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Review: Scarlet Heart (步步驚心) (2011)
This drama started off interesting. It had that old school Cdrama feel that we don't get so often now. Things were well paced.
However, the story soon became very heavy on the romance, of the Mary Sue variety. The politics was a background story, but specifically what irked me was that our main character was so involved in the entire story without having much of an impact on anything.
I normally don't like romance dramas, and I came into this drama hoping it would have some politics dramas. As a politics drama, I would not recommend it. As a romance drama, the Mary Sue stuff kind of put me off.
Spoilers.
Story
The story was a time travel/transmigration story about our main character, Zhang Xiao, finding herself in the body of a Qing Dynasty lady by the name of Ma'ertai Ruoxi. Ruoxi was the younger sister of a concubine of the 8th prince.
In the first third of the drama or so, Ruoxi started to strike up a romance with the 8th prince. However, there was always some lingering tension between her and the 4th prince.
Ruoxi became an imperial maid, serving the Emperor Kangxi himself. He came to like her very much, probably seeing her as a daughter.
Due to her knowledge of history, Ruoxi knew the 8th prince would die by the 4th prince's hand, and she wanted him not to get engaged in politics. The 8th prince wanted to pursue the throne, and for that reason, Ruoxi broke it off with him. For the rest of the drama, Ruoxi's romance was with the 4th prince, whom we know to be Yongzheng, the next emperor after Kangxi.
There was some politics about Yongzheng's right to the throne. In popular culture, Yongzheng's ascension was known to be iffy, and that perhaps the emperor had intended to pass on the throne to the 14th prince, but the fact of the matter was that Yongzheng ascended.
Ruoxi remained a palace maid even though she and Yongzheng were madly in love. Things started getting dramatic for them when Yongzheng became more and more ruthless.
Towards the end of the drama, Ruoxi decided to marry the 14th prince, as Kangxi had intended, just to escape the palace. But soon she regretted it and yearned for him.
At the end of the drama, Ruoxi died of illness, and Yongzheng arrived too late to see her. She was then transported back to her life as Zhang Xiao in the modern age, where she retained all of her memories of her time in the Qing Dynasty. She went to an exhibition on the Qing Dynasty and found likenesses of the princes in pictures, which confirmed to her that she had actually time travelled. At the exhibition, she bumped into a man who looked exactly like Yongzheng, but he didn't know her.
As mentioned, this was a big Mary Sue story. Ruoxi was a tomboy who hated rules, and that made her stand out in the palace. After she settled down, she became the best palace maid ever, going as far as the very top, to serve Kangxi himself.
Ruoxi also had very good friendships and relationships with many of the major princes in the story: 4, 8, 10, 13, and 14. And they would all do anything for her. That much for a palace maid? She is a lady, but still. Is she really that important to them?
Ruoxi was a Mary Sue in that she was always self-sacrificing, she was great friends with everybody, she was the kindest, the most emotionally intelligent, etc. Nothing was wrong with her except maybe when she was a tomboy but she straightened out very soon into the drama.
And despite her involvement with the characters of the drama (all of the princes) it felt like her actions never really had that big of an impact? Yes, she did warn the princes of things that would happen which in turn made those things happen, but not in a super tangible way. The major politics stories had nothing to do with her (such as the 4th prince's ascencion).
The romance itself was iffy. I didn't find it romantic. It might just be because Wu Qilong and Liu Shishi's on screen chemistry didn't work out for me. (I know they got married but that doesn't mean they're great actors)
I was also very confused that Ruoxi was so angered by Yongzheng's cruelty. She knew this! If everything else in history happened in front of her eyes, did she think she would turn Yongzheng into the kindest emperor ever? Did she think he could rule as well as he did if he turned soft?
I could see why this drama might have been popular as it scratched an itch (normal girl getting to know all of these famous princes and rubbing elbows with them) but oof, it did not scratch mine.
Production
I will say that the costumes and set were solid. That was one of the main reasons that I kept going in this drama. At the very least, I could look at cute costumes.
