli had fabricated conflict between the Shen and Wu families. Afterwards, he "helped" the Shen family take revenge, and the Shen family, who was "indebted" to him, essentially became the piggy bank for him and the prince.
Towards the end of the drama, as his allies were falling, he fell as well, not having any money or any business to keep him going. What's interesting is that I can't remember the last time that Du Mingli and Zhou Ying met face to face before their last meeting. Was that the only time they met? I can't quite remember. Anyway, after Zhou Ying had hinted that she was onto him (with regards to the deaths of her family members), Du Mingli went home and told Zha Kun that they had to dip. Unfortunately, before they could, they were caught by the right-hand man of the prince, who I think wanted to question him for questionable business dealings. At that point, Zha Kun and Du Mingli tried to fight off the guards but Zha Kun died.
Du Mingli was arrested by Zhao Baishi. He was given the opportunity to kill Zhang Changqing, which he did, and then killed himself.
Zha Kun
Zha Kun was Du Mingli's servant, but in private, we saw that they spoke candidly with one another.
I already made a post about Zha Kun and Du Mingli's codependence here, but basically, I loved how their relationship humanized them. Du Mingli was technically the boss, but in private, he very much was not, and Zha Kun talked shit about him to his face all the time. Du Mingli was cutthroat about everything except for Hu Yongmei, and Zha Kun was always there to remind him to back off, as he could only see this ending poorly for Du Mingli.
Zha Kun was also essentially Du Mingli's muscle, though he often acted rashly. He hadn't intended to kill Shen Yuesheng but since he'd been caught planting the faulty inventory, he had to kill Shen Yuesheng.
In the end, when things were going badly, Du Mingli's instinctive reaction was not to cull Zha Kun (which was the more cutthroat option) but to run away with Zha Kun together. It's clear that these two had a really close relationship, and saw each other as life companions. Neither of them could have biological families of their own, and they were both such cutthroat people. Only they could understand the other v.v
In the end, Zha Kun died trying to protect Du Mingli.
Zhao Baishi
Zhao Baishi was the local official. At first, I was amused by Zhao Baishi's no-nonsense attitude. We could always rely on him to be fair and just.
That changed when it was revealed that Zhao Baishi liked Zhou Ying. We saw this when Zhou Ying had sworn never to take another husband, and Zhao Baishi's nails had dug into his hands so hard that he was bleeding. It just felt so cheap to me for Zhao Baishi to only be acceptable as an ally because he was in love with her. He even said that he admired her. That can be platonic!!!
Zhao Baishi had saved Wu Yi from the bandits, believing that he was saving Zhou Ying. In any case, Wu Yi had fallen in love with him and struggled to get him to notice her. She got tips from Qianhong to trap him, and trap him she did. He came over to propose of his own volition, but we saw that he did not show Wu Yi any love or affection. He'd come home tired but when Zhou Ying came over, he'd pop right back up.
When Zhou Ying had been arrested, she and Zhao Baishi had become sworn siblings, which I thought was a good thing. I thought that would have stopped Zhao Baishi from trying to pull anything but we saw that that didn't happen >.> ugh.
Zhao Baishi was angry at Wu Yi for framing Zhou Ying, but he ultimately forgave her when he realized that he'd been neglectful towards her. She'd been pregnant at the time of her death, so I guess they were at least intimate at the time.
Zhao Baishi and Shen Xingyi had some correspondences towards the end and Xingyi had told Zhao Baishi to take care of Zhou Ying for life, which he then took to mean proposing to her >.> Everybody was very encouraging of her, saying that she needed someone to take care of her. I am so glad that Zhou Ying said no, jesus christ. These two have no romantic chemistry together. Zhou Ying would never be able to see him as anything more than a bro.
Zhao Baishi, good character in a vacuum. I love his no-nonsense attitude. But the way his romance was handled, big yikes.
Zhang Changqing
Zhang Changqing was Zhao Baishi's teacher, who ended up being kind of a snake, and had influenced Wu Yi to betray Zhou Ying. Zhao Baishi turned his back on his teacher after he found out what he'd done. At the end of the drama, he tried to get back into Zhao Baishi's good books by telling him about having Du Mingli in his custody. In the end, Du Mingli killed him.
Tu'erdan
Tu'erdan was a business owner in Xinjiang. He was initially angry with Zhou Ying for being cheated in business. After Zhou Ying showed that it was Wu Yu who'd cheated him, everything was fine and they were friends.
Except later when Tuerdan came to visit Zhou Ying in Jingyang, he'd come to propose, which angered Wu Weiwu and Wu Weiquan, and also shocked Zhou Ying.
At one point, Zhou Ying said that Tu'erdan's words had moved her, and yet Shen Xingyi's did not at all. Which is ironic since the story really tried to push Zhou Ying and Shen Xingyi as a couple. In the end, Zhou Ying rejected the proposal, to which Tu'erdan said was fine, but they couldn't be friends, because he'd feel hurt.
God, this was such a cringe romantic subplot. The romance literally came from nowhere. Unnecessary.
Father Joseph
Joseph was the Western priest that Zhou Ying befriended. They first met when a man had dropped in the middle of the street, probably due to low blood sugar. Apparently Wu Pin had that problem too where he'd fall ill often and so Zhou Ying asked Joseph for some of the medicine (though I didn't recall Wu Pin fainting like that until after Zhou Ying got the medicine...).
When Zhou Ying was trying to expand the cloth business, she went to Joseph for help on what Western looms were like. And later on, Zhou Ying had gotten his help when the manual for their second-hand loom was all in another language.
Among the Chinese workers, there were many who feared Westerners and thought they might have evil powers and such. Zhou Ying never had such fear, and she bridged such gaps between Joseph and her workers.
It was Father Joseph who told her that arsenic poisoning shouldn't lead in nosebleeds and so if Wu Pin had a nosebleed upon death, he probably hadn't been poisoned by arsenic, which was what Hu Yongmei had used.
Upon Father Joseph's departure from China, Zhou Ying had asked if she could have the world map, which she'd become enamoured with her first time at his chapel.
Themes
Cultural change
There was an undercurrent of cultural change during the drama, particularly when it came to Zhou Ying trying to introduce Western machines into the family's cloth business. There was still a fear of all things Western, and Zhou Ying's theory was that there's no harm in learning the things that will bring good to their society.
I didn't love when the story bled into the Anti-Qing reformist movement, mostly because politics had always been an undercurrent, and I didn't want the story to be focused on that. In addition, Shen Xingyi was the character in the story that represented this social change, and I can't say I have a good impression of him at all. I wasn't convinced that he was a changed man who believed for equality for all, not when he couldn't even protect his own family.
