[Mainland Chinese Drama 2020] Royal Nirvana 鹤唳华亭

[bluehibiscus]

On 7/31/2020 at 12:39 PM, Fangsi said:

Hey All, 

Just finished this show and immediately read every post in this chain. Loved reading all the comments and info. I was curious if anyone knows a source for watching this show that actually has good English subtitles? The subtitles on Amazon Prime were awful. Sometimes, when the characters were reciting poems, they actually just wrote “[poem]” as the translation! Wouldn’t mind rewatching this someday(soon) but only with better subtitles. 
 

And I didn’t see this questioned anywhere (sorry if I missed it), but would anyone be able to tell me what the CP’s line of “I though only my opponent would let you say so” (Prime translation...) means, after Wenxi tells him that she used to love him in Ep25?
 

Then a few seconds later, when he first puts his hand around her neck, CP’s translation is “Except those... How about you?” And I don’t get that either.
 

Anyone willing to re-watch that scene and help me out? It’s a nice scene to re-watch anyway  TIA!

 

@Fangsi @PPB Sorry for the late reply. The translation for the scene in Ep25 is below:

 

CP: Where is Chen Neiren?

Wenxi: She’s still asleep.

CP: She’s late? She’s never been late before. How did you manage it?

Wenxi: I painted sheets of paper with black ink and pasted them over her windows. And I drove away a few canaries.

CP: CP: They (those actions) were effective?

Wenxi: Am I not standing before Your Highness now?

CP: I’m quite curious what you have to say now. What have you come up with after one night?

Wenxi: I didn’t pass on the letter to Minister Zhang not because I wanted to harm Lu Zhongcheng. Neither was it because of the reason you mentioned. 

CP: Can there be a third explanation?

Wenxi: Yes. Lu Zhongcheng was already safe so the letter written by Your Highness, I couldn’t bear to pass it on.

CP: Give me a reason—

Wenxi: Your Highness—

CP: And then...?

Wenxi: There is nothing more. It was the same that day at the Detached Palace. Your Highness was the reason. I used to admire Your Higness very deeply.

 

The other maids secretly exchange glances of shock.

 

CP: I thought my opponent today (inferring Zhong Shuling) would get you (Comment: His use of the plural you implies there are other spies besides her so he is essentially saying he doesn’t believe her) to say that.

Wenxi: So I don’t wish to leave. (Comment: I don’t think she is responding specifically to what he just said. She is just continuing with her explanation)

CP: If I let you remain, what can you do for me?

Wenxi: I am willing to be at your disposal. I am very familiar with horses and the administration of horses. I can definitely be of help to Your Highness in the matters that follow.

CP: Then we have a problem. How can I agree? Yet how do I go about refusing?

 

Outside CP’s chamber.

 

Crown Princess: It’s nearly time to head for the Palace. His Highness is not ready yet? (When the maids do not reply) What’s wrong with you all? (She makes to enter the chamber)

Maid: Your Highness!

Crown Princess: Who is inside?

Chen: Your Highness, His Highness summoned me here.

Crown Princess: Chen Neiren. Then go on. Please ask His Highness to be quicker.

 

Inside CP’s chamber.

 

CP: Other than/Besides those things [that you have said], what about yourself (Comment: he may be referring to her body based on his body language)?

Wenxi: Your Highness...

CP: A female should cherish/love herself more. Without this realisation, you shouldn’t say such things. (Comment: I infer he means she shouldn’t say such things unless she’s prepared to go all the way and suit actions to her words)

Wenxi: I can be of use to Your Highness. Even if the odds were one out of a hundred, does Your Highness not wish to take a risk/gamble?

CP: For a man in my position, do you know what I had been taught by my teacher from young?

Wenxi: Just one day. Give me one day.

CP: A rich man does not sit under the eaves lest the roof tiles fall. I don’t think you are worth one day.

 

Chen enters and starts adjusting CP’s attire.

Chen: (speaking to Wenxi) You may leave. I can take over from here.

CP shows no intention of loosening his grip around Wenxi’s neck.

Chen: Her Highness is waiting to head to the Palace together with Your Highness.

