Parents are incompetent to allow her to live like that, I mean fine, you didn't want to raise her into a female general, for some reason, ok, but you just up and left without putting a few definitely loyal, older and higher ranked servants to make sure everything is well, and only arranged some random new woman to take care of a baby? Never checked on the quality of her life and how she gets by? Just ignored the fact that almost all the servants were changed? When you thought she was wearing things exclusively low quality didn't think to wonder how she come she only has that kind, or who made her think that was the best? Never inquired about her situation with her personal maids? Never thought to pick teachers for her when she was young? Yet saying bull like you wanted her to be a woman of the inner courtyard, like how do you suppose she does that when when she is exactly the kind of person they would look down on? When she changed and started disliking her brother, you just, went along with it and thought yeah ok, that's fine, and never spoke to her about it?

She keeps blaming herself and calling herself an idiot when she knows she was raised to be one? And the only way she could save herself is unfortunately what brought later disasters but so what? There was no other way to escape a perverse, sadistic rapist her family wanted to offer her to, but to lose all reputation and go to the one person she knew who, to her knowledge, wasn't someone who looked down on her and relished in her suffering.

• He's the type of ML who insults her appearance, "you're not that pretty, you're too flat and childish" etc. It isn't charming.

• Their first few meetings are mostly when he shows up and causes minor trouble in the FLs plans. He's looking for something and, in one example of this pattern, coincidentally blunders into her room at night. There are a few points that make this plot device irritating.

– He's the one who snuck into her window at night and disarmed her guard, what gives him the audacity to treat her like a suspect? It's not his business what she's doing and he's the one who should be answering questions. She has much better reasons to be suspicious of him.

– He's depicted as a superhuman schemer with astonishing special guards. He's able to listen in on her conversations and always knows what's going on with her. But he didn't know what room she's in or that she's in the midst of preventing her own r*pe despite already knowing her schedule and roughly what her family is plotting? It doesn't seem like he's lying, because he needlessly delays her while insisting on interrogating her and they end up trapped together for hours. Is he smart or s*upid? This type of thing happens repeatedly.

• He constantly threatens her. He physically menaces her, strangles her, and blackmails her.

• She helps save his friend's family from the imperial family and gives him advice about his family's problems. But he later helps her enemies frame her family while keeping the whole thing a secret from her. Readers know she's been thinking of trying to save his family if she can. Granted, her motives aren't exactly selfless compassionate generosity, but they're better than his, so the discrepancy makes him more hateful.

• The ML faked his death in both timelines. However, 10+ years later when the FL died, he still hadn't succeeded in whatever he was plotting for Ming Qi. He's so smug and arrogant in the second timeline, but he looked like a failure even if he did survive. What's he so proud of?

She entirely blames herself for what happened to her family and it's understandable she feels guilty. However, she's not their parents, she's their daughter/sister. They should be taking care of her too. She sees them as too good, s*upid, and impulsive to trust with her plans or any information whatsoever. So she just lets them blunder around in ignorance while she takes care of everything. Their whole family dynamic is annoying and meeting her extended family later doesn't really improve that: they're mostly annoying too whether it's before or after they fall for her.

• In her first timeline, she got married, became Empress, was a hostage for 5 years, had two children who grew up to marriageable age, etc. All before her family was framed and killed. If her husband wanted to get rid of the Shen family and hated her, why did he "favor her" often enough for 2 kids? Why drag things out for 20 years? It all took way, way too long in the first timeline.

• But in the second timeline, so much seems to happen in less than six months. She says several times that the Imperial family will definitely get rid of the Xie family before her Shen family and the events of the Xie family were after her marriage. But that's not what happens at all. It definitely makes sense that her actions have an effect on things in the second timeline, especially with the ML helping her enemies. But it's all still way, way too fast in the second timeline.

• In the first timeline the FL is told by her cousins that her family made a deal and intentionally pushed her into marriage with Prince Ding because he wanted her father's military power. But when she regresses, her family is trying to marry her to Prince Yu and sabotage her in hopes of their daughters marrying Prince Ding. Prince Ding has no intention of marrying the FL at all. She tells us the only reason the marriage happened was because she ran away from Prince Yu, forced her way into Prince Ding's courtyard, and refused to leave until her dad made a deal to marry them. These two stories don't add up.

• The FL describes her father as being in his 40s, then later introduces a 26 year old woman who her grandfather supposedly considered for her father before her father got married. Her older brother is at least 18, so the author is suggesting that her grandfather almost arranged a marriage between his 20+ year old son and an 8 year old child?

• The FL relies way too much on her knowledge of the future without having much power or resources at hand. Even though things change because of her actions, she rarely thinks that could change the future she relies on. For example, she swears not to harm her 7th cousin and says she won't need to because he'll die of plague in a few years. But what if, because of her actions, his family isn't in the capital anymore when the plague hits?

• She doesn't practice much self improvement beyond some reading. She doesn't practice any arts or martial arts despite having time. She just sits around playing chess and looking eerily noble. But for some reason, despite not practicing at all, her archery skills from her time as a hostage in her previous life carry over and stay sharp.

After the main leads moved to Great Li everything was downhill from there. They were very awkward after marrying and the moment their relationship began to progress, the main antagonist was introduced. The way ML reacted was so out of character. ML had spent so much time and effort pursuing FL but now that she’s alone in a foreign nation with no one to rely on, he just sort of abandons her.

Once again, once their relationship overcomes this hurdle and they finally accept their feelings for one another, he has to leave. Poor FL spends her entire pregnancy stressed and alone. She gives birth and goes into a coma before he returns. It’s great that he remains devoted to her during this time but I wish we could’ve just gotten a happy ever after.

It's so cruel, I don't think myself as particularly squeamish but something about this novel just causes me to have such a bad feeling

Everyone is just so cruel they think up the worst ways for punishment and revenge

MC's aunt character wanted her to not have a good marriage match or something so she sets her up to be r*ped by the most SADISTIC person in the whole empire, the emperor's brother who is a psycho. Obviously MC distrupts it and the aunt's daughter, MC's cousin gets r*ped instead In what I think is the most disgusting way

Also can you guess what happens to the cousin? She gets sent to her rapist

Something about this scene is just so disgusting I need mindBleach, novel is wayy more harsh on its female characters than the male ones

Novel also features Human Swine punishment on a woman (of course it does) done by none other than MC's ex husband who never really reaps punishment for all his crimes

I admit I did become hyperfocused on these aspects but after the r*pe scene can you really blame me

If a character doesn't worship the MC theres now way the author gives a moderate ending if not a happy one, especially female characters they either get killed in the worst way or r*ped in the worst way or both

Also it's crazy just how much the whole Shen family HATES the first branch, there's 0 empathy from them and I can't think of good enough reason why

Enough of my long rant though

Shen Miao got to have her revenge with Prince Ding, he died without knowing that he got owned by Shen Miao, most of the revenge of SM with the females got satisfying endings but not the males... which is weird... they didn'y lose as much as the female villain... shame

By the way, I love XJX (male lead) xD He's just the right amount of overbearing and OP male lead, and also the way he pampers and teases the MC is just adorable. He does his job really well as a male lead.