I think showing cultural exchanges through business was by far a more interesting and impactful way of showing synergy.
Feminism
This is kind of a given as Zhou Ying was a woman playing a man's game. At first, she couldn't even get into the Wu family academy. She was only let in to clean. And granted, she only got to where she was with her father-in-law's help. She would not have been listened to if she hadn't gotten the family seal from her father-in-law.
Towards the end, Shen Xingyi had given her some literature on starting a girls' school. Representing feminism in this way fell flat as Shen Xingyi was the mastermind of this project and Zhou Ying was doing this for him instead of for her own beliefs. As I mentioned, even her opening speech was wtf-worthy. It ended better, but man, why did you have to make this about Shen Xingyi when it really wasn't?
Overall
Overall, this was a great drama, very entertaining, well-paced, well-acted, and terrific costumes and set. But please do not pay too much attention to the romantic subplots because they will squeeze the life out of you in the bad way. The romance did not feel meaningful at all, especially since our love interest(s) were either very toxic (Shen Xingyi) or had basically no romantic interaction with Zhou Ying other than straight up proposing (Zhao Baishi and Tu'erdan).
Spoilers.
Story
The story is way too long, so I'm not going to do a play by play lol. This story mostly followed the life of Zhou Ying, based on the real life figure, the Widow of Wu. The other major story line was the conflict between the various families in Jingyang, the Wu family, the Shen family, and the Hu family.
The story started with Zhou Ying as a rowdy orphan, one who hated the idea of conforming to rules and etiquette. Through the course of the drama, she started to adapt to structure in her life a little, but we saw that she never forgot her craftiness, and she used it to protect her loved ones.
As I mentioned, this was a very bingeable drama. I've legitimately never binged a drama so hard. The pacing was excellent. Something was always happening, whether it was an event in a major story line or a minor story line. Problems were rarely dragged out, and misunderstandings (that the audience knew of) were not used as hinging plot points.
In my opinion, the only plot point that was dragged (or beat like a dead horse) was Wu Pin's death. Initially, we thought he had died of his illness. Then, Zhou Ying was framed for poisoning him, and in the same story arc, we found out that Liu Wan'er had had him poisoned. Later, Zhou Ying deduced that Wu Pin had not drunk the poisoned tea and was thus poisoned by the snacks that he had bought for Zhou Ying, which were poisoned by Hu Yongmei. Then Father Joseph told Zhou Ying that Wu Pin's nosebleed would not have been a symptom of arsenic poisoning, and thus it was revealed that Zha Kun was the true culprit. I think the reveal of Hu Yongmei being a poisoner was a pretty interesting plot twist. But by the third and last plot twist, I felt that Wu Pin's death was being cheapened and used as a plot device instead of being honoured as a major change in Zhou Ying's life.
The romance was the biggest downfull of this drama. Romance made sense at the beginning of the drama, to show Wu Pin and Zhou Ying's devotion to one another, and to explain why Zhou Ying decided to stay with the Wu family. However, all of the romantic relationships that followed were poorly handled. The men who were in love with her included Tu'erdan, Shen Xingyi, and Zhao Baishi. Zhou Ying had very different relationships with each of them, and the fact that the story tried to force a romantic angle on all of them didn't sit well with me. The drama also tried to enforce a "women can't be happy unless they have a man to take care of them" angle. It especially didn't make sense for Zhou Ying because she had hated being tied down before Wu Pin, and it was because of her love for Wu Pin and her in-laws that kept her with the Wu family. It's hard to believe that any of these men were as able to move Zhou Ying as Wu Pin did.
The romantic relationships wouldn't have been so annoying if it weren't for the fact that Zhou Ying was actively considering all of those relationships. When Tu'erdan came to propose, Zhou Ying said that she was legitimately moved by his gestures (while also saying that she felt nothing for when Shen Xingyi said the same things). The romantic relationship with Shen Xingyi was bad in so many ways. At best, their relationship started off messy, and at worst, it was traumatic. Somewhere along the way, they became bros, and I could totally believe it. But I was never convinced by Zhou Ying's love for Shen Xingyi. As for Zhao Baishi, that just felt kind of unnecessary. The story could have been exactly the same without him being in love with her. I'm going to be complaining a lot more in the character section.
The ending did also kind of drop the ball in my opinion. The major issues that took up most of the drama were shafted in favour of new conflicts. Specifically, the story was always very family-focused. I always felt that the resolving of the fabricated conflict between the Wu and Shen families would always be the major triumph. However, the drama took a political and anti-monarchical angle. This was an attempt by the drama to connect Zhou Ying to Empress Dowager Cixi, whom she was supposedly the goddaughter of. Add to that Zhao Baishi randomly proposing to Zhou Ying, and Zhou Ying starting the girls' school (but not really understanding why), I felt that the drama changing focus was not fair to all of the build up before.
The focus of the story always should have been the family business, and even if the drama wanted to take a political angle, characters like Shen Xingyi never should have gotten as much screen time as they did.
Production
The production value was terrific. Beautiful clothes, beautiful sets. No complaints. The style of direction was alright. It was what I have come to expect from most large scale Cdramas, and it served its purpose. There were certain camera angles that I thought were creative, but there were some boring camera angles as well.
The acting was great from our main stars and our supporting cast. There were quite a few faces I recognized from TVB as well, which was cool.
Characters
There are a lot of characters T_T Anyway, I've grouped these characters by their families.
Zhou Ying
Zhou Ying started off as a rowdy orphan, never staying in one place for too long. She definitely picked up a lot of habits from her father, who was even more rowdy and lawless than she was.
The turning point for Zhou Ying was meeting Wu Pin. He was the first person to care for her. He was naive, but Zhou Ying was genuinely charmed by his kind-hearted nature. And in her repayment of the favour, she was tied to the Wu family forever. At first, it was against her will, but over time, she learned that such a structured world could offer some nice thinsg to her as well.
I don't want to say that Zhou Ying only stayed for love. I think that Wu Weiwen recognizing her sharp intellect and giving her opportunity to grow was just as important in encouraging her to stay.
I'm going to say it: Zhou Ying is a bit of a Mary Sue. I genuinely enjoyed seeing Zhou Ying win over her rivals, whether it was through smarts, or just strong arming them in a way that only she could do (someone with a background in being lawless). However, the way that other people reacted to her showed shades of Mary Sue writing.
Everybody's feelings towards Zhou Ying were very black or white. They were either unfailingly loyal and trusting to her, or they hated everything about her and would literally plot for her to die. Sometimes, Zhou Ying would do kind things, and all of the commoners would talk about how kind that Shaonainai was. It felt kind of forced because I think Zhou Ying's actions spoke for themselves and didn't require our extras telling us how to feel.
