I do not think the mother should have died so tragically, like I don't blame the ML for it, I can see why he didn't trust the FL and I feel the way the story describes it, it was almost inevitable for it to happen no matter who our FL betted on having said that the way the entire thing happens it tightly couples the emperor's mistrust and her mother's death narratively so after this point I stopped anticipating their union cause I feel that is way too strong of a correlation for our FL to ever forget or sidestep. Second while I get why the ML does not trust our FL what I would have liked was for him to be the one who allows her to escape with Asher as his final act of keeping his promise, like I don't think how it is done was bad or anything but it would have made me root for them cause even though he has ample reason to mistrust her and that could have resulted him in locking her up but that final act being one of trust instead of hurt would have kept me on the side of romance for I like the angsty moment when he gave the final blow but at the same time the author had done a great job of building the angst that I feel that big moment could have been switched up and instead we explore our ml's mindset of whether he made the right call or not.

The revelation that the FL is Lilian Lou was really weak and below my great expectations. The plot is good, which is why I'm sticking to this one and also because I was anxious for ML to finally know that the FL is the one he's searching for. However, I was disappointed. I wished that the author just made the ML see for himself that the FL had been through many hardships, but no, the author made another character say what she'd been through. That was why the revelation part was lacking. For example, in the dark forest part, read the lines of ML's friend who helped the FL escape from the tower where she was imprisoned by the ML. LOL I was supposed to cry at that part because it was a heartbreaking scene, but instead I laughed hard because that friend was made to explain the FL's dark situation before when she was still Lilian Lou to the ML. The story would be so much better if the FL hadn't made that friend tell the ML that she was Lilian Lou. I wish she'd just say it herself.... no, I wish he'd never know.