The unexpected sense of sympathizing with one another was felt by the Empress after she heard those words, she grabbed the Old Madam’s hand and patted reassuringly, “You are right to actually be able to think this way! They are basically different from other people and shouldn’t be treated by using the methods of others to guide them. There is already too much inconvenience and tribulation in their life therefore they shouldn’t be imposed with more burdens. Just let them live happily.”

- the redemption of the shu elder sister. In every other novel, characters like this would be cannon fodder but I really enjoyed her character arc and ending.

- the consensual s*x scenes. no more dubcon with lots of crying and pain. FL put it best: “it’s not just you who wants to eat me, but I also want to eat you”

- the little scenes detailing what happened originally in the story were nice touches.

Yu Xiang, the female lead, was drunk when Yu Pin Yan, the male lead, kissed and felt her up. He also kissed her several times when she was asleep. During this time, FL already planned to never marry and live with ML for the rest of her life. She also wanted ML to never marry. She loved ML and was possessive of his affections. However, she defined this love as sibling love and not romantic love. The step from sibling to romantic love was a hurdle because she believed ML's affections for her might not last if they become lovers.

Justifiable in the sense that he was nearly poisoned by a trusted maidservant and later tricked into going to a brothel where he was drugged and nearly r*ped by a woman with syphilis. Add in his mother who has checked out of being a parent and his dislike of women makes a whole lot of sense.

She literally destroyed her adoptive family's lives before running away to leave her adoptive mother to die. All because they told her she was from a noble family and she believed she deserved better than them. She then tries to ruin her adoptive brother's reputation to prevent him from revealing who she is.

She does reveal it to the FL out of spite. But it doesn't matter because the ML has already been planning on revealing it so he could marry the FL. Outside that, the Ori-FL doesn't understand how to properly do the bookkeeping for a Marquis estate and also removes the rules the FL had in place to keep everyone working well together. This ends up with the Ori-FL poisoning her grandmother, the Crown Princess and the Ninth Princess (and some assorted noble women) because she started siphoning money from the household and let crappy workers do what they wanted.