failing miserably, as she can only read the future chapter titles and guess what events are coming, and she's genius at picking the wrong action. I laughed to death when she proudly got into a drinking contest because her tolerance is crazy high, only to discover she was supposed to get drunk after a couple of glasses, leave to recuperate, then run into the ogML and deepen their relationship.

The ogFL and ogML are no prizes either though. He seems good on the surface, but is actually a hypocritical, backbiting jerk that apparently can't control himself around women.

The ending bonus chapters were great - one shows their kids, and the other is an alternate timeline for our FL and ML where she meets him as a ghost and their romance goes in an entirely different direction. I would have loved one more chapter, but this tied things up pretty nicely.

The constant emphasis on how 'blood is thicker than water' made me feel uncomfortable. I know it is set in ancient times and is fictional, but I think it should be pointed out that this was not adoption per se, but more like hiring and g*ooming a young talent. The difference in the treatment of the two sons is a choice of the ML and, in my opinion, should be assumed as such and not just justified as normal because 'blood is thicker than water.

Some of my favorite parts are whenever she gives her adopted adult son (Shizi) a new concubine. Before the ML married the MC, Shizi's wife bullied the MC. So after the MC gets married, she's like: I think we should allow Shizi's banished concubine to return. She's suffered enough. Shizi's wife banished the concubine because her husband and the concubine are in love.

The MC and the concubine are enemies, so she says : "Shizi still doesn't have an heir. Let's him a couple more concubines." Naturally, her enemy is thrilled.

As you can imagine, there's all kinds of catfights and drama. Naturally, MC is *horrified*: why can't they be nice to each other? Do I need to go in and clean house?

once she was sent to the Jing Wangfu, thats where she was destined to live/d!e. She is a spy sent by the wangye's enemy - a small misstep and she will be k!lled - either by the Wangye or by the Emp Dowager. So when she got an opportunity to make things work for herself, she took it. Wouldn't anyone? Yes, she tries her best and schemes to get with the shizi but what about it? She clearly mentioned that she doesnt care for love - she wanted to get to a position where she wouldnt completely be at the mercy of others. Considering the time period and her situation I dont find anything wrong with it. Even the FL, ruthlessly ruined the lives of three women. She got away due to her FL halo and ML's feelings again and again.

I do want to know why shizi felt/when he realized that Wangye liked TSS in the original timeline.. Just cause of the pearls? And where do shizi's feelings stand? I wish we got a tiny chapter with his pov because he is terribly canon fodder for someone who's supposed to be a ML

to get the book that saved her life to her. He rewrote his own life in the process and seeing as the third redo allowed him to go to her, the entirety of their lives were the product of his effort for her.

Since Jing Wang spent all of that effort to save her, betroth her, and find her in each life, he knew what she wanted, and just gave her the tools to unknowingly set herself up for success and love.

why I say she’s s*upid:

1. She targets shizi rather than jing wang despite what she reads in the book about her ending as his concubine. There’s no basis for her to think that her ending will be different if she winds up as his concubine and he doesn’t outwardly give her any signs that he favors her over other women and in fact clearly shows his preference for another woman but she refuses to give up and continually tries to seduce him. It’s repeated a few times in the book that she thinks shizi is easier to seduce and fool compared to jing wang, but even if he’s dumber than jing wang, why does she think she can control him? There’s never a plan for what she will do as his concubine to ensure her survival and every single time she approaches him, he rejects her. Wouldn’t it make sense to give up and think of another plan? But she doesn’t. She continues to persist to try to be his concubine until she is basically forced to give up.

2. She tries and fails repeatedly to use the hints from the book to approach shizi and interrupt ZSH. Not once is she able to interrupt the progress of the romance between shizi and ZSH or to seduce shizi using these hints.

3. She doesn’t rly try to seduce shizi outside of the hints she receives in the book.

4. After she’s together with jing wang and pregnant, she continues to try to be on good terms with shizi. But this is despite the fact that she knows that in the book, shizi not only secretly killed off jing wang but also removed all traces of him and basically created his biological parents as the previous emperor and empress. Why does she not think that if he’s treacherous enough to kill off an adoptive father that raised him for more than 10 years, he won’t have a problem killing off his adoptive father’s wife and biological child that could potentially threaten his throne.

why I say she’s incredibly lucky:

1. The people that can threaten her all trust her inexplicably until they no longer need to. The empress dowager and her minions trust and push up the FL even though she basically does nothing for them as a spy from the time where she’s in close contact to jing wang in the study room all the way up till she is jing wang fei. She even actively hurts the empress dowager’s cause by removing the beauties that were sent by the empress dowager but this is simply explained away with the fact that she’s now a more valuable pawn but again she’s never actually done anything helpful for the empress dowager. She’s only abandoned by the empress dowager when it’s not a danger to her anymore.

2. When she makes mistakes that should get her in trouble, she solves a problem she wasn’t even aware of. Like when she made a fuss with ZSH and RYJ and poured some liquid on RYJ’s dress but it turns out to be a good thing because it reminds jing wang of his mother and that is forbidden in jing wang’s manor.

3. She was drugged in a town far away but mysteriously managed to stay conscious long enough to get home and look for jing wang.

they have a son halfway thru the story, but it ends rather abruptly in the last months of her 2nd pregnacy. We dont know if the second kid was a boy or girl. We also dont get to see either baby as children, so we dont get a ton of cute family time