I did have a pet peeve about Chenghuan's voice actor. It was very clearly an adult trying to do a cutesy child voice and it was so irritating. They should have just recorded the girl's own voice. A kid doing bad voice acting would have been less irritating.
Otherwise, the editing of this drama was very much romance-leaning, with the pop music playing any time anything vaguely romantic and sad happened.
Characters
Ma'ertai Ruoxi/Zhang Xiao
Our main character. As mentioned, she started out as a tomboy. The rules were just too restrictive for her and she was always starting fights because she couldn't stand other women looking down on her and her sister.
Ruoxi was initially also reluctant to know the princes because knowing some basic history, they had reputations that made her wary.
She unwittingly fell in love with the 8th prince, and I think that was because he was kind to her. He did love her sister Ruolan, but Ruolan had a childhood love and therefore could never give her heart to him. So from a narrative morals standpoint it was okay I guess. As mentioned, Ruoxi knew that the 8th prince would die later so she wanted to get him to not get involved in vying for the throne, but he refused, and so she eventually broke it off.
During that time, she also sort of had a thing going on with the 4th prince. The other princes could sense the tension. In fact, I believe it was the 14th prince who berated her for leading on the 4th prince.
Anyway, she later accepted the 4th prince and they grew closer and closer. When their relationship went through trials and tribulations and she grew hot and cold, that's when I really gave up on her romance. Her romance with the 4th prince was kind of fun at first because he was so frigid and she was a feisty girl. But as mentioned, she got upset at him for seeing how cruel and rigid he was, and I'm like girl, you knew this. That was why you worried about him at the beginning. I guess she thought she could fix him.
She went through so much just to avoid getting married to the 14th prince, getting demoted and such. I'm not going to criticize her for marrying him eventually in the end. People can change their minds. But then she did and then very soon she regretted marrying the 14th prince. She spent the rest of her days feeling sorry for marrying the 14th prince. So it just continued that cycle of them getting mad at each other for...being the people they knew they were.
At the end of the drama, Ruoxi basically said that she was tired of this life and wanted to forget all of the sorrow that she went through. She woke up in Zhang Xiao's body and she kind of resumed her life, but couldn't forget, just as none of the princes could forget her after her death.
Anyway, Ruoxi/Zhang Xiao, a certified Mary Sue, but I guess Cdramas would not have been mature enough at this stage for people to recognize that as what it was. I'm saying that it might have felt fresh at the time, though I'm guessing the webnovel culture that this drama was based on might have been familiar with this genre already.
I'd only seen Liu Shishi in the Young Warriors before and she was not a great actress. In this drama, she was okay but like, I wasn't totally rapt with her. Her voice actor did most of the work for her to be honest.
Yongzheng/4th prince
Our ice prince. Right when Ruoxi met him, she was intimidated by him, though that might have partially been because she knew he was Yongzheng. Their "thing" was that since he'd saved her, she owed her life to him.
I think he just kind of found Ruoxi amusing. He gave her gifts and such. I think things really only took a turn until Ruoxi asked him if he would marry him (so that she wouldn't have to marry the Crown Prince). He refused, but because it was the wrong time politically. But that's when they started growing their romance.
4th prince's personality became more and more emperor-like as he got involved in more politics. The sticking point in Yongzheng's history (based on popular perception of him) was his ascencion. I believe in the Yongzheng Dynasty drama, the trick that he had used was to correct a word to change the ascension decree from the 14th prince to the 4th prince. Anyway, we had none of that here. It was just that the eunuch had announced that the 4th prince was to be emperor based on the emperor's last words. However, the eunuch who had doing the announcement was later killed by Yongzheng so who knows.
Anyway, Yongzheng was just kind of being himself while Ruoxi was wracking her brain for why he'd be like this. In the end, he was angry at her for marrying the 14th prince, and refused to see any of her letters, to the point that he didn't get to see her one last time before her death.
By the end of the drama, the only person who was left by his side was the 13th prince.
