MC's previous husband, the scummiest man alive, is actually the other person reborn. He and Gu Ying have a very interesting animosity and battle. At this point in the story he seems to be dead but might still be alive.

the plot we're dealing with now is about the ML's mother. Zhao Changdu's mom died when he was pretty young, and he was sure she was mu*dered by his dad's concubine, Cheng. After her death, his father ignored him and he was badly mistreated. His grandfather took care of him, bringing him to the battlefield with him, because that was a better situation then he was dealing with at home. So, it was pretty dire.

Well. Turns out, his mom, Lin, wasn't dead. Cheng attempted to mu*der her, but failed, and then she just ABANDONED HER SON and left. It's infuriating, tbh. And then??? She pretended to be an ordinary doctor named Yu Gu and saved his life but never revealed herself for no f*cking reason? Insane behaviour, imo.

Her identity is revealed now, and Zhao Chengdu is just happy to have his mom back, which, understandable, it's gotta be overwhelmingly joyous, and that would definitely blind him to the abandonment and weird lying to him. But now his mom's adopted daughter, who previously tried to cause Gu Ying to miscarry, nearly kill Gu Ying, and get Gu Ying's maid r*ped, just because she's h**ny for Zhao Chengdu and hates Gu Ying, is trying to horn in on him. And his mom is helping! She knows what She Ruxu, her adopted daughter, did to HER UNBORN GRANDSON. But she just wants Gu Ying to leave it as water under the bridge and forget about it.

Lin is just a character I really don't like. I hate her treatment of Gu Ying and Zhao Chengdu, and I hate that she's practically trying to break their marriage apart for a girl who tried to kill a baby. I wonder if she's ever going to face any consequences. I kind of doubt it though.

EDIT: OK, I'll give Lin this, she did tell Shen Ruxu to lay off. But still. I'm really not fond of her.

MC was drugged by Jiang and Liu with a potent aphrodisiac. She came onto the ML first... It is true that he could have helped her find some other relief but they did not have the time because of the engagement talks in the main hall that required his presence. If she was not cured in time, it would have done more damage to her body! Although it is said that he was... Erm... Extra rough because he is a military man and can't always control his strength in midst of passion. In addition, he admitted to being a virg*n as well. So both times, he was too unskilled and rough with her and that made her scared of being intimate with him.

chap 171, ML says to his friend that MC is his life. While MC is catching feels for ML here, she's still very uncertain and unwilling to risk her feelings yet.

The ML is attracted to the MC's strength and beauty but he's also very guarded against women since he was traumatized by his childhood friend. Note that he himself said he did not love Hio Qinyun and only wanted to marry her to protect her and give her freedom as thanks for her care in his time of need. Despite that, he was traumatized by her very public abandonment. A lot of unknowns at this point of the story about what really happened. It is hinted that she loved the ML but had no other choice but to marry the brother.

Likewise, MC is attracted to the ML but isn't thrilled about his roughness in bed (her v card in both lives were taken by ML)... And the fact that she misunderstood that Huo Qinyun was his first love. I don't think he loved that girl at all except maybe as a family. However, this is enough for MC to put up many walls.

One of the villains was a girl that Jiang Yin found who looks 80% like MC. Jiang trained that girl to act like MC to a T in order to switch her out. The twist is that in the first life, Jiang didn't know that MC was sent to the temple to be tortured. He actually mean to send her look a like while raising MC in a secret villa so that ML can never find her again. In that life, Jiang thought that the look a like was MC and so he lived a happy life with look a like... Not knowing the the girl he loved was actually swticher out by his Jiang Ling and Gu Gia to be tortured for 10 long years. He even thought that the look alike was used as bait to kill ML... Not knowing. He went crazy with regret and resigned to death after he found out the bitter truth.