CP loosens Wenxi, turns around and leaves.

CP: The show is about to begin!

[bluehibiscus]

On 8/5/2020 at 10:02 AM, Fangsi said:

Not sure if anyone is still willing to dive into this, I know it’s not as fun as rewatching OTP scenes, but I’m still stuck on the exams plot. I rewatched episodes 5, 6, & 7 today, and used the above as a guideline, but I’m still so confused. Here’s why:

 

So, Zhao went into this planning to be loyal to CP, but Xu was working with Li from the get-go? After all is said and done, Xu meets with Li and An Ping, and Li says the re-numbering of the rooms was Xu’s idea. So did Li have a nefarious plan before CP even planned anything? Or did CP create this whole ‘counter measure’ for nothing?

 

And what exactly was CP’s plan? He bribed Xu to be on his team, but what exactly did he want him to do? 

 

Zhao seems to run into Li immediately after stealing the documents. Does Li take the documents from him? If so, when does CP get them, to make sealed copies to back in the locked box? And if he doesn’t take them, why did Zhao purposely want to run into him? 

 

The 3 sealed documents inside the locked box. Are they 3 separate sets of questions, or is it 3 of the same, and if so, why? Just curious

 

What documents did the guards find when they searched the rooms for evidence of cheating? Was it the questions, or the answers? Did someone (CP or Li) actually write out the answers to the questions and still somehow get them back into the rooms before the start of the test the following morning? If so, seems crazy that a test that takes 9 days could be completed by one person, three times over, in one night. But if it was just the questions, I don’t understand how the questions being in the test room helps anyone, when they’re about to receive the test anyway

 

I don’t understand who exactly put the ‘questions/answers?’ into Gu and Lu’s rooms. Was it Xu (and I’m assuming that wasn’t part of CP’s plan)? Or was it Li, and if so, I just don’t understand how he can be involved with any documentation when we know that the crown prince at least redid the test questions. So it’s not like CP wrote anything out and somehow gave it back to Li, right?

 

Why does CP beat Xu? At this point does he already know that Xu has gone to the dark side? Or does he not know that yet and it’s all for show? Like, did Xu agree to this in advance?

 

Finally, I don’t understand this part, “Since Xu had a copy of the exam question by CP, there should be 2 copies of the exam question in Xuan #3 but only one copy was found. This meant that Xu and Li Baizhou were working together.” Shouldn’t there be 3 copies all together, and if it wasn’t CP’s intention to place them anywhere, why did he give more than 1 copy to Xu?
 

Apologies, and thank you

 

You raised some good points. Let me think it through and refresh my memory before I reply.

[PPB]

Thank you @bluehibiscus, wonderful as always! Hope you are well. 

[bluehibiscus]

20 hours ago, PPB said:

Thank you @bluehibiscus, wonderful as always! Hope you are well. 

 

@PPB Thanks. Things can be better but I guess there are others worse off than me. Really wish this Covid situation can be behind us so I don’t have to keep cleaning my hands umpteen times a day and we don’t have to worry everytime we get a sniffle. I notice you were asking about Empresses In the Palace earlier. Even though it has a lot of episodes and doesn’t have a great soundtrack, the story is not boring and the acting could not be faulted. I recommend it highly.

[Fangsi]

Thanks so much @bluehibiscus !! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all of these thorough translations. With the Amazon translations, the show is incomprehensible for a non mandarin speaker, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the show as much as I do now without your and other posters’ help. Plus, reading the lines of the show is almost like watching it all over again, but with a deeper understanding, and I almost enjoy this process more than understanding it completely the first time, like a puzzle  Anyway, thanks so much! (and TIA for the exams questions I have... I really tried, but alas... )

[bluehibiscus]

@Fangsi 

 

You’re welcome. I love chatting about this drama with other viewers and making it more comprehensible to non-Mandarin speakers. 

