Turns out, she has a jade pendant that she has had with her since she was a child. This pendant happens to be something that belongs to another Duke's house. Coincidentally, twenty-ish years prior, the daughter of that house went missing. She becomes a "distant relative" of the Duke's family because they don't want to admit that someone of her background is actually the daughter but her mother still treats her like she is. Even though the MC had the pendant (as the other woman pawned it) and she had no proof other than her appearance that she was the daughter.

I think the family's collective IQ was 90 points and most of that would be the daughter. The new father is given the MC by the uncle of a Prince, and is told to treat her like his first daughter who had the same name. This other daughter, unfortunately, had been sent away by her stepmother and died which let the MC slide right into her place with an open identity.

It's just... the stepmother reacted like every evil stepmother does and tries to do things to derail the MC. Even managing to convince the new father that he should do some of the things. Which makes him completely forget the person who actually arranged for him to take the MC into his home. They even get greedy for the things that are sent to the MC form the Prince.

The daughter, though, starts out spoiled but gradually develops as a character. While she never outright becomes a 'nice' character, she does become less of a spoiled brat and actually has an ending where she is happy and content.

It's implied that he tortured her ex-husband to death. It gets stated that it was a su*cide.

Like the Crown Prince. It seemed like he was going to plot against the ML but we have the one incident with the MC's identity and then nothing.

Then there is the incense spices teacher lady. She disappears from the story and when the MC reconnects with her, she discovers she's now teaching nuns how to make incense. Even though she died earlier than that in the previous life and the MC was always worried about her but didn't do anything in this timeline to try and protect her. It was weird.

by an almost-castration during what was supposed to be his first s*xual experience

replaced by a look alike that gets her real family's love & acknowledgement which she never got because she was too busy plotting against people to work on herself

Lin Yunwan then asked him, "Why... are you doing this?" She couldn't fathom why the prince wanted to marry her.

"Your Highness, you know my status better than anyone. Marrying me brings you no advantage."

She was no longer the legitimate daughter of the Lin family, and her father's accumulated reputation and the like were now irrelevant to her. Since there was no political motive... matters of love and affection shouldn't be taken too seriously by them.

Lin Yunwan said, "Whom you marry makes no difference, does it?" There really was no need for the two of them to marry.

"Lin Yunwan. There is no particular reason."

Qi Linghen looked at her indifferently, "I simply want to do something that comes naturally."

Lin Yunwan was puzzled, how was this natural?

Qi Linghen found it hard to explain... initially, he hadn't felt particularly drawn to her, but he found himself wanting to marry her.

After she fakes her death and takes on a new identity, she has a "half-sister" born to her "father's" second wife. They don't initially know Yunwan isnt actually the father's daughter (who died, banished to the countryside, before MC took over her identity). The half sister, Lin Yunjiao, is a spoiled brat, but she eventually falls in love with a poor, scholarly cousin of hers who her mother intended to marry Yunwan off to. She married him in the end, and while she doesn't live a life in splendor funded by the stolen dowry of her father's first wife like she used to, she lives a good, honest life for herself independently with her husband and even ends up helping Lin Yunwan out. I just thought it was a nice and interesting twist on the usual tired formulas we see for cannon fodder women.

eg. ML didn't care that she had been married before and still wanted to marry her despite her being another man's wife for like 7 years

1. • First Act: we meet the MC and realize what a crap marriage she is in. She tries to get a divorce but can't. Ends up faking her death with the help of the Prince who has had a crush on her for years. This is all platonic because she is married.

1. • Second Act: MC assumes the identity of a dead woman and moves to a faraway province. Wouldn't you know it, the Prince just happens to also move to the same place to become liege king. What a coincidence. The MC assumes the identity of a sheltered daughter from an old household. Thus, her movements are limited. So her interaction with the prince is limited to a few secret meetings.
   • Third Act: ML and MC move back to the capital to deal with unfinished business. MC has to contend with the exes and she has to get along with the Imperial Family, her new in-laws.

There were multiple "proposals" because she kept shooting him down.

The ending for the ex-husband and his son felt wrong.

The relationship with the FML and the adopted son should have been more...

I was surprised how cold-hearted the adopted son can be towards the ex-husband considering how well he treated him.

Maybe the ex-husband's son could have been a better person but then again the FML had cherished him in her 1st lifetime but he still hated her.

The ex-husband didn't seem like he did anything extreme that could've warranted him that kind of ending.

They all could've moved on and lived well but then there would be no story.

1. • The less than subtle classism between Bao'er and Yunwan drove me insane. It's always been somewhat present in this genre but it's dialed up to eleven in this story. Everyone praises Yunwan for being well read, but hates Bao'er for trying to learn? Why? No, legitimately, why. I understand that in some dynasties well learned women weren't ideal, but the dichotomy between everyone praising Yunwan and then hating on Bao'er just didn't sit right with me. Especially as this was well before Bao'er showed just how insane she truly was. It felt like the author was putting the cart before the horse.

• • Just everything about how Bao'er is handled rubs me the wrong way. Make no mistake, she's an awful person who ruined multiple people's lives due to her selfishness, but frankly she's written more like a caricature than an actual human being. I can't root for her downfall when her motivations and logic are thinner than wet rice paper. Eventually you just get tired of seeing her and get even more tired of seeing the s*upid excuses the other characters use to keep her around. Hell it just makes Yunwan look s*upid for not realizing what was occurring in the first timeline. Because clearly Bao'er has a hole in her skull and would have self sabotaged regardless of any intervention.

• • How Qing'er was handled was what ultimately made me drop the novel. Sure, in the original timeline he turned into a vindictive little weasel. But even in that timeline you got the sense that it was because he had multiple people whispering in his ear, telling him to hate Yunwan. Which is substantiated in the current timeline when we see he's literally just a small child who wants to help his manipulative birth mother. He doesn't understand that his birth mother is a snake. He doesn't understand that she's ruining his future. He just wants to be with her. And at every turn this child being manipulated is framed as a moral failing on his part. When Yunwan essentially told him to stop visiting her after Bao'er was thrown out of the manor I had to stop reading the story entirely. That is where she lost me as a protagonist. I don't care what the kid did in his prior life. He's not even ten years old in this life and seems willing to be better, but is constantly being dragged down by the Looney Tunes character that is his biological mother. But sure, let's not be sympathetic to the literal child who can now grow as a person and be better than he was in his past life. That would have been a more satisfying revenge for me. Taking Qing'er and ensuring he succeeded to spite both Zhengliu and Bao'er. But no, can't have that in these novels. "Oh but Crimson, he would have resented Yunwan eventually!" Given how he was being written to that point I very much doubt it. But then again who knows what weird logic the author would have pulled out of their bu*t to justify it. They seem hell bent on demonizing a literal child while also going out of their way to make the child as sympathetic as possible. :/

• • The way Lu Jia just instantly hated Yunwan also made me roll my eyes so hard they almost popped out of my skull. Really? We needed another vindictive woman to hate on the MC?
  • Given all of these problems in the first third of the book, I couldn't for the life of me decide to continue reading the next arcs. Maybe it gets better, I don't know, but I'm already nursing a headache trying to reconcile the current plot and I'd hate to see how it ends up when we get palace politics involved.
    
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