8th prince
8th prince was Ruoxi's brother-in-law, Ruolan's husband, though she wasn't in love with him. 8th prince also had a wife, Minghui. The deal was that 8th prince had spotted Ruolan and approached her family for her hand in marriage. Presumably that had caused a ruckus resulting in the death of Ruolan's beloved, and on the night she married the 8th prince, she was a sobbing mess. In any case, she never warmed up to him, only ever being courteous.
Meanwhile, Minghui was very devoted to the 8th prince, going so far as to asking Ruoxi to marry him since she knew how much he liked her, and would need her by his side if they were to support him in vying for the throne.
The 8th prince was sort of out of the picture for a long time when Ruoxi finally got with 4th prince. I mean, he was sort of a minor villain in that he butted heads with him, and Ruoxi knew that the 8th prince would die eventually due to some politics stuff.
Eventually, as stuff got tough, Minghui asked 8th prince to divorce him for the sake of their child, and then right after, she committed suicide as she was so devoted to him.
At the very end, Ruoxi saw 8th prince one last time, acknowledging that he still loved her, but she still went off and married 14th prince.
The 8th prince wanted to become a monk, but in the drama, he was locked up, and Ruoxi gave him a pill to take to commit suicide.
Kangxi/Emperor
Kangxi was the emperor, the father of the princes. We didn't really see him in a political capacity, or even his ruling style. We mostly saw him in the context of the father. He did have a role in the story to do with stripping the crown prince of his status, but otherwise, he didn't have a big present imo.
He grew to like Ruoxi very much as she was his palace maid. He wanted to marry her off to the 14th prince, which she rejected, and was demoted and sent away. However, she was eventually brought back in after she was snuck in to make snacks for the emperor and he recognized her cooking right away.
In the end, he died but who he said he'd pass the throne onto was kept secret.
10th prince
10th prince was a sort of...rowdy guy. Very rash and not a threat at all. Ruoxi found him amusing as almost like a younger brother.
He was betrothed to Mingyu very suddenly, which shocked Ruoxi, because the 10th prince very much did not like Mingyu at the time. Ruoxi was so upset that people thought it was because she liked the 10th prince.
He and Mingyu did have another romantic subplot, but it was very...pedestrian. They just had a fight and it grew extremely big so Ruoxi helped them reconcile and Mingyu and her became friends after that.
At the end of the drama, the 10th prince and Mingyu were happily married and had a baby.
b>13th prince
The 13th prince was always by the 4th prince's side. And he remained Ruoxi's friend throughout the drama.
The 13th prince had an ongoing romance with a lady of lowly origins called Lvwu. But considering her status, he would never be allowed to marry her. There was a subplot in which a Mongolian princess Minmin liked him, but he would not return his feelings.
There was also a part of the story where the 13th prince was falsely accused of something and was in jail for years. But after he came out he was like, back to normal.
The 13th prince and Lvwu had a daughter called Chenghuan. She was raised by the 4th prince for part of her life. And due to who her mother was, she was kind of looked down on, though Chenghuan would never know this as the adults in her life protected her. Ruoxi in particular was always very kind to her.
Anyway, the 13th prince's relationship with Chenghuan was sometimes kind of rocky, probably because he had never really quite gotten over the grief of losing her mother.
At the 13th prince died surrounded by the 4th prince and Chenghuan, the most important people to him.
14th prince
The 14th prince was blood brothers with the 4th prince, and had the same birth mother.
At first, he was protective of the 4th prince, at least when it came to the romance story line. He told off Ruoxi for leading the 4th prince on.
During the next course of the drama, the 14th prince became a very accomplished military officer, which of course made him look very good in the eyes of his father. When his father died, the 14th prince didn't even get to see him off for his funeral, and that left a bad taste in his mouth.
His mom was also very adamant that the emperor had told her he'd intended to make the 14th prince his successor, and because of that, she disowned the 4th prince. At this point, the 14th prince was still protective of the 4th prince, just wanting everyone to get along.
However, by the end of the drama, he had started to grow a bit bitter. Perhaps the 4th prince was suppressing his potential. I don't really know. And apparently, he did truly come to love Ruoxi after she married into his family.