 

That said, I probably understand the exam cheating saga about 70-80% myself. I enjoy the other aspects of the drama (the sets, costumes, soundtrack, cinematography and acting) so much that I find myself more forgiving of loopholes in the minor plot arcs than I usually am. At the same time, the relationships explored in the drama hold more intrigue for me than the conspiracies so when I wrote the synopsis for the exam cheating arc, there were some details that I missed. Your questions prompted me to take a closer look at all the frames that show the question and the cheat sheets, which to be honest, I didn’t pay attention to before as they pass by so quickly. It takes a lot of skill to write an airtight plot and the writer was a newcomer to scriptwriting (albeit assisted by a team of professionals) so there are bound to be loopholes that cannot stand up to scrutiny if one looks hard enough. 

 

1. There were 3 sealed exam questions in the box to be answered over 9 days. I think the questions were announced one at a time as they focused only on one in the scene where they opened the seal and subsequent scenes also showed that particular question. While the cheat sheets had the same question, the answers were not identical; even the handwriting was different. CP only prepared one set of answer for Xu. The others were prepared by Li Baizhou. When Eunuch Chen reported the case to the Emperor, he also mentioned the candidates’ answers were not identical to the cheat sheets found probably because the exam had only just started. It is obvious to the viewer that Feng En and Wen Pu’s answers would not follow the cheat sheets since they did not cheat.

 

Actually, CP didn’t need to prepare any answer for the exam question. If Li had been unaware of CP’s plan, after catching Zhao, he would have prepared 3 sets of answers and placed them in the rooms that Xu, Lu Wen Pu and Gu Feng En sat in so they would get caught red-handed. Zhao and Xu would then accuse Teacher Li of leaking the questions to help his students. There should be two sets of model answers found in Xu’s room as CP promised Xu a set of answer as a reward for his part in the ploy. The fact that only one set was found in Xu’s room showed that Xu had already betrayed CP and let Li in on the conspiracy. On the time taken to answer the exam question, CP was extraordinarily intelligent so he could achieve in one night what would take others 3 days!

 

2. Zhao’s loyalties lay with Xu so everything he did was at the behest of Xu. For some reason, Xu decided to aid Li Baizhou against CP. I seem to recall sometime later (not sure which episode), Xu told CP that his change of loyalties during the exam was to get CP to notice him but CP figured out Xu had already decided to work with Li from the start. The plot about the revelations of Xu’s birthright was removed and it is possible those parts might have given us more insight into Xu’s original motives in the exam cheating saga.

 

3. Zhao was supposed to steal the exam questions so CP could make a copy of them before replacing them with duplicates with the seal intact. Li allowed Zhao to go unreported if he promised to keep the original at home. He also provided Zhao with the official paper type so he could make duplicates and replace the original. Li was supposed to believe Xu/Zhao had the skill to do so such that Lu would be non the wiser. I believe Zhao getting caught by Li was part of CP’s plan to see if Li would use the opportunity to implicate Teacher Lu. If he did, CP would proceed with his countermeasure of using letters containing Qi’s forged handwriting. Xu was to confess that Li caught Zhao stealing the questions but did not expose him, then Li asked them to keep the original at home, leading to the discovery of the letters by Qi to Xu. We are supposed to believe Li would have come up with something nefarious on his own even without CP’s actions. CP pointed out rightly that Teacher Lu was worried too about Li as he stayed in at the exam venue the night before the start of the exam.

 

Teacher Lu later realised CP was the only person who could have forged his handwriting so well so CP must have masterminded the whole scheme to frame Qi. As Zhao told Lu the original was destroyed (in reality, Li told him to keep the original at home), Lu recopied the exam questions and destroyed the ones forged by CP, effectively taking on the blame to protect CP. That was why the Emperor commented to Dian Shuai, “Right, they (the handwriting) look virtually identical.” (because they were both written by Lu). And the Emperor knew the only reason Teacher Lu would have done this was because CP was involved.

 

If CP had not planted the letters implicating Qi, Wen Pu and Feng En could still be cleared on account of the fact that the rooms were renumbered as they were not supposed to sit in those rooms originally. But the forged letters meant they had to investigate who forged those letters. The 3 men Li arranged confessed and pointed the finger at CP and Xu retracted his confession. Wen Pu and Feng En were still found innocent but now CP was in trouble. Hence, CP set out to frame Qi and Li but was outmanoeuvred.

