Lian Fangzhou, the female lead is a likeable character. But sadly she has made some baffling decisions throughout the story. It is understandable why she refrains from dealing with her evil uncle and aunt as reputation (to get public sympathy) is important in ancient China with a family without elders. However being someone from the modern era she should have kept her guard up. From being knocked out by her evil aunt and sold to a wealthy family, to the point of sending her bodyguards to look after her son Xue'er and leaving herself vulnerable to being captured on the Dragonboat Festival Day and shipped off to a Pirate's den. You can say she is very naive or the author try desperately to create new plotlines.

Her handing over the Cotton empire, the fishing, honey and poultry industry over to Lian Ze (second brother) is just plain s*upid. All the hard work and effort in the most interesting arc is simply wasted.

Lian Ze said he is going to become stronger and learn martial arts from Ah Jian (Li Fu) to protect his eldest sister (Lian Fangzhou), yet throughout the story it is Lian Fangzhou who is protecting him and fixing his mess. Once again the fault lies with Lian Fangzhou for leaving a business empire to Lian Ze who is a plain and straight forward martial arts idiot.

I really dislike Lian Ze especially how he could fall madly in love with a woman who has done nothing for him (initially) and who does not like him. Yet Li Sisi, a maidservant who loves him and have gone through difficult situations with him. He could ignore her feelings. A very heartless man.

Lian Che (third brother) is another straight forward person who is studious and supposably very clever even at a very young age. Yet, he could not even recognise a beautiful girl disguised as a man. He feels more like a running gag.

Lian Fangqing (fourth sister) is a bubbly and freedom loving individual. She just likes to have fun and by the time she is sixteen her personality has not even changed. For some reason the author decides to make her do a u-turn and fall in love with the Crown Prince's second son. Lian Fangqing never liked Zhou Yan but suddenly she is head over heels for him. In the end Liang Fangzhou and her husband Li Fu helps both of them onto the throne.

Neither Lian Fangqing and Zhou Yan (second son - his older brother was groomed to succeed after the Crown Prince) should be the Empress and Emperor with their personality and upbringing they were never meant to be on the throne.

Ah Jian (Li Fu), I feel he is a great male lead being the "man behind the woman" before he recovers his memory. Once he got his memory I feel his character changed a bit. This is understandable and he stays true to the female lead, but I find Li Fu very naive and allow his wife to be hurt or captured again and again.

Weak villains and sudden moments of genius from the villains make you wonder sometimes. But in general it is not too bad, just slow and some points can be annoying.

I think part of the draw to the story for me was Lian Fangzhou winning her battles through some 'clever' thinking within the boundaries of the Confucius culture and traditions of Ancient China. She couldn't just do whatever she wanted. These main themes of culture and traditions alongside class differences sort of painted the battlefield in which Lian Fangzhou had to operate in. All while struggling to make sure her siblings are fed and not starving as orphans. Of course, agriculture was also a tertiary part that made this interesting as well. And it was satisfying to see her steady growth in this pursuit of bettering her household.

I would say that even when she went to the capital, the story was still somewhat interesting to read since you see how she initially deals with the capital and to set up a household. At least at first. But once the story started to focus more on marrying off much of the cast and her family, it starts to really show that the author added conflict for the sake of conflict. And they start to make mistakes which I think, in part was done so that Lian Fangzhou continues to struggle. But instead of escaping poverty, it's because of an injection of naivety that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The main theme of Confucius values still affecting how characters behave is still a central part of the story. Which is probably how the story is still being held together. But the story after Lian Fangzhou leaves to the capital lost the sort of climb in wealth and struggle. Her class has risen to a point where it isn't a main prohibiting factor to her struggles. And she becomes so wealthy, that it's irrelevant to the story. And so much of the climb in wealth was instead replaced by drama with marriages. And many of the characters that seemed reasonable and smart before are now kind of naïve and dumb so that more drama could occur for the sake of drama.

And this doesn't account for the odd pacing and leaps in time once she enters the capital. Time and years seem to pass with some off handed comments. Which makes it really difficult to tell how old the characters are at times. And also makes things harder to gauge character development. I think once she had a baby, the story could have ended really. Or even before. They could have had a final arc where she found out her husbands a general! The main title of the story?

Furthermore, the villains just seem... petty? I think they were meh. The only reason why I tolerated them was the feeling of satisfaction of when Lian Fangzhou dealt with them. Though others might disagree with me.

Overall... I did binge read up to around halfway which is 900 ch. And the reason why I really slowed down is that the characters became more frustrating than endearing.