Several male characters being in love with her was also a sign of Mary Sue writing. Wu Pin, Tu'erdan, Shen Xingyi, and Zhao Baishi all were genuinely in love with Zhou Ying to the point of proposing (except for Wu Pin I guess). And what makes this Mary Sue writing was that Zhou Ying genuinely considered all of these marriages. If someone I considered a friend but never had romantic feelings for proposed to me, I would not hesitate to turn them down and reinforce that we were friends. The fact that Zhou Ying considered all their proposals showed that they were never supposed to be male friends but were always supposed to be love interests. In fact, most of the men in this drama who were of similar age to Zhou Ying were either love interests or family members.
As for her enemies, none of them were ever normal about her. Rarely anybody ever mildly disliked her. They all hated her to the point of needing to kill her. Liu Wan'er concocted this huge plot to kill her, which involved an intricate web of lies and fabrications. Hu Yongmei hated her to the point of delusion. It's a little "why are you so obsessed with me?" but I guess the point is that the payoff, when Zhou Ying gets them back, is supposed to be satisfying.
At the very least, I liked that Zhou Ying still maintained a sense of self. The story wasn't how she agreed to be tied down for a man. The story was about how she found another way to thrive, and found love and friends along the way. By the end, we saw that she never really lost her casual attitude towards rules, but she also learned when it was important to be serious.
Even though Zhou Ying was Wu Pin's widow, the main romantic story line in this drama was technically between her and Shen Xingyi, which I really did not love. I didn't know when she decided that she was madly in love with Shen Xingyi, because it never made sense to me. When they got along really well, I still only saw them as bros, seeing as how Zhou Ying loved to play tricks on him and he could never keep up. When did his crazed devotion stop being annoying and became endearing to her? Because it never stopped being annoying to me. He even had the gall to propose to her after his entire family went to the Wu family to cause a ruckus. This man cannot read the atmosphere and I cannot see how Zhou Ying would fall in love with a man who could not read the room. Wu Pin could not read the room, but he was always sincere and kind, which went a long way in protecting him and those he loved. As for Shen Xingyi, he showed that time and time again, he could not take no for an answer and I don't know why that would endear him to Zhou Ying.
Anyway, Zhou Ying was still a strong character because the script really showed her personality shine and Sun Li seemed to really suit this character, but the way in which her romances were handled were a major flaw.
Zhou Laosi
Zhou Laosi was Zhou Ying's adoptive father. We see that Zhou Ying picked up her lawless nature from her father. His life philosophy was just about hustling enough money to drink alcohol and gamble and that was it. He had a habit of selling his daughter when he incurred gambling debt, and left her on her own to escape. So overall a very irresponsible father, even if he did care for his daughter a little.
Zhou Laosi struggled when his daughter decided to stay with the Wu family because they were never people to settle. He always encouraged her to go back to the life that they lived and she constantly rejected this.
Zhou Laosi's friendship with Shen Xingyi was wild and also slightly distasteful to me. At first, Zhou Laosi took advantage of Shen Xingyi's hospitality because he was short-sighted. He loved drinking and eating good food, and whether or not he could get Zhou Ying to agree to go to Shen Xingyi, he would deal with that later. Later on, their friendship morphed into Zhou Laosi thinking that Shen Xingyi was what Zhou Ying needed to become her past self, because only he would get Zhou Ying all mad. In general, Zhou Laosi encouraged Shen Xingyi to constantly pursue Zhou Ying, and that was so yucky.
After a while, Zhou Laosi did get used to living at the Wu household though he still came and went, and he still stole things as was his habit. He even struck up a sort-of romance with Zhang Ma. But in the end, he decided he'd leave for a long journey. On his way out, he circled back to find some things he'd hidden, and he bumped into Zhou Ying and Hu Yongmei's confrontation, and he died protecting Zhou Ying.
Upon dead, Zhou Laosi told Zhou Ying where he found her. I thought that something would come of this, and was low key disappointed that this was not explored. Not that I think Zhou Ying needed to know where she came from for her to be happy. I can accept that this was all that Zhou Laosi felt he could do for his daughter.
Wu Pin
Wu Pin, so big, so naive. Seriously. Peter Ho is SO big. And Wu Pin is so gullible. They first met because Wu Pin was so easy to trick and Zhou Ying took advantage of that. But over time, as she got to know him better, she saw that he really was a sincere person who wanted to help people.
Wu Pin was naive, but he wasn't totally dumb. He was just kind and amicable and people would mistake that for him being head empty.
Wu Pin in turn fell in love with Zhou Ying. He probably just found her amusing, and had probably never met a woman like her. Truth be told, I think he was just kind of charmed by the novelty of her at the beginning. But I think he truly fell in love with her after he found out that she saved his life.
At the beginning, when Zhou Ying's relationship with her in-laws was extremely rocky, Wu Pin was always the one to protect her, even going so far as to lie for her so that she wouldn't be punished or thrown out. And over time, as he mediated the relationship between his parents and Zhou Ying, he got them to understand each other better.
During this drama, we were led to believe that three different people poisoned Wu Pin. The first were Liu Wan'er and Sun Yongchuan. They had poisoned Wu Pin because he was looking through the books of the store run by Sun Yongchuan, and thus was well on his way to finding out that Liu Wan'er and Sun Yongchuan were embezzling money. I think they had had Baolai poison his tea, though I don't quite remember. Sun Yongchuan had come clean about this to Zhao Baishi, who was going to arrest Liu Wan'er, but Wu Weishuang killed her and then committed suicide. Zhou Ying realized that since her father had stolen Wu Pin's teacup, that Wu Pin would not have drank the tea.
The second person to have poisoned Wu Pin was Hu Yongmei. She was jealous of Zhou Ying for having stealen her betrothed, and her plan was to kill Zhou Ying so that she could marry Wu Pin. Wu Pin would by zhenggao for Zhou Ying everyday, so Hu Yongmei bought the stall that Wu Pin bought from, and poisoned the zhenggao. However, that day, Zhou Ying didn't have an appetite for it (because she was pregnant and nauseous), and she'd fed the zhenggao to Wu Pin instead. Hu Yongmei confessed to this when Zhou Ying confronted her at Wu Pin's grave, and then committed suicide as at that point her business was failing. However, Zhou Ying found out that nosebleeds were not a symptom of arsenic poisoning (which was Yongmei's method of poison), so Zhou Ying realized that Wu Pin hadn't died of arsenic poisoning.
When it was revealed that Hu Yongmei wasn't the poisoner, I dreaded what was to come. Like I said, I felt that this was just beating a dead horse, and it was kind of disrespectful to Wu Pin to keep turning his death into a way for the story to progress.