Ma'ertai Ruolan
Ruolan was Ruoxi's older sister. She was always very kind and patient with her. When Ruoxi was always getting in trouble, it was always Ruolan who would protect her, though it did get to a certain point where Ruoxi had gone too far and Ruolan had totally grown cold to her. At this point Ruoxi knew that she had gone too far.
As mentioned, Ruolan had a childhood love whom she suspected was killed as collateral when the 8th prince had come for her hand in marriage.
She never showed hatred for the 8th prince, but she never showed anything more than politeness. She died during the drama.
Guoluomeng Minghui
Minghui was the 8th prince's main wife. At first, she was very threatened by Ruolan, seeing as how the 8th prince did pay special attention to her.
Over time, Minghui came to show courtesy the sisters as she understood that they supported the 8th prince.
There was a part later in the drama when Minghui realized that Ruoxi had said some things to the 8th prince that was leading to his demise, and she used this to threaten Ruoxi. So she had kind of turned back to a villain then, but you knew where she was coming from. She was just looking out for her husband.
When things were looking really bad for the 8th prince, Minghui begged the prince to divorce her. At first, I thought this was supposed to show why she was a Bad Wife or something yucky like that. But she committed suicide afterwards. So I guess what she said was true, that she was just doing this for their child Hongwang. I am kind of confused though, why would Hongwang follow her and not his father?
Anyway, Ruoxi and the 13th prince had to scream some sense into the 8th prince to tell him how much Minghui loved him but by the time he found her she was already engulfed in a burning building.
Guoluomeng Mingyu
Mingyu was initially Ruoxi's nemesis. Their sisters were rivals so naturally they were too. Mingyu was married off to the 10th prince despite not really liking him.
Their rivalry quieted down when Ruoxi was advised to keep a low profile to avoid the eye of the emperor (though that literally did nothing as Ruoxi grew close or became known with like all of the men in the royal family).
Mingyu and Ruoxi became friends when Ruoxi helped her marriage with the 10th prince by fabricating a big event that had Mingyu and the 10th prince finally becoming one united unit.
At one point, Mingyu asked Ruoxi for help. Ruoxi could only do so much, but she showed much sympathy for Mingyu, as a woman in the palace whose hands were always tied.
Princess Minmin
Minmin was a Mongolian princess who was very friendly. She took a liking to the 13th prince, and she became friends with Ruoxi very fast.
Minmin liked the 13th prince, but he did not love her back. It was Ruoxi who explained to her that she should find someone who loves her back in order to have a happy marriage, and Minmin heeded her words, letting go of the 13th prince.
Qiaohui
Qiaohui was Ruolan's servant, later becoming Ruoxi's servant after Ruolan's death. She was your typical loyal servant character. And after Ruoxi died, she went on to become Chenghuan's servant.
Lvwu
Lvwu was the lady who the 13th prince had a relationship with. I don't remember if she was a courtesan.
Anyway, when the 13th prince was locked up, Ruoxi pleaded for Lvwu to be allowed to accompany him. Ruoxi had always liked Lvwu right from the beginning, right when she saw her. It was like love at first sight lol. Anyway, Lvwu remained loyal to the 13th prince and bore him a child, Chenghuan.
Understandably, her low status made things difficult for Chenghuan. She eventually committed suicide. The 13th prince did not know this, and I think he still held out hope that she was alive, but Ruoxi seemed to know that she was for sure dead.
Yutan
Yutan was a servant who served in the palace along with Ruoxi. They became very close, seeing each other as sisters. Yutan, like Qiaohui, was your typical extremely loyal servant.
Yutan was put to death by Yongzheng when he was emperor. Apparently Yutan had been a spy of the 9th prince all along. Nonetheless, Ruoxi still loved her very much.
Li Dequan
Li Dequan was Kangxi's eunuch. He was kind of an authority figure as he would outrank all other servants. Anyway, he was the eunuch who announced the 4th princea s the emperor, and eventually, was put to death by him.
Wang Xi
Wang Xi was a eunuch who saw Li Dequan as a teacher. Ruoxi was tight with him, and so he shared a lot of information with her.
