What I really appreciated with those scenes between Bao'er and Xie Zheng is that not only we got to see Xie Zheng being an amazing uncle but we also got to see him being Yan Zheng again.

Bao'er calls him "Uncle Fan", which is literally his personna as Changyu's husband. And he doesn't care about telling Bao'er to call him differently because he likes to assume his identity as Changyu's matrilocal husband.

As much as I dislike him it is interesting to see that even though he makes a point, he is completely wrong.

Bao'er is the legitimate, (most mentally sane) heir to the throne. And Xie Zheng do want to put him on it because the struggle for the throne officially started.

We do not know what happened in details 17 years ago. All we know is that the Emperor abdicated the throne to the current Emperor and is dead now, the crown princess died in the fire as well as Yuanhuai, Qi Min was burned.

But! We do not know what was the starting point of the whole emperor demise plot.

Why did Wei Yan decide to put someone else on the throne ? Maybe he believed at the time that the emperor was no good, we don't know why.

But currently even though Xie Zheng is different, history is repeating itself in a way. He wants to put someone else in the throne.

We do not know yet what will happen. However the Emperor is likely going to die or be exiled, Qi Min is either going to die by Xie Zheng or Changyu's sword or end up in jail. The most likely outcome is that Bao'er will be on the throne but he will be too young to govern as he is 7 years old.

That means that Xie Zheng will likely act as a preceptor for him.

On paper that makes Xie Zheng the new Wei Yan : putting an emperor on the throne, and then playing behind the scene.

But! Wei Yan does not take into account the fact that the soul of Xie Zheng is different from his. Xie Zheng makes decisions based on a path of morale justice and upholding strong values. He does not want power, as he said he just want his own family line, living in the Northwest with Changyu.

Bao'er is also important in that whole power play, we saw the last times we saw him that he had a great understanding of the situation and the stakes of the moment. He is also emotionnaly grounded by his education, mother and Changning.

So, even if Xie Zheng is on paper like Wei Yan, the path that he will take will be immensely different. He will teach Bao'er how to be fair, be just, to uphold justice, and as soon as he can he will step out cause he does not care about power.

Changning has been kidnapped by a psycho that wants to at the same time kiss his sister and kill her and marry her somehow. But she is also mistreated and had to stay in a cold place without light.

And Bao'er ? Taken away from his mom, forced to practice his writing in fear, traumatized by his father.

Man those poor kids