As the intro states, FL leaves her hubby after he lets his white moonlight (WM) stay for two weeks. The WM is pregnant and left her hubby after a tiff.

FL is neglected by her hubby and 7 year old son. She leaves and ends up working at an academy as a cook/housekeeper. She ends up meeting an abandoned boy and takes care of him. Her hubby and son end up finding her but she refuses to go back.

She ends up raising the abandoned boy as her son... never going back to her hubby and son.

So, as I said before that her character doesn't align correctly. She was able to abandon a son that she raised and loved for seven years due to two weeks of his spoiled behavior. How can a woman with a strong maternal instinct (evidenced through her care for a bad kid that's not even blood related or nice at first) give up on her own child that easily?

Her kid being so ridiculously attached to the other woman makes zero sense. I don’t know of any kid that sees a pretty lady and starts comparing his own mom unfavorably to her - especially not within such a short time. I can see if he knew her as a kid and she always spoiled him vs having a strict mom, but that’s not the case here.

I also find it strange to so easily leave behind her son - no matter that another reviewer claims that leaving the husband by necessity means leaving the son, it’s actually not that straightforward. Sometimes mothers did take the children, particularly in this case where it doesn’t seem like there are in-laws or a strong family to prevent it. Also, her leaving was spontaneously decided - nothing so clear as her coming to a conscious decision to leave her kid actually happened. I would also say that it’s true the mom likely had more influence in raising her son than the dad - it’s pretty typical when kids are younger for them to primarily stay with their mom, especially since the dad is working as a doctor. She could clearly raise the semi-feral kid into a responsible adult, and had endless patience and wisdom for him, so yes, it’s odd for her kid to end up so thoughtless (I don’t criticize her character as a bad mom so much as the author for poor writing).

The husband... I know it’s controversial, but personally I would have liked to see her give him a second chance at the end. Yes, she can live well on her own, and I suppose that’s the moral of the story, but honestly, particularly in an era where women had fewer rights, I don’t think it is the practical choice. The husband is unquestionably at fault, but they obviously didn’t communicate well - their marriage sounded very polite. The MC suffers from the problem of silently swallowing her grievances until she’s had enough and leaves, which is also not conducive to a healthy relationship. In the end, their relationship would never be the same - no one can simply forget about that kind of hurt - but it could be good in a different way, and even stronger if handled well. I know it’s unbelievable to many, and I’m not saying that anyone should tolerate infidelity, but the reality is that relationships can survive it. He was able to recognize and admit his mistakes, and resolved to do better, finally waking up from his attachment to his white moonlight, but she wouldn’t give him another chance. Of course she’s not obligated to do so, but IMO they could have had a quite good relationship if she had.

I’m sure many readers will think I’m unreasonable, maybe it’s just at my age I see people and relationships differently. Particularly in historical eras, where they don’t have the same privileges and options that we take for granted in our modern lives.

I liked that she's decisive and created her own family with adopted kid (Ah Hu). She didn't look back despite the husband and son being willing to change.

I just felt complicated on Bai'er (biological kid) bc he's still a young kid and his attitude was just a reflection of seeing father's treatment to mom and Yu Zhe.

I'm sad that he can't be with her mother bc of the situation. Only comfort in their relationship was him and FL still sending letters.

And the people using the fact that the child is not treating her kindly as a reason to ''absolve'' her of the ''crime''. I think the biggest problem is the fact that when reading you don't really accept the actual environment the MC is in, and just imagine her as being in a modern world, or just taking it as her being he only actual person and the rest as just enemies or allies to her, and judging them based on that. In fact, her leaving her husband, that in itself is an act of abandoning the child, as in those times, so long as a woman is divorced, the child is always considered as a person of the husband's family, unless the woman had a strong enough family to back her when taking the children, so her leaving that family is cutting all ties to the child, especially so if it's an only son. Being a mother is not so important as to completely overturn being a person, and as soon as she decided to be a person and not a little lamp to her husband's devotion to another woman, she gave up on being a mother. It's true that she was disappointed in her son's behavior, but mostly it was her being completely exhausted by her marriage, and knowing that giving in to the son would just lead her back into that relationship. And so, the child was left behind, or rather, the child was left with his father, who was by no means a bad father, just a terrible husband. I saw someone say that she raised the child into acting as he did, and she was not his only parent, he had a father who always acted a certain way towards his mother so blaming the behavior only on her is laughable. It's true that overall, MC mostly considered the s*um husband when making the decision to divorce, and the child was only a small grain of sand in that decision, but once the decision was made, the child could only stay with the father, and she would never give him false hope, that boy himself knew that going with the mother is not really an option, because he only ever thought and said that she should come back to their house, never asked her to take him with her. She was a good mother to Ah Hu, but to the boy she gave birth to, it's true that she wasn't a great mother to him, but it's not really a one dimensional thing, to call her a bad person because of it, in her circumstance, there was only the option of being the fool or leaving the child with a man who is a good father. By the end, you realize she did not even cut ties entirely, as she is still in contact with the 2, and the grown up son visits.

I love her rascal of an adopted son. I despise the white moonlight. The husband is s*upid as hell and I barely tolerate her bio son. A part of me does hope greatly that with her bio son being stationed in Sucheng, that the entire family can finally resolve everything and end happily. I mean they did keep sending gifts back and forth so I hope that means they still have her in their hearts. But I guess we’ll never know.