Overall
This drama was mostly a romance drama, and I did get bored after about half way through. Not much politics here, unfortunately, with Mary Sue writing.
However, the story soon became very heavy on the romance, of the Mary Sue variety. The politics was a background story, but specifically what irked me was that our main character was so involved in the entire story without having much of an impact on anything.
I normally don't like romance dramas, and I came into this drama hoping it would have some politics dramas. As a politics drama, I would not recommend it. As a romance drama, the Mary Sue stuff kind of put me off.
Spoilers.
Story
The story was a time travel/transmigration story about our main character, Zhang Xiao, finding herself in the body of a Qing Dynasty lady by the name of Ma'ertai Ruoxi. Ruoxi was the younger sister of a concubine of the 8th prince.
In the first third of the drama or so, Ruoxi started to strike up a romance with the 8th prince. However, there was always some lingering tension between her and the 4th prince.
Ruoxi became an imperial maid, serving the Emperor Kangxi himself. He came to like her very much, probably seeing her as a daughter.
Due to her knowledge of history, Ruoxi knew the 8th prince would die by the 4th prince's hand, and she wanted him not to get engaged in politics. The 8th prince wanted to pursue the throne, and for that reason, Ruoxi broke it off with him. For the rest of the drama, Ruoxi's romance was with the 4th prince, whom we know to be Yongzheng, the next emperor after Kangxi.
There was some politics about Yongzheng's right to the throne. In popular culture, Yongzheng's ascension was known to be iffy, and that perhaps the emperor had intended to pass on the throne to the 14th prince, but the fact of the matter was that Yongzheng ascended.
Ruoxi remained a palace maid even though she and Yongzheng were madly in love. Things started getting dramatic for them when Yongzheng became more and more ruthless.
Towards the end of the drama, Ruoxi decided to marry the 14th prince, as Kangxi had intended, just to escape the palace. But soon she regretted it and yearned for him.
At the end of the drama, Ruoxi died of illness, and Yongzheng arrived too late to see her. She was then transported back to her life as Zhang Xiao in the modern age, where she retained all of her memories of her time in the Qing Dynasty. She went to an exhibition on the Qing Dynasty and found likenesses of the princes in pictures, which confirmed to her that she had actually time travelled. At the exhibition, she bumped into a man who looked exactly like Yongzheng, but he didn't know her.
As mentioned, this was a big Mary Sue story. Ruoxi was a tomboy who hated rules, and that made her stand out in the palace. After she settled down, she became the best palace maid ever, going as far as the very top, to serve Kangxi himself.
Ruoxi also had very good friendships and relationships with many of the major princes in the story: 4, 8, 10, 13, and 14. And they would all do anything for her. That much for a palace maid? She is a lady, but still. Is she really that important to them?
Ruoxi was a Mary Sue in that she was always self-sacrificing, she was great friends with everybody, she was the kindest, the most emotionally intelligent, etc. Nothing was wrong with her except maybe when she was a tomboy but she straightened out very soon into the drama.
And despite her involvement with the characters of the drama (all of the princes) it felt like her actions never really had that big of an impact? Yes, she did warn the princes of things that would happen which in turn made those things happen, but not in a super tangible way. The major politics stories had nothing to do with her (such as the 4th prince's ascencion).
The romance itself was iffy. I didn't find it romantic. It might just be because Wu Qilong and Liu Shishi's on screen chemistry didn't work out for me. (I know they got married but that doesn't mean they're great actors)
I was also very confused that Ruoxi was so angered by Yongzheng's cruelty. She knew this! If everything else in history happened in front of her eyes, did she think she would turn Yongzheng into the kindest emperor ever? Did she think he could rule as well as he did if he turned soft?
I could see why this drama might have been popular as it scratched an itch (normal girl getting to know all of these famous princes and rubbing elbows with them) but oof, it did not scratch mine.
Production
I will say that the costumes and set were solid. That was one of the main reasons that I kept going in this drama. At the very least, I could look at cute costumes.
I did have a pet peeve about Chenghuan's voice actor. It was very clearly an adult trying to do a cutesy child voice and it was so irritating. They should have just recorded the girl's own voice. A kid doing bad voice acting would have been less irritating.