Author is inconsistent with many things. So many characters actions don't match the characteristics they've been showing previously. Or perhaps the author wrote things out of order because some things only made sense after you read the next chapter otherwise it seemed like an illogical jump. Some could be explained away - author keeps saying ML is 10 years older than MC except when you discover they met as children then she was 3/4 and he was around 10. ML wanted a tough wife who could put his family in order yet when MC acts a bit vicious he gets repulsed until it's revealed it's just returning the favor.

others are just puzzling to the point of annoyance. Like she frequently has MC slip back into her memories of torture and ab*se at the hands of her first husband but it's not till the last 100 or so chapters does she bring up being accompanied by a little beggar who tried to protect her. She didn't even recall him til that moment but she could recall books, dates, people she never even met. Reuniting with him pushed her to the point of tears. Maybe it's selective memory due to trauma or maybe it's just poor writing on the authors part for not mentioning him sooner to at least set things up. Because the other reborn person (ex husband) doesn't mention this either though he mentions things that happened in the first life that do sound plausible. Even if I find his emotional state keeps flip flopping from love to hate and back again, it's grating on my nerves. I also don't get how he was allowed to be so unscrupulous by the emperor, even if he was the one to help put him into place, how did he get away with brutality against multiple respected families. Edit: its confusing as you read but you won't get the full answer until the extras and well... in my spoilers lol

I was very satisfied with his death heck I even felt the smallest shred of pity for him.

I thought her younger brother would have bigger impact to the story since he was mentioned a a regret from the start but he's barely a character. There are servants who get more attention than he does. Cast of characters gets too big especially since most of them are one off. Why wait till nearly the end to bring her maternal family in to protect her. It just seems like last minute add on, like where were they in her past life if they had the guts now to go against the duke/ML and punish those who harmed MC and her brother, what stopped them in last life when it was just the ex husband a government official. Why wait till the extras to reveal answers to some big questions and what seemed like significant clues. Like the random jade she found at the winter hunt, I thought that might be a link to MLs mother but nothing happened. The real reason she was hated by her grandmother & how her mother died. We even got to see MLs fate in her original life (heartbreaking) Or the obvious answer to who is the father of Ning si's baby - clearly she was intact when you passed her to her fiancé what a Coinkydink that she ends up mysteriously pregnant after. Yet no one not even the fiancé connected the dots til after there was a misunderstanding and forceful actions. He nearly aborted the baby out of jealousy. I nearly pulled my hair out.

I did like how you can see echoes of their previous selves in other characters. Like Young master fu was similar to the prideful ex husband, little sister Shuang was like MC. Some grew stronger others proved to be disappointing

Oh my biggest gripe with this is her interactions with her ex husband. Sometimes she hates him and wants him to die by her own hands. But then she just drags it on. Then when he "passes" she just leaves his body whole and lets ML hang him in the wall as a warning, where someone took it away. Clearly he wasn't dead but she was all too happy to have the only person who could reveal her dark past gone. Considering her ex annihilated her maternal family and her immediate family (second branch) to the point of desecrating their bodies, I wouldn't have let him have it good even in death. My heart wouldn't have been settled until I saw his body in pieces, burned to ash and scattered on the wind. She had so manny chance to reveal her past to ML but she waits til the last moment because she's so scared but he's already told her repeatedly that fate made her the only one for him and he would rather be alone than without her, he's prepared to her darkness yet she waited for so long leaving a weapon against herself

Also why is it always Gu worms. Why can't it just be regular poisons 😭 I don't understand why they say it's been in her for years I think they've barely been married a year.

IMO it took way too long for her to share her past (maybe 50 chapters away from the end) and he wasn't even conscious the first time. But the villain had revealed to him nearly everything, MC does eventually share things albeit disconnected from it. Which understandable.

The extras were very good, especially the final revenge against evil ex. You found out how deep the evil went in that timeline especially around the people he surrounded himself with. He used MC to plot against ML in the OG timeline, believing he was torturing MCs doppelgänger and having a good life with MC but in truth he was schemed against by his own people. For a brief moment I thought he'd been deep in his delusions but no evil was repaid with evil.