Anyway, it was Zha Kun who was the true poisoner. He'd poisoned Wu Pin (though I'm not sure how) because he recognized Zha Kun's sword, and had a chance of realizing that he was the killer of Shen Yuesheng.
Anyway, Wu Pin was a fun character. I liked that he was so naive. It was endearing. Unfortunately, he needed to die to have Zhou Ying to become a widow (and I'm sure he was too expensive to be there for the entire show lol).
Wu Weiwen
Wu Weiwen was Zhou Ying's father-in-law and the leader of the Wu household. He was wise and stern, but ultimately very reasonable.
Of course, he was angered by Zhou Ying's lawlessness at first, but he understood that she was sharp witted. Through Wu Pin's pleading with him, he allowed Zhou Ying to attend the academy, and then later attend the family business meetings.
He was framed by Shen Sihai and Du Mingli. Unfortunately he couldn't think of a way out, so he instead pushed everybody away so that only he would be implicated. He then passed the leadership role of the household to Zhou Ying.
Wu Weiwen was a pretty cool dude. Such a pity that he died so early. But again, for plot reasons, he had to die in order for Zhou Ying to be able to manage the family businesses.
Madam Zheng
Madame Zheng was Wu Weiwen's wife, and Wu Pin's mother. She was soft-hearted, and unfortunately easily swayed. At first, she of course did not approve of Zhou Ying's wild ways. But over time, she did observe that she was trying harder to fit in.
Liu Wan'er was extremely aggressive in framing Zhou Ying for adultery and for murdering Wu Pin, and unfortunately Madame Zheng believed her, because the evidence seemed so obvious. At that point, Madame Zheng definitely felt more grief for her own son than hatred for Zhou Ying.
After that whole debacle was cleared up, Zhou Ying and Madame Zheng were the two members left of their nuclear family, and I felt that their relationship was pretty cute. Zhou Ying was doing what she could to support the two of them, and Madame Zheng worried for her health (and about her following etiquette). It was a kind of push-and-pull relationship as they learned to meet in the middle, and I found it quite heartwarming.
Later in the show, Madame Zheng told Zhou Ying that she saw her not as a daughter-in-law anymore, but as a daughter. That was around the time that Zhou Ying started to show romantic feelings for Shen Xingyi. In my opinion, Madame Zheng's encouragement was the most important, because if Zhou Ying were to have married Shen Xingyi, technically she no longer would have been part of the Wu family, but if she was Madame Zheng's daughter, she could still be considered a daughter of the Wu family. But anyway, nothing ever came of that.
Madame Zheng kind of faded out of the story towards the end.
Wu Weiwu
Wu Weiwu was the second uncle of the Wu family. After Wu Weiwen died, he was the man with the biggest sway. Though Wu Weiwu was supposed to a calmer and wiser man, I found his writing wildly dramatic.
When he was in agreement with Zhou Ying's business ventures, he would be so encouraging that he would throw in Wu Weiquan's money with his own, as a show of his support. But when he didn't agree with Zhou Ying's business ventures, he would basically pull the rug from underneath her. I just felt that the way he was written had no nuance. He was either 100% with or against.
Wu Weiwu died after having an argument with his son Wu Ze. Basically he felt that Wu Ze wasn't respectful towards their family anymore. I wouldn't say that it was solely the argument, as Wu Weiwu was older at that point. But the argument definitely didn't help. To be honest, his death kind of came from nowhere and I didn't really feel much emotional impact because it didn't feel like I got emotional closure to Wu Weiwu's life or family life.
Wu Ze
Wu Ze was Wu Weiwu's elder son. He was friends with Zhao Baishi, and was trying to pass the imperial exams for a long time. He finaly did manage to pass the exams and left the story for a little while as he went away to fill an imperial post.
When Zhou Ying was being framed, Wu Ze and Wu Yi were the only two people speaking up for Zhou Ying but unfortunately, they were not able to sway anyone else.
Towards the end, Wu Ze's political views had him in trouble. I wasn't really paying attention to his story line so I don't remember exactly what it was that forced him to go into hiding. He briefly came back at the end to protect the Emperor but was stopped and ultimately left having done nothing. This part in which he came back was super random and unnecessary and again, part of the show's attempt to make the political angle the most important.
Wu Yi
Wu Yi was Wu Weiwu's younger daughter. At first, she and Zhou Ying were close friends. Zhou Ying was the only woman in the Wu family that was around her age, so Wu Yi was naturally drawn to her, and she found her fun as well.
Wu Yi also had a rivalry with Qianhong, whom she looked down on for having worked as an entertainer. But they later grew closer as Wu Yi turned to her for help in getting Zhao Baishi to marry her.
Wu Yi really started to become an unlikeable character after she (and we) realized that Zhao Baishi was in love with Zhou Ying. She basically tricked Zhao Baishi into thinking he had raped her when drunk, and because he was serious and had a strong sense of honour, he came over to propose soon afterwards. During their marriage, he was still a bit cold to Wu Yi, though Wu Yi tried her best to cater to all of his needs. I won't say that Wu Yi is completely as fault as clearly Zhao Baishi had never shown her any tenderness.
But Wu Yi really crossed the line when she planted evidence in Zhou Ying's room. The wife of Zhang Changqing had assured her that doing so would only result in a slap on the wrist for Zhou Ying and that at least it would be retribution for getting so close to Zhao Baishi.
As we know, that did not happen. Zhou Ying was left traumatized and Shen Xingyi dead (though we later found out that he was alive, which frankly cheapened the entire ordeal in my opinion :/). Wu Yi realized that she had crossed the line and she spent the rest of the drama trying to atone. She would make food for Zhou Ying and Zhou Ying would send it back every time.
Wu Yi also came clean to Zhao Baishi about how she had tricked him into marrying her and that she had done what she'd done to Zhou Ying out of ugly jealousy, as well as owning up to her mistakes.
Wu Yi had a miscarriage and on her deathbed, Zhou Ying forgave her. I felt like this forgiveness was a little cheap since Zhou Ying only did so because Wu Yi was dying. It would have been more satisfying for Zhou Ying to actually have accepted her apology before death had befallen her.
Anyway, I don't fault the writers for wanting to put Wu Yi through shit, but I felt that her ending wasn't that emotionally satisfying.
Wu Weishuang
Wu Weishuang was the third uncle. We didn't know too much about him, as he was kind of an accessory (at least a plot accessory) to his wife Liu Wan'er, who was the real first villain.
Liu Wan'er
Liu Wan'er was a greedy woman, always caring for money and power. Near the beginning of the drama, we saw that she was always getting Madame Zheng to recognize Wu Yu as her son, whether formal or informal. She was doing this to try to accumulate power.