Otherwise, the editing of this drama was very much romance-leaning, with the pop music playing any time anything vaguely romantic and sad happened.
Characters
Ma'ertai Ruoxi/Zhang Xiao
Our main character. As mentioned, she started out as a tomboy. The rules were just too restrictive for her and she was always starting fights because she couldn't stand other women looking down on her and her sister.
Ruoxi was initially also reluctant to know the princes because knowing some basic history, they had reputations that made her wary.
She unwittingly fell in love with the 8th prince, and I think that was because he was kind to her. He did love her sister Ruolan, but Ruolan had a childhood love and therefore could never give her heart to him. So from a narrative morals standpoint it was okay I guess. As mentioned, Ruoxi knew that the 8th prince would die later so she wanted to get him to not get involved in vying for the throne, but he refused, and so she eventually broke it off.
During that time, she also sort of had a thing going on with the 4th prince. The other princes could sense the tension. In fact, I believe it was the 14th prince who berated her for leading on the 4th prince.
Anyway, she later accepted the 4th prince and they grew closer and closer. When their relationship went through trials and tribulations and she grew hot and cold, that's when I really gave up on her romance. Her romance with the 4th prince was kind of fun at first because he was so frigid and she was a feisty girl. But as mentioned, she got upset at him for seeing how cruel and rigid he was, and I'm like girl, you knew this. That was why you worried about him at the beginning. I guess she thought she could fix him.
She went through so much just to avoid getting married to the 14th prince, getting demoted and such. I'm not going to criticize her for marrying him eventually in the end. People can change their minds. But then she did and then very soon she regretted marrying the 14th prince. She spent the rest of her days feeling sorry for marrying the 14th prince. So it just continued that cycle of them getting mad at each other for...being the people they knew they were.
At the end of the drama, Ruoxi basically said that she was tired of this life and wanted to forget all of the sorrow that she went through. She woke up in Zhang Xiao's body and she kind of resumed her life, but couldn't forget, just as none of the princes could forget her after her death.
Anyway, Ruoxi/Zhang Xiao, a certified Mary Sue, but I guess Cdramas would not have been mature enough at this stage for people to recognize that as what it was. I'm saying that it might have felt fresh at the time, though I'm guessing the webnovel culture that this drama was based on might have been familiar with this genre already.
I'd only seen Liu Shishi in the Young Warriors before and she was not a great actress. In this drama, she was okay but like, I wasn't totally rapt with her. Her voice actor did most of the work for her to be honest.
Yongzheng/4th prince
Our ice prince. Right when Ruoxi met him, she was intimidated by him, though that might have partially been because she knew he was Yongzheng. Their "thing" was that since he'd saved her, she owed her life to him.
I think he just kind of found Ruoxi amusing. He gave her gifts and such. I think things really only took a turn until Ruoxi asked him if he would marry him (so that she wouldn't have to marry the Crown Prince). He refused, but because it was the wrong time politically. But that's when they started growing their romance.
4th prince's personality became more and more emperor-like as he got involved in more politics. The sticking point in Yongzheng's history (based on popular perception of him) was his ascencion. I believe in the Yongzheng Dynasty drama, the trick that he had used was to correct a word to change the ascension decree from the 14th prince to the 4th prince. Anyway, we had none of that here. It was just that the eunuch had announced that the 4th prince was to be emperor based on the emperor's last words. However, the eunuch who had doing the announcement was later killed by Yongzheng so who knows.
Anyway, Yongzheng was just kind of being himself while Ruoxi was wracking her brain for why he'd be like this. In the end, he was angry at her for marrying the 14th prince, and refused to see any of her letters, to the point that he didn't get to see her one last time before her death.
By the end of the drama, the only person who was left by his side was the 13th prince.
8th prince
8th prince was Ruoxi's brother-in-law, Ruolan's husband, though she wasn't in love with him. 8th prince also had a wife, Minghui. The deal was that 8th prince had spotted Ruolan and approached her family for her hand in marriage. Presumably that had caused a ruckus resulting in the death of Ruolan's beloved, and on the night she married the 8th prince, she was a sobbing mess. In any case, she never warmed up to him, only ever being courteous.
