Fresh Morning in a Broken World

Podfic is the ultimate portmanteau btw

peasant visionary: & then it stood before me, a towering wheel of flame that beheld me with 10,000 shimmering eyes!

CDRAMA POLL: PRIMARY REASON FOR WATCHING

Physician Xie is as gentle and refined as jade. As for Cui Jinbai, he's nothing but a dull, useless lump of stone.

If you're so loyal to your friend, why don't you switch place with Wang Jue? Organizing case files isn't hard at all.

oof this latest ep really highlights why it's hard making a truly cold character the protagonist. even though xihe's reasoning of "i didn't love you, i owe you nothing" is totally fair, it's hard not to feel sympathetic for prince xin when he spends the whole episode baring his heart and his regrets and basically making the kinds of vows you'd expect from someone getting a second chance with the person they loved and failed to protect.

mm yeah I agree, the set up of Qingzi and fifth prince's failed marriage was one of the underexplored parts of the novel, and they haven't done anything so far to strengthen it in the show. They kind of move past it after the set up and some suspicion by fifth prince when Xihe displays her abilities. But then again, in the novel, fifth prince wasn't this insistent on marrying Xihe. Iirc, she either manages to convince him that she's not Qingzi or he himself realises that it doesn't matter or something. Because novel Xihe is truly Xihe with memories and skills of Qingzi. She's not purely Qingzi's soul.