Anyway, Liu Wan'er was working together with Sun Yongchuan to embezzle money from one of the stores. They were cousins, and originally betrothed to one another. However, Wu Weishuang had proposed, bringing with him a lot of money, and so Liu Wan'er married him instead.
Wan'er got Sun Yongchuan the job as the storekeeper, and promised him that after they'd accumulated enough money, they'd leave forever. As the story went on, we saw that Wan'er never had an intention to leave. She loved money too much. In addition, it was wild to me that she would leave her adult son. It just didn't seem like something that she would do, not when she had a life so lofty.
When Wu Pin got too close to finding out the embezzlement, she and Yongchuan worked to have him poisoned. And when Zhou Ying got too close to the truth, she was framed and nearly killed though she survived. Lastly, Wu Weiwu asked to review the books, at which point, Wan'er told Sun Yongchuan to burn the store to destroy the evidence, and had sent him a jug of poisoned wine, though he never drank it.
Sun Yongchuan came clean to Zhao Baishi who went to arrest Wu Weishuang and Liu Wan'er at their party. At the party, all her crimes had been revealed. Wu Weishuang was upset that his wife had been cheating him all these years, and so he killed her and then himself.
Sun Yongchuan
Sun Yongchuan had always been under Wan'er's spell. She got him the job as the manager of the pawn shop, and it was under her direction that he would steal money. If he really used his brain, I think it would have been easy to see that Wan'er was too comfortable living the rich life to want to leave with him, but he was in love and listened to her every move.
After Sun Yongchuan skipped town, Zhou Ying had him followed, and then had her helpers to basically manipulate him into believing that Wan'er had turned on him. She'd already given him poisoned wine, but Zhou Laosi and Zhou Ying's other underlings pretended to be assassins sent by Wan'er.
Afterwards, Sun Yongchuan went to Zhao Baishi and revealed everything to him, both the embezzling and the murder and attempted murder.
Wu Yu
Wu Yu was the son of Wu Weishuang and Liu Wan'er. As mentioned, at the beginning of the drama, his parents were always trying to promote him to Wu Weiwen and Madame Zheng, trying to get him in their good books.
Of course, he was insanely shaken up by the murder and suicide of his parents. What kid wouldn't, with parents like that? He left on his own after the debacle.
However, Zhou Ying later found him in Xinjiang, where he was cheating people while using the Wu family name. He showed resentment towards Zhou Ying, as he believed that she had caused his parents' death, though we know that's not true. His mom was cheating his dad from day one, Zhou Ying was just the one to uncover it. Anyway, Wu Yu was captured, but when offered a deal to return, he did not take it.
Wu Weiquan
Wu Weiquan was the fourth uncle of the Wu family. He was very superstitious, and didn't trust Zhou Ying on the basis that she was supposedly a bad omen. But as expected, he did warm up to her over time.
Wu Yucheng/Wu Huaixian
Wu Huaixian was born Wu Yucheng, the grandson of Wu Weiquan. As Wu Pin and Zhou Ying had no heirs, they had no son to continue the business of the eastern yard. Zhou Ying had planned to leave the Wu family, but her mother-in-law would only let her do so if she chose a son from among the other children to carry on their family bloodline.
A competition was held among the boys, and Wu Yucheng clearly did not want to play. He would always find some alternative way to answer the question or complete the task. While his grandparents saw him as being disobedient and lawless, Zhou Ying saw that as creativity, and saw him as a reflection of herself and Zhou Laosi.
Zhou Ying chose Yucheng to continue her family business, and renamed him Wu Huaixian, as it was a name that she and Wu Pin had agreed on when they were still alive.
At first, Huaixian really hated the eastern yard because Zhou Ying was so strict with him. We saw that she taught him using some of the lessons that Wu Weiwen had taught her. In some ways, she was more strict than other parents, and in some ways, she was more lenient.
After being accused of stealing, Huaixian ran away from home, and Zhou Ying saved him, after which point he became incredibly loyal to her. That being said, the stealing was never really addressed >.>
The drama ended with Wu Huaixian leaving for Japan, and promising to return, though I feel like Zhou Ying wasn't counting on it because everybody she loved had left.
Chunxing
Chunxing was a servant in the Wu household. When Zhou Ying first arrived, they acted as friends, peers. After Zhou Ying got married to Wu Pin, Chunxing seemed really happy about treating Zhou Ying as a shaonainai. Part of it might have been that she knew how much Wu Pin liked Zhou Ying and she just wanted them to be one happy family.
Chunxing was unfailingly loyal to Zhou Ying, even risking her life when they were captured by the bandits.
I really thought that we were going to get a romantic subplot with Chunxing with Fulai, and I think it would have been really cute, but alas, that was one thing we did not get v.v
Fulai
Fulai was originally Wu Pin's manservant. After his death, he served Zhou Ying with just as much loyalty.
Fulai was there when Shen Xingyi had attacked Wu Pin, and had brought up his suspicions of Shen Xingyi when they were travelling to Xinjiang.
Other than that, he was mostly a moral support character, but that's not bad. I thought he and Chunxing were so cute as Zhou Ying's cheerleaders :3
Zhang Ma
Zhang Ma was Madame Zheng's servant. At first, she was just as disapproving of Zhou Ying as everybody else. After she'd been cleared of her crimes, Zhang Ma was noticeably more trusting of her. She'd agreed to steal money from Madame Zheng for Zhou Ying to invest, trusting that she'd do good with the money. Zhou Ying had agreed to take on the blame if Madame Zheng found out, which low key led to funny shenaniganery.
Anyway, later in the show, we saw that she and Zhou Laosi had a little something-something going on. They were chatting a lot, both being in the eastern courtyard and all. Zhou Laosi had even told her things that he hadn't told her own daughter, like how he didn't actually wanted to leave (but probably needed to leave for a bit before he stayed).
Baolai
Baolai was a servant in the Wu household, and was Wan'er's nephew. He was one of the main culprits in framing Zhou Ying. He'd drugged up Wang Shijun with aphrodisiac and locked Zhou Ying in a room with him. Then he'd falsified testimony against her.
When Zhou Ying came back for revenge, he was the first person that she targeted, and he folded so fast. Zhou Ying pretended to be a ghost, and frightened him into revealing everything. Last we heard of him, he'd gone completely mad.
Han Sanchun
Han Sanchun was originally a bandit. We met him as Niu Shouwa, his right-hand man, had gotten a job to kidnap Zhou Ying (and had kidnapped Shen Xingyi as well).
As Zhao Baishi cornered him in, Zhou Ying cut a deal with him that she'd give him some shares of her family business, in order to convince him to give up being a bandit. In the end, he acquiesced.