Meanwhile, Minghui was very devoted to the 8th prince, going so far as to asking Ruoxi to marry him since she knew how much he liked her, and would need her by his side if they were to support him in vying for the throne.
The 8th prince was sort of out of the picture for a long time when Ruoxi finally got with 4th prince. I mean, he was sort of a minor villain in that he butted heads with him, and Ruoxi knew that the 8th prince would die eventually due to some politics stuff.
Eventually, as stuff got tough, Minghui asked 8th prince to divorce him for the sake of their child, and then right after, she committed suicide as she was so devoted to him.
At the very end, Ruoxi saw 8th prince one last time, acknowledging that he still loved her, but she still went off and married 14th prince.
The 8th prince wanted to become a monk, but in the drama, he was locked up, and Ruoxi gave him a pill to take to commit suicide.
Kangxi/Emperor
Kangxi was the emperor, the father of the princes. We didn't really see him in a political capacity, or even his ruling style. We mostly saw him in the context of the father. He did have a role in the story to do with stripping the crown prince of his status, but otherwise, he didn't have a big present imo.
He grew to like Ruoxi very much as she was his palace maid. He wanted to marry her off to the 14th prince, which she rejected, and was demoted and sent away. However, she was eventually brought back in after she was snuck in to make snacks for the emperor and he recognized her cooking right away.
In the end, he died but who he said he'd pass the throne onto was kept secret.
10th prince
10th prince was a sort of...rowdy guy. Very rash and not a threat at all. Ruoxi found him amusing as almost like a younger brother.
He was betrothed to Mingyu very suddenly, which shocked Ruoxi, because the 10th prince very much did not like Mingyu at the time. Ruoxi was so upset that people thought it was because she liked the 10th prince.
He and Mingyu did have another romantic subplot, but it was very...pedestrian. They just had a fight and it grew extremely big so Ruoxi helped them reconcile and Mingyu and her became friends after that.
At the end of the drama, the 10th prince and Mingyu were happily married and had a baby.
b>13th prince
The 13th prince was always by the 4th prince's side. And he remained Ruoxi's friend throughout the drama.
The 13th prince had an ongoing romance with a lady of lowly origins called Lvwu. But considering her status, he would never be allowed to marry her. There was a subplot in which a Mongolian princess Minmin liked him, but he would not return his feelings.
There was also a part of the story where the 13th prince was falsely accused of something and was in jail for years. But after he came out he was like, back to normal.
The 13th prince and Lvwu had a daughter called Chenghuan. She was raised by the 4th prince for part of her life. And due to who her mother was, she was kind of looked down on, though Chenghuan would never know this as the adults in her life protected her. Ruoxi in particular was always very kind to her.
Anyway, the 13th prince's relationship with Chenghuan was sometimes kind of rocky, probably because he had never really quite gotten over the grief of losing her mother.
At the 13th prince died surrounded by the 4th prince and Chenghuan, the most important people to him.
14th prince
The 14th prince was blood brothers with the 4th prince, and had the same birth mother.
At first, he was protective of the 4th prince, at least when it came to the romance story line. He told off Ruoxi for leading the 4th prince on.
During the next course of the drama, the 14th prince became a very accomplished military officer, which of course made him look very good in the eyes of his father. When his father died, the 14th prince didn't even get to see him off for his funeral, and that left a bad taste in his mouth.
His mom was also very adamant that the emperor had told her he'd intended to make the 14th prince his successor, and because of that, she disowned the 4th prince. At this point, the 14th prince was still protective of the 4th prince, just wanting everyone to get along.
However, by the end of the drama, he had started to grow a bit bitter. Perhaps the 4th prince was suppressing his potential. I don't really know. And apparently, he did truly come to love Ruoxi after she married into his family.
Ma'ertai Ruolan
Ruolan was Ruoxi's older sister. She was always very kind and patient with her. When Ruoxi was always getting in trouble, it was always Ruolan who would protect her, though it did get to a certain point where Ruoxi had gone too far and Ruolan had totally grown cold to her. At this point Ruoxi knew that she had gone too far.