 

4. When CP interrogated the candidate who brought in unpermitted notes and the guard who accepted his bribe and let him through but subsequently reported him (because the latter was following Li’s orders), they were tortured so it would look suspicious not to to do the same to Xu. Also he needed to create a red herring to lure Qi out of his residence the following morning (to obstruct CP from retrieving the original exam paper from Xu’s house) so he could get Wenxi inside Qi’s residence. The torture ended up backfiring aginst CP as the Emperor said the other evidence and testimonies threw the reliability of a confession extorted by torture into question.

 

Thanks to your questions, I now have a better understanding of the case than I originally did.

[PPB]

On 8/20/2020 at 2:25 PM, bluehibiscus said:

 

@PPB Thanks. Things can be better but I guess there are others worse off than me. Really wish this Covid situation can be behind us so I don’t have to keep cleaning my hands umpteen times a day and we don’t have to worry everytime we get a sniffle. I notice you were asking about Empresses In the Palace earlier. Even though it has a lot of episodes and doesn’t have a great soundtrack, the story is not boring and the acting could not be faulted. I recommend it highly.

Hi @bluehibiscus, glad to hear you're well, at least as far as one can be in these strange times. This covid 19 situation has affected so many, it really will be great when it's over.

 

After Yanxi Palace (which we enjoyed enormously. Even though it did not have such artistic merit as Royal Nirvana, it was pretty entertaining! ) we thought we'd give concubines' intrigues a rest, but Empresses in the palace does look good, so we'll definitely watch it at some point in the near future, so many thanks for the recommendation. We've also watched An Jia, and of course Luo Jin was brilliant in it, but I was not familiar with Sun Li. I can now see she's a well known actress, and rightly so, she really is excellent. It will be good to see some drama with her in it for sure.  Unfortunately the thread for Behind the scenes is now closed (I know I'm late in arriving at all these dramas... Better late than ever!), as I'd love to chat about that, I can just say my Chinese has improved given that it has no English subs! And Zhou Dongyu is really good too and I'm enjoying watching things with her in it. 

 

Meant to add, thank you @bluehibiscus from me too for the thorough explanation of the exam paper situation in RN. Brilliant as usual. 

 

Wanted to also ask, there is a lot of talk about The bad kids, do you know this programme? Have you an opinion on it? I can't find it to watch anywhere.... Though I have found (to buy) Better Days with Zhou Dongyu and Jackson Yi, so I'm looking forward to watch that. 

 

Take care and thanks  

[skibbies]

16 hours ago, PPB said:

Wanted to also ask, there is a lot of talk about The bad kids, do you know this programme? Have you an opinion on it? I can't find it to watch anywhere....

Bad Kids is produced for iQiyi (streaming platform) so it's probably on their app. It's fairly well done and was pretty popular. The Rise of Phoenixes was mentioned awhile ago, I definitely second the recommendation. It's probably the closest-ish in terms of quality of production + genre to this drama, it has its flaws (so many of them!) but I loved it dearly, and it's available on Netflix, which makes it very convenient.

[bluehibiscus]

@PPB I have been catching up on Korean dramas so I haven’t heard of The Bad Kids. But you’ve aroused my interest since the reviews seem good and the number of episodes is manageable so I may check it out.

 

It may be possible to unarchive the Behind The Scenes thread since it is not that old. Let me ask around for you.

[PPB]

6 hours ago, bluehibiscus said:

@PPB I have been catching up on Korean dramas so I haven’t heard of The Bad Kids. But you’ve aroused my interest since the reviews seem good and the number of episodes is manageable so I may check it out.

 

It may be possible to unarchive the Behind The Scenes thread since it is not that old. Let me ask around for you.

Thank you so much @bluehibiscus, that would be absolutely brilliant.

 

Yes, I've also read excellent reviews of The bad kids, so that made me interested, also the music is supposed to be really good. I'll await your news,  thanks again. 