Han Sanchun hung around the Wu family eastern courtyard as a bodyguard. Like most of the other men, he was also unfailingly loyal to her.
Qianhong
We first met Qianhong when Zhou Ying had arrived at the Shen family household. Apparently Shen Xingyi had promised to marry her and she was here to cash in on the promise but for obvious reasons was not being let in. The next time we saw her, she was back to working as an entertainer. She and Zhou Ying butted heads a bit, but not too much.
The third time we met Qianhong, she was married to Han Sanchun. It was not a glamorous lifestyle, but others noted that Han Sanchun seemed to really love her and care for her (this is questionable as I had seen no signs of this and I'm not sure how others had come to this conclusion). Anyway, upon seeing that Zhou Ying and Shen Xingyi had been kidnapped, she wasted no time in giving Shen Xingyi a piece of her mind.
When she and Han Sanchun were first set up to live at the eastern courtyard, others looked down on her for her former profession. Zhou Ying's mother-in-law didn't like having a bandit and an entertainer around, and Wu Yi was downright rude.
Zhou Ying first tried to diffuse the situation by tying her and Qianhong together as sisters. This was an attempt by Zhou Ying to get Wu Yi to recognize her as a sister too, though the point here was that Qianhong was the older sister, so Wu Yi as Zhou Ying's younger sister should have shown her respect by calling her older sister as well.
Qianhong was the one who gave Wu Yi tips on how to trap Zhao Baishi into marrying her. Honestly, I'm surprised that nothing ever came back to Qianhong. Though Wu Yi was the one who did it, Qianhong was the one with the ideas. I would have expected something to show that Qianhong understood that what she did was not appropriate.
Qianhong was also a huge proponent of love, and again encouraged Zhou Ying to be with Shen Xingyi >.> No comment.
By the end of the drama, we saw that Qianhong was pregnant, and even though pregnant, she'd offered to sign up for Zhou Ying's girls' school to learn how to read and write better.
I actually found Niki Chow's portrayal of Qianhong to be pretty fun and refreshing. I've only seen her in a handful of TVB dramas, most notably being The Gentle Crackdown, but this drama reminded me how much fun she can be.
Wang Erhu
Erhu was an orphan boy that Zhou Ying had met on the streets. They'd met once when he'd stolen food for his mother and brother. The second time they'd met, Zhou Ying had married Wu Pin, and Erhu's family members had died. Zhou Ying and Wu Pin gave him money for proper burials for his faily, and Wu Pin had intended on finding some work for Erhu but couldn't find him.
We later met him at the bandits' hideout. He'd been taken in by Han Sanchun. In return for Zhou Ying's previous kindness to him, he'd tried to help her escape from the bandits but failed.
After the bandit story arc was finished, Erhu became part of Zhou Ying's posse lol.
Wang Shijun
Wang Shijun was a student at the Wu family academy, and later became Zhou Ying's right hand man. He was a serious man, which I thought was kind of a fun contrast to Zhou Ying.
They first met when Zhou Ying asked Wang Shijun to pass a message to her father, though at that point her father had already skipped town. When Zhou Ying married Wu Pin and was freaked out by how formal everybody was being ot her, he was the only one who retained their former friendly relationship since he realized that she was more comfortable with that.
Wang Shijun was drugged with aphrodisiac and framed into being an adulterer (with Zhou Ying). I'm not really sure that that's how aphrodisiac works, but whatever. He was forced by Liu Wan'er into confessing that he was in an adulterous relationship with Zhou Ying, and that he had stolen items from Wu Pin's office to be pawned, because his mother was being held hostage. However, he thought that Zhou Ying would just be kicked out of the household and not killed.
He escaped with his life, but he returned and went to Zhao Baishi and confessed everything. Afterwards, he was of course very apologetic to Zhou Ying who forgave him and made him her right hand man in the business.
I was so worried that Wang Shijun was going to be turned into a love interest and I love that he wasn't. I just like him as the serious businessman :3
Jiang Fuqi
Jiang Fuqi was another former student of the Wu family academy. At the beginning, he was at odds with Zhou Ying, but Zhou Ying bridged the gap by being bros. He later agreed to be Zhou Ying's accountant (initially agreeing to work for no money!! no!!!), and he stayed with Zhou Ying through to the end.
Shen Xingyi
This fucking guy. He had no business being as major of a character as he was. You could say he had close to no impact on the story line relating to the family businesses. And much of the family drama was stirred up because he would not let go of marrying Zhou Ying.
Shen Xingyi would have been fine if he remained a villain. I personally expected him to remain a friend. After what had happened, after how he'd attacked the Shen family, I can't think of why Zhou Ying would want to be with him. Not for his winning personality, at least.
And yet I was proven wrong. The drama intended for Shen Xingyi's persistence to be romantic, but it really wasn't, not when his family was coming over and making Zhou Ying's life hell.
Listen, I was perfectly fine with Shen Xingyi learning to be a better man. After Zhou Ying had called him useless, he was like "...I am...useless?" and that's when he actually started trying to help out his family business. Along the way, he started being kinder to people, like saving that girl who was being sold as a servant by her uncle.
But one thing that Shen Xingyi never learned was that you can't always have what you want in life. He wanted to have Zhou Ying at the cost of everyone around him, his own family, Zhou Ying's family, Zhou Ying herself. Being with Shen Xingyi was more trouble than it was worth in my opinion.
Anyway, Xingyi barely made a dent in the business story line because he was so incompetent in business, and that just made him feel so unnecessary to the story.
When Zhou Ying was framed and arrested due to some apparent misdealings with her cloth factory, Xingyi promised his father that this would be the last time he'd do anything for Zhou Ying. He ended up dying in the ordeal after trying to save her, getting arrested, and then dying in jail. EXCEPT HE WASN'T!! I was so annoyed when I found out that he was still alive! I was so done with him! Him still being alive also kind of cheapened Zhou Ying's ordeal because she was so traumatized, with Xingyi's supposed death being one of the events that led her to believe that maybe she really was an omen.
After Xingyi returned, his story became more of a political one. Before he'd left, he was already forming some new thoughts about how society should be run. After he returned from Japan, he became a teacher, spreading his thoughts about how China could be modified.
Of course, we got some romance angst >.> It was kind of bullshit but Xingyi basically acted like a douche to try to push Zhou Ying away and it was so painful seeing Zhou Ying look all desperate because she had never been desperate like that for anything, not even for when her father died >.> Shen Xingyi did not deserve this. So between Xingyi coming and going, there was a lot of angst.