As mentioned, Ruolan had a childhood love whom she suspected was killed as collateral when the 8th prince had come for her hand in marriage.
She never showed hatred for the 8th prince, but she never showed anything more than politeness. She died during the drama.
Guoluomeng Minghui
Minghui was the 8th prince's main wife. At first, she was very threatened by Ruolan, seeing as how the 8th prince did pay special attention to her.
Over time, Minghui came to show courtesy the sisters as she understood that they supported the 8th prince.
There was a part later in the drama when Minghui realized that Ruoxi had said some things to the 8th prince that was leading to his demise, and she used this to threaten Ruoxi. So she had kind of turned back to a villain then, but you knew where she was coming from. She was just looking out for her husband.
When things were looking really bad for the 8th prince, Minghui begged the prince to divorce her. At first, I thought this was supposed to show why she was a Bad Wife or something yucky like that. But she committed suicide afterwards. So I guess what she said was true, that she was just doing this for their child Hongwang. I am kind of confused though, why would Hongwang follow her and not his father?
Anyway, Ruoxi and the 13th prince had to scream some sense into the 8th prince to tell him how much Minghui loved him but by the time he found her she was already engulfed in a burning building.
Guoluomeng Mingyu
Mingyu was initially Ruoxi's nemesis. Their sisters were rivals so naturally they were too. Mingyu was married off to the 10th prince despite not really liking him.
Their rivalry quieted down when Ruoxi was advised to keep a low profile to avoid the eye of the emperor (though that literally did nothing as Ruoxi grew close or became known with like all of the men in the royal family).
Mingyu and Ruoxi became friends when Ruoxi helped her marriage with the 10th prince by fabricating a big event that had Mingyu and the 10th prince finally becoming one united unit.
At one point, Mingyu asked Ruoxi for help. Ruoxi could only do so much, but she showed much sympathy for Mingyu, as a woman in the palace whose hands were always tied.
Princess Minmin
Minmin was a Mongolian princess who was very friendly. She took a liking to the 13th prince, and she became friends with Ruoxi very fast.
Minmin liked the 13th prince, but he did not love her back. It was Ruoxi who explained to her that she should find someone who loves her back in order to have a happy marriage, and Minmin heeded her words, letting go of the 13th prince.
Qiaohui
Qiaohui was Ruolan's servant, later becoming Ruoxi's servant after Ruolan's death. She was your typical loyal servant character. And after Ruoxi died, she went on to become Chenghuan's servant.
Lvwu
Lvwu was the lady who the 13th prince had a relationship with. I don't remember if she was a courtesan.
Anyway, when the 13th prince was locked up, Ruoxi pleaded for Lvwu to be allowed to accompany him. Ruoxi had always liked Lvwu right from the beginning, right when she saw her. It was like love at first sight lol. Anyway, Lvwu remained loyal to the 13th prince and bore him a child, Chenghuan.
Understandably, her low status made things difficult for Chenghuan. She eventually committed suicide. The 13th prince did not know this, and I think he still held out hope that she was alive, but Ruoxi seemed to know that she was for sure dead.
Yutan
Yutan was a servant who served in the palace along with Ruoxi. They became very close, seeing each other as sisters. Yutan, like Qiaohui, was your typical extremely loyal servant.
Yutan was put to death by Yongzheng when he was emperor. Apparently Yutan had been a spy of the 9th prince all along. Nonetheless, Ruoxi still loved her very much.
Li Dequan
Li Dequan was Kangxi's eunuch. He was kind of an authority figure as he would outrank all other servants. Anyway, he was the eunuch who announced the 4th princea s the emperor, and eventually, was put to death by him.
Wang Xi
Wang Xi was a eunuch who saw Li Dequan as a teacher. Ruoxi was tight with him, and so he shared a lot of information with her.
Overall
This drama was mostly a romance drama, and I did get bored after about half way through. Not much politics here, unfortunately, with Mary Sue writing.