The only things that truly changed were the names of her positions at court and the people around her, but she, at her core, did not change. To be fair, she did develop a bit at the beginning of the novel when she realised she needed to be colder and more calculating, but that was it.

The most annoying and tedious parts of this webnovel were the info dumps about side characters during the war arcs. These arcs had low stakes because we knew FMC was going to ace them without difficulty, and they featured countless useless characters who were soon killed off or never became truly relevant to the story again. Even when the characters she faced were important, the author wrote the war arcs with SO MUCH background information. I felt like a force-fed goose. Everything could have been trimmed down—pages upon pages, literally several dozen chapters could have been cut—and we still would have been able to make sense of the situation and enjoy the novel more. Even my maths textbooks in secondary school were more interesting than this author's way of writing battles and warfare. Want to read good battles? Open any historical book, and it will still be more entertaining than this. There's no better way to describe those parts as boring as hell.

Also, the author had the very bad habit of naming every character, which made it quite hard to keep track of everyone. For example, there was Xiahou Dun, who had been introduced at the beginning of part 1, but he soon faded into the background, being barely mentioned across the whole webnovel and having no narrative importance whatsoever, only for us readers to find him again in the penultimate chapter for a few lines—and that was it. There was also Cai Yan, the first female politician sponsored by the FMC. You think, "Hey! The first relevant female character besides the mother and FL! Surely she will have some narrative importance and won't be glossed over like the adoptive sister, right? Right?" But no. She lasted a few chapters and was barely mentioned afterwards. These are just a few examples that come to mind, as the author introduced us to so many characters who could very well have been absent entirely and the story would still have progressed. It's just very annoying when an author tells you to remember a character only for them to be as useful as a pebble.

So after reading everything, it's kinda apparent that FMC is heterosexual. FL seems to be pansexual, as she would have loved FMC regardless of how she identified herself. ML is straight but could potentially be intimate with an extremely pretty Marty Stu if FMC had truly been a man.

That being said, whilst FMC may be more inclined to be sexually aroused by men, that doesn't stop her from craving FL's warmth. She's cross-dressing in a very misogynistic world and is desperate to feel understood, loved, cared for and accepted for who she is. She finds peace with FL. Their relationship isn't perfect, as the power dynamic is in FMC's favour, and they met while FMC already had the mind of an adult. However, their relationship is one of the healthiest, if not the healthiest, in the entire webnovel. They respect and are kind to one another, and they suit each other well. It's the best romance here, without question.

As for the ML, he's an absolute POS. He and the FMC had great chemistry at first—far better than what the FMC had with the FL. Their banter, the progression of their romance, and their friendship with its underlying s*xual tension were perfect. Chef's kiss. They would have become my favourite couple had it not been for the author's decision to make the ML a r*pist (allegations made by the FMC that he had assaulted other women) and a s*xual harasser. He was already too unapologetic and insistent for my taste when he believed she was a man, but this behaviour became a hundred times worse when he learnt she was a woman. He tried to force himself on her, used violence against both the FMC and FL, forcefully kissed and l**ked the FMC, made her watch while he m*sturbated, etc. Not once did he reflect on his behaviour. Not once did he apologise for it. And don't dare say it was normal for the time period, because this is a piece of fiction where a modern Korean girl becomes a Chinese warlord. We could very well have had a decent human being as the ML, like Yue Jin. He should have been the ML—why did it have to be this scum? The FMC and FL would have been a so much happier with him than with this POS. In the end, he's nothing more than a s*erm donor, only alive because he's too much of a pain to get rid of.