During this period of time, there was a conversation in which it was said that Xingyi had changed his name to protect his family, and now he was returning from Japan for his family. But to be honest, I've never seen Xingyi as having done a single thing for his family. He'd always been a headache to his father. Like, I literally can't think of any large event in which he didn't create more problems with his father. He changed his name because HE had fucked up and he needed to stay on the down low.
Anway, Xingyi came and went so many times in the last few episodes that none of those meetings felt meaningful anymore, no matter how many times we were told it was "the last time."
He'd left Zhou Ying some literature on starting a school for girls, which Zhou Ying put a lot of thought into doing. When she first opened the school, she said that she wasn't really sure why she needed to open a girls' school, which made me facepalm so hard. I hated that her agency was being taken over by Xingyi's big grand vision. By the end, she had a better answer, but god, what a bad way to start.
Xingyi returned for the last time in order to assassinate the Emperor. However, his plan didn't work as he was found out by too many people. In the end, he sacrificed himself and was killed. This death felt cheap because he'd already died once, and also because the goodbyes had been milked far too much that none of them felt meaningful to me anymore.
Shen Xingyi, truly a nuisance.
Shen Sihai
Shen Sihai was one of the main villains. He believed that Wu Pin had killed his son Shen Yuesheng and afterwards the two families became enemies.
He had gotten revenge on the Wu family by working with Du Mingli to frame Wu Weiwen, and he succeeded in having him killed. Throughout the course of the drama, he was always being controlled by Du Mingli. Shen Xingyi saw that it was a bad idea, but Shen Sihai had already thrown his entire lot in with Du Mingli.
By the end of the drama, Zhou Ying had gotten revenge on the Shen family by basically ruining their business. But she lent money to them anyway because she felt for the people who worked for the business.
Shen Sihai also found out that it was Zha Kun who'd killed Yuesheng and he of course was kicking himself for having worked so hard for Du Mingli.
Side note, shen Shen Sihai was super troubled towards the end of the drama, his wife said that she'd stick by his side etc etc. To be honest, his wife didn't really have much of a personality throughout the drama so all of this just felt kind of hollow.
Even though Zhou Ying was (relatively) lenient on Shen Sihai, the law caught up with him, and he was executed.
Shen Yuesheng
Shen Yuesheng was the older of the Shen family sons. He was more responsible and more in tune with the ways of the business. He'd gotten killed by Zha Kun when he'd bumped into him in the Wu family storeroom, where Zha Kun was planting faulty inventory. And his death kickstarted the events of the drama.
Linglong
Linglong was Shen Xingyi's servant girl. It was a little painful how loyal she was to Shen Xingyi, because he had zero appreciation for her. After Shen Xingyi had left home, she'd come to find him and Shen Xingyi had told him that he wanted her to live a good life, but at that point, his political views were still kind of half-baked and so his point didn't really make its way across.
Hu Zhicun
Hu Zhicun was a good friend of Wu Weiwen's, and their children were betrothed to one another. After Wu Pin had been hit on the head and fallen into a coma, the doctor had said that he might have had a chance of waking up if he'd gotten married (i.e. having sex). However, Du Mingli liked Hu Yongmei and didn't want her to marry Wu Pin, so he convinced Hu Zhicun that the Wu family was going to be destroyed so that he wouldn't let her marry.
The second time that Du Mingli came around, he told Hu Zhicun that Wu Weiwen was going to frame him. Hu Zhicun even said that Du Mingli had caused him trouble the last time he came around and yet he still listened to him!
Hu Zhicun struck me as a cowardly man, easily swayed. The problem was that he was not smart or hardy. He didn't know how to protect himself let alone his daughter.
In the end, he died in a cowardly manner. He'd talked with his daughter about how they'd spend their lives together away from all this mess, and then he committed suicide, leaving his daughter alone.
Hu Yongmei
Hu Yongmei was the daughter of Hu Zhicun, a young lady. At the beginning of the drama, she was shown to be very proper and sweet. (Admittedly, I found Myolie Wu's acting a little cringey at this point because she just didn't fit the cute and innocent look no matter how much she tried to twist her face.)
After Wu Pin married Zhou Ying, he was very frazzled, and of course, she blamed it all on Zhou Ying. We later found out that she had tried to poison Zhou Ying but was unsuccessful.
Despite being a mean girl, Hu Yongmei did also go through some shit, as her father had been arrested indefinitely and being all alone, Hu Yongmei had no one to ask for help except for Wu Weiwen. Unfortunately, Wu Weiwen could not help her because he realized that he was the target here.
After her father died, Hu Yongmei took on the mantle of her family business, but at the back of her mind, she always wanted to get revenge on Zhou Ying. Her main pillar of support was Du Mingli, whom she thought was helping her out of gratitude for when she'd given him a little bit of food as a child. We saw that Du Mingli was completely enamoured with her, to the point of delusion.
Despite Du Mingli's crush on her, he had also used her. And when her business failed, she'd pleaded with him for help. Though he used to help her again and again, at this point in the drama, he had to cut her off.
Hu Yongmei was confronted by Zhou Ying at Wu Pin's grave, where she confessed to poisoning Wu Pin. She'd then tried to attack Zhou Ying but attacked Zhou Laosi instead, and then she committed suicide.
As a villain, she was actually kind of interesting. Two ladies of their respective houses, in a battle of business minds? Very spicy.
Du Mingli
Yu Haoming is so good at playing villains, much kudos to him. Du Mingli was definitely an interesting villain for sure. He was working on behalf of a prince, though it's clear that he worked even more for his own personal interests.
He lived on the streets as a child and was offered food by Hu Yongmei once, but he credited most of his survival to himself. He learned to survive i life by being extremely cutthroat.
At the beginning, Du Mingli had fabricated conflict between the Shen and Wu families. Afterwards, he "helped" the Shen family take revenge, and the Shen family, who was "indebted" to him, essentially became the piggy bank for him and the prince.
Towards the end of the drama, as his allies were falling, he fell as well, not having any money or any business to keep him going. What's interesting is that I can't remember the last time that Du Mingli and Zhou Ying met face to face before their last meeting. Was that the only time they met? I can't quite remember. Anyway, after Zhou Ying had hinted that she was onto him (with regards to the deaths of her family members), Du Mingli went home and told Zha Kun that they had to dip. Unfortunately, before they could, they were caught by the right-hand man of the prince, who I think wanted to question him for questionable business dealings. At that point, Zha Kun and Du Mingli tried to fight off the guards but Zha Kun died.
Du Mingli was arrested by Zhao Baishi. He was given the opportunity to kill Zhang Changqing, which he did, and then killed himself.
Zha Kun
Zha Kun was Du Mingli's servant, but in private, we saw that they spoke candidly with one another.
