do you still think i'm gentle?

(Kids usually mirror what adults say so we def know how her maternal household refers to her husband.)

But also this is funny - she’s literally bickering with a small child - but also a little sad because her own childhood got cut off so abruptly in some ways she never got to grow up properly.

We all want to know that, Prince Li!

Theory that it wasn't monkeys intensifies.

that shot of her towering over ye li, momentarily illuminated by lightning, knife in one hand, staff in the other, malignant and conquering

the two threads of inquiry going on - ye li using her night at the ye mansion to creep out her dad to figure out where the edict is; prince ding trying to track down who killed the honest official by locking down the city

the skeleton, the granny ye reveal, the prince li fight to rescue his secret assassin guy!

the music, the lightning!!!!!!

the tree branch!!!!!!!!!!

all of it culminating with mo xiuyao preventing ye li from murdering her grandmother not by restraining her physically (which he cannot), but by saying his legs hurt and he needs her help

ye li staggering against the tree her mom planted with her, dropping the dagger

the two of them holding hands as he escorts her out of the ye mansion

Same vibe as

Much as I enjoyed watching evil granny with her staff and knife get beaned by divine punishment of a tree, I do think she's senile now because otherwise she'd know knifing a prince's wife on the night she's visiting her maternal home and said prince is basically the chief cop (!) of the capital is such a stupid stupid idea.

The way he calls her name (and he calls her A-Li, not Wangfei), to try to snap her out of it but it's not working so he yeets himself out of his chair and starts crawling to her yelling for her.

I love that what works is when he starts screaming to her his legs hurt and he needs help - because her desire to help someone she cares for outweighs her desire to hurt someone she hates, and that says such volumes about her.

The way he just opens his arms as she turns and she runs into them and basically hides in them and aaaaa (the fact that he still doesn't know wtf is going on, he didn't hear any of granny's stuff nor know other back story, so to him it looks like his wife is randomly trying to murder a prone old relative for no reason - makes it even better.)

the more we see of qingshuan, the more i think that in addition to being an obvious sign of traumatic grief she acts as our glimpse into ye li's internal dialogue. the contrast between ye li's contained affect compared to qingshuan weeping, when just seconds before ye li was clearly very emotional about the blank page. qingshuan incongruously says she's not sad and tells ye li to not be afraid. i can't help but think that inside, ye li feels like a scared and lonely little girl.

i love that we get these glimpses into ye li's deeper psyche. we know she's messed up for reasons we can't stop speculating about, but have you thought about how re-traumatizing all of this is for her? basically manifesting her mother's ghost while she's haunted by so many more. of course she's afraid.

this image was beautiful also, the two of them facing each other but also standing so far apart; ye li holding an unlit lantern while qingshuan is spotlit by an almost otherworldly glow:

more visual stunningness when she walks out into the stormy night, just begging for a gifmaker's deft touch:

i love that it actually feels like a dark and stormy night. the atmosphere and visuals are just right.

The first jasmine has such a way of showing things, telling tales, it's visually pleasing, the plot is there, but it feels subtle.

Ye li plots and schemes, but she doesn't explain what she's doing, she doesn't shout it to practically anyone, she just does it.

The plot as well, when it's appropriate, a backstory is shown.

I'm not explaining it very well but it just feels grounded and subtle.

The revenge is there, but it's not bulldozer, it's a water drop, one by one, persisting, and slowly breaking its way through

first of all, i kind of love the vaguely supernatural elements that are sprinkled in. like is this divine justice for a lightning bolt to drop a branch from her mom's tree on the head of the woman who killed her mom at the exact right moment? i like that they're playing with the murkiness of that line throughout the drama.

but second of all!!!! when he sees her pick up the knife and advance on granny!

the way he can tell in a glance how she's even more messed up than usual! she's practically in a daze or craze and clearly doesn't even register that he's there when he calls out to her. until...

you can see the moment she hears him call her name and sort of starts to come to, but the thing that snaps her out of it is him saying his legs hurt!

when he holds his arms open for her!!!!!!!!!! and she collapses into him! the way he just keeps telling her it's okay!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think the entire sequence was so well-done, especially with Ye Li and her father. When we were shown that empty paper in Ye Li's hands, I think my heart broke too. Because after ALL of her efforts, it was proof he didn't really care about her mother and her (at least not as much as Ye family), and remained a coward.

Then, well. I did NOT expect a murderous granny who was pretending to have dementia to be the one behind her mother's death. I guess it tracks with how selfish her sons are... but I digress. Poor Ye Li got another severe shock, no wonder she completely lost it.

The scene with Xiuyao desperately calling out to her.. it says so much about Ye Li that what finally snapped her out of it was Xiuyao asking her for help. That entire sequence deserves long essays dedicated to it.

But that aside, the big question is: are we Not going to address the elephant in the room? The next morning sequence was Bizarre, to say the least. Ye Li acted as if Xiuyao didn't physically stop her from sending her grandma to hell herself the night before!

I thought she would at least offer an explanation, however false, but.. it seems like maybe she does not want to lie to him anymore? especially after their fight for this very reason, so maybe she resolved to not say anything at all..?

Also what was up with the scene with Ye Li's brother and the toad? There is definitely some significance there which I am missing.