Feeding My Procrastination

...or even in the way he doesn't allow himself to touch her even secretly, even though she's asleep and wouldn't know — the barely restrained longing — unless he has the excuse of helping her or healing her.

He treats her small scrapes before he treats his open gashes that are so serious they make him stumble and faint for a moment, made worse after bridal-carrying her, which he could have delegated to his subordinates but he would never allow someone else to touch her nor could he forgo the secret pleasure of it.

And she still doesn't know he fought a bear to save her so when she secretly watches him she thinks he is treating the wounds he had sustained while fighting in the mine, her focus on the phoenix token.

I love how she suspects he might not have killed his mother but still doesn't trust him blindly without first verifying the facts and the truth, coming a long way from the naive girl she used to be.

Awwwwwwww!!!! Him watching her bandage his hand with a scrap of her dress and quicky shifting his gaze away when she looks up but continues looking at her the moment she looks down.

Ai Mi's age during the filming doesn't allow them to do kiss scenes or bed scenes, but instead of an impediment they turn it into an advantage, as it makes them be creative and include all kinds of old school book romantic gestures and moments most dramas and writers skip altogether, don't bother with anymore or have completely forgotten about - furtive glances, fleeting touches, closeness without touching being the ultimate intimacy,... And the fact that Wuyi is in forbidden love with JY, having to hold himself back and hiding his own feelings because being in love with her means betraying his best friend actually suits the whole set up perfectly and even elevates it.

His little smile! He might be starting a secret collection of her accessories and making them a family heirloom.

For instance, we are past the half point of the story, but Xiao Wuyi never stops being the ruthless, bloodthirsty lunatic he was at the beginning of it. Flaming spear, sword or no sword, this man is a killing weapon made flesh. Other male leads would be mellowed down and softened by now.

When he almost kills his imposter uncle with his bare hands, there is no reason left in his eyes, just violence and madness of a man who has been killing since childhood and bathed in more blood than water. He never changes, except for some softening around the edges, because the world doesn't allow him to change. Changing himself would off him even sooner than his injury would. Even the FL can see that.

On the other hand, Xie Jiayu truly changes (for the same reason he can't, to survive, in her case not changing would kill her) and grows, especially her world view. She hated killing and loathed Wuyi for it, but now she accepts the world needs a perfect killer like him to strike fear into the hearts of the enemies and eliminate them.

I particularly like the paralell of her watching him kill another man for the first time, fake fainting to avoid the sight of the body and admonishing him for it later, to how she can't take her eyes off him when he fights for her and his life in the cell, having complete trust in his ability to kill and basically praying he would.

If a male lead doesn't secretly battle a bear and bring it down in the middle of the night to detoxify the love of his love and then hide the truth and his scars from her, what is he even doing and how can he call himself a period cdrama male lead?

I stopped counting but it seems that the scars he sustained because of her are starting to outnumber the ones he had got in his 10+ years on the battlefield.

She figured out that travelling the world "freely" without a super rich, noble general husband with his own army moonlighting as her bodyguard isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

A revelation and a level of growth most female leads never achieve, if there are allowed any growth at all, that is.

I love how he becomes everything she needs in her life - first her protector; her guide and teacher, sometimes giving her tough love, brutal truth and harsh lessons, sometimes guiding her with gentle hand and humouring her, giving her the opportunity to fail and fall and then get up and grow; and her lover later.

When he finds out she sent for him and not her first love, who was closer, because she trusted him to save her - he is so giddy to be chosen by her. She has figured out at this point that he is the one to bet her life on and not the prince in the palace. She needed a protector and a killer and she called for one because he is both those things, smart girl.

Busted...

...or so he thought. LOL! His utterly flabbergasted face! This is not the love triangle she is thinking of since neither of them is in Fangs of Fortune anymore.

(In 10,000 years) he's expiring under her. His pathetic clinginess won't allow him any other way to perish.

Objectively speaking, the logic in the finale wasn’t always logicking, there were some plot holes, loose ends and inconsistencies, and the past storyline deserved more development, but as long as ShinSegye got their HEA, it could have ended with Jesus snowboarding down a rainbow and I wouldn’t question any of it.

They really stuck the landing and delivered a perfect happy ending!