I already made a post about Zha Kun and Du Mingli's codependence here, but basically, I loved how their relationship humanized them. Du Mingli was technically the boss, but in private, he very much was not, and Zha Kun talked shit about him to his face all the time. Du Mingli was cutthroat about everything except for Hu Yongmei, and Zha Kun was always there to remind him to back off, as he could only see this ending poorly for Du Mingli.
Zha Kun was also essentially Du Mingli's muscle, though he often acted rashly. He hadn't intended to kill Shen Yuesheng but since he'd been caught planting the faulty inventory, he had to kill Shen Yuesheng.
In the end, when things were going badly, Du Mingli's instinctive reaction was not to cull Zha Kun (which was the more cutthroat option) but to run away with Zha Kun together. It's clear that these two had a really close relationship, and saw each other as life companions. Neither of them could have biological families of their own, and they were both such cutthroat people. Only they could understand the other v.v
In the end, Zha Kun died trying to protect Du Mingli.
Zhao Baishi
Zhao Baishi was the local official. At first, I was amused by Zhao Baishi's no-nonsense attitude. We could always rely on him to be fair and just.
That changed when it was revealed that Zhao Baishi liked Zhou Ying. We saw this when Zhou Ying had sworn never to take another husband, and Zhao Baishi's nails had dug into his hands so hard that he was bleeding. It just felt so cheap to me for Zhao Baishi to only be acceptable as an ally because he was in love with her. He even said that he admired her. That can be platonic!!!
Zhao Baishi had saved Wu Yi from the bandits, believing that he was saving Zhou Ying. In any case, Wu Yi had fallen in love with him and struggled to get him to notice her. She got tips from Qianhong to trap him, and trap him she did. He came over to propose of his own volition, but we saw that he did not show Wu Yi any love or affection. He'd come home tired but when Zhou Ying came over, he'd pop right back up.
When Zhou Ying had been arrested, she and Zhao Baishi had become sworn siblings, which I thought was a good thing. I thought that would have stopped Zhao Baishi from trying to pull anything but we saw that that didn't happen >.> ugh.
Zhao Baishi was angry at Wu Yi for framing Zhou Ying, but he ultimately forgave her when he realized that he'd been neglectful towards her. She'd been pregnant at the time of her death, so I guess they were at least intimate at the time.
Zhao Baishi and Shen Xingyi had some correspondences towards the end and Xingyi had told Zhao Baishi to take care of Zhou Ying for life, which he then took to mean proposing to her >.> Everybody was very encouraging of her, saying that she needed someone to take care of her. I am so glad that Zhou Ying said no, jesus christ. These two have no romantic chemistry together. Zhou Ying would never be able to see him as anything more than a bro.
Zhao Baishi, good character in a vacuum. I love his no-nonsense attitude. But the way his romance was handled, big yikes.
Zhang Changqing
Zhang Changqing was Zhao Baishi's teacher, who ended up being kind of a snake, and had influenced Wu Yi to betray Zhou Ying. Zhao Baishi turned his back on his teacher after he found out what he'd done. At the end of the drama, he tried to get back into Zhao Baishi's good books by telling him about having Du Mingli in his custody. In the end, Du Mingli killed him.
Tu'erdan
Tu'erdan was a business owner in Xinjiang. He was initially angry with Zhou Ying for being cheated in business. After Zhou Ying showed that it was Wu Yu who'd cheated him, everything was fine and they were friends.
Except later when Tuerdan came to visit Zhou Ying in Jingyang, he'd come to propose, which angered Wu Weiwu and Wu Weiquan, and also shocked Zhou Ying.
At one point, Zhou Ying said that Tu'erdan's words had moved her, and yet Shen Xingyi's did not at all. Which is ironic since the story really tried to push Zhou Ying and Shen Xingyi as a couple. In the end, Zhou Ying rejected the proposal, to which Tu'erdan said was fine, but they couldn't be friends, because he'd feel hurt.
God, this was such a cringe romantic subplot. The romance literally came from nowhere. Unnecessary.
Father Joseph
Joseph was the Western priest that Zhou Ying befriended. They first met when a man had dropped in the middle of the street, probably due to low blood sugar. Apparently Wu Pin had that problem too where he'd fall ill often and so Zhou Ying asked Joseph for some of the medicine (though I didn't recall Wu Pin fainting like that until after Zhou Ying got the medicine...).
When Zhou Ying was trying to expand the cloth business, she went to Joseph for help on what Western looms were like. And later on, Zhou Ying had gotten his help when the manual for their second-hand loom was all in another language.
Among the Chinese workers, there were many who feared Westerners and thought they might have evil powers and such. Zhou Ying never had such fear, and she bridged such gaps between Joseph and her workers.
It was Father Joseph who told her that arsenic poisoning shouldn't lead in nosebleeds and so if Wu Pin had a nosebleed upon death, he probably hadn't been poisoned by arsenic, which was what Hu Yongmei had used.
Upon Father Joseph's departure from China, Zhou Ying had asked if she could have the world map, which she'd become enamoured with her first time at his chapel.
Themes
Cultural change
There was an undercurrent of cultural change during the drama, particularly when it came to Zhou Ying trying to introduce Western machines into the family's cloth business. There was still a fear of all things Western, and Zhou Ying's theory was that there's no harm in learning the things that will bring good to their society.
I didn't love when the story bled into the Anti-Qing reformist movement, mostly because politics had always been an undercurrent, and I didn't want the story to be focused on that. In addition, Shen Xingyi was the character in the story that represented this social change, and I can't say I have a good impression of him at all. I wasn't convinced that he was a changed man who believed for equality for all, not when he couldn't even protect his own family.
I think showing cultural exchanges through business was by far a more interesting and impactful way of showing synergy.
Feminism
This is kind of a given as Zhou Ying was a woman playing a man's game. At first, she couldn't even get into the Wu family academy. She was only let in to clean. And granted, she only got to where she was with her father-in-law's help. She would not have been listened to if she hadn't gotten the family seal from her father-in-law.
Towards the end, Shen Xingyi had given her some literature on starting a girls' school. Representing feminism in this way fell flat as Shen Xingyi was the mastermind of this project and Zhou Ying was doing this for him instead of for her own beliefs. As I mentioned, even her opening speech was wtf-worthy. It ended better, but man, why did you have to make this about Shen Xingyi when it really wasn't?
Overall
Overall, this was a great drama, very entertaining, well-paced, well-acted, and terrific costumes and set. But please do not pay too much attention to the romantic subplots because they will squeeze the life out of you in the bad way. The romance did not feel meaningful at all, especially since our love interest(s) were either very toxic (Shen Xingyi) or had basically no romantic interaction with Zhou Ying other than straight up proposing (Zhao Baishi and Tu'erdan).