7 hours ago, skibbies said:

Bad Kids is produced for iQiyi (streaming platform) so it's probably on their app. It's fairly well done and was pretty popular. The Rise of Phoenixes was mentioned awhile ago, I definitely second the recommendation. It's probably the closest-ish in terms of quality of production + genre to this drama, it has its flaws (so many of them!) but I loved it dearly, and it's available on Netflix, which makes it very convenient.

Thank you so much @skibbies@skibbies I've heard so much about The Rise of the Phoenixes, that I'll have to plunge in soon. If it us similar to RN, I'd be happy, as it is still my favourite drama. We have Netflix, but unfortunately there is not much on it, I think it may be a country thing, the selection is limited (I'll have another look though, as it may have appeared now).

 

For The Bad kids, thank you, I'll have a look at iQiyi, I don't have it,  but it may be time to get it. I always worry a bit as my Chinese is limited, so if it's all in Chinese, I get a bit lost... I ask my teacher, but then get embarrassed! Though she has indulged me and has translated many things. 

All the best. 

[bluehibiscus]

@PPB I think iQiyi has Eng subs for this drama.

 

There has been a change in the administration of the forum. 

Spoiler

Email help@soompi.com to see if they can unarchive the thread for you. Be sure to include the link to the thread. I’m not sure if they will agree but no harm trying.

 

[PPB]

36 minutes ago, bluehibiscus said:

@PPB I think iQiyi has Eng subs for this drama.

 

There has been a change in the administration of the forum. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Email help@soompi.com to see if they can unarchive the thread for you. Be sure to include the link to the thread. I’m not sure if they will agree but no harm trying.

 

Excellent, thank you so much, will check it out. I'm at this moment going through the Chinese subtitles of Behind the scenes (ep 8 at present) and looking up the (many) characters I don't recognise... It's a lot of work! (though a fun way to learn).  The auto translate is pretty rough.... 

[Fangsi]

Woohoo! Thanks so much, @bluehibiscus !! I totally get your point about there being loopholes under intense scrutiny, but since I still have questions, even after your detailed explanation, I’m thinking it’s more on me than the talented author and professional writers  Using your post as a guideline, I skimmed through these episodes, and here is what I’ve pieced together:

 

Zhao gets caught by Li (on purpose). Li then makes 2 cheat sheets, and gives the originals back to Zhao, along with his special paper and seals. Li tells Zhao to rewrite/seal the questions and take the originals home. Since Xu was working with Li from the get go, Li was already aware of CP’s countermeasure to forge a letter from Qi to Xu, with the exact room numbers listed. That set himself up nicely to wait for the evidence to show that the rooms had been renumbered, and he could then pin things on CP, with the testimony of Xu and the bribed students, which was his overall goal. But I missed in Ep6 that Zhao didn’t take the originals home, he gave them to CP. Zhao stayed loyal to CP (or maybe he did whatever Xu told him to do). So that’s how CP got the original questions, to make his cheat sheet for Xu and to recreate the questions/seal with Li’s stationary and seals. Li didn’t expect Zhao to give the originals to CP or for CP to get the originals into Qi’s place. So, he’s uncomfortable only for a moment, and he takes the blame to protect Qi, knowing that the renumbering evidence will eventually exonerate him.

 

Think I got it now?   
 

On 8/21/2020 at 9:36 PM, bluehibiscus said:

Actually, CP didn’t need to prepare any answer for the exam question. If Li had been unaware of CP’s plan, after catching Zhao, he would have prepared 3 sets of answers and placed them in the rooms that Xu, Lu Wen Pu and Gu Feng En sat in so they would get caught red-handed. Zhao and Xu would then accuse Teacher Li of leaking the questions to help his students. There should be two sets of model answers found in Xu’s room as CP promised Xu a set of answer as a reward for his part in the ploy. The fact that only one set was found in Xu’s room showed that Xu had already betrayed CP and let Li in on the conspiracy. On the time taken to answer the exam question, CP was extraordinarily intelligent so he could achieve in one night what would take others 3 days!

 

Ok, I think I finally get this now. You’re saying that if Li wasn’t aware of CP’s plan, he would have made cheat sheets for Xu, LWP and GFE, and therefore Xu’s room would have 1 from CP and 1 from Li. But since there was only 1 in Xu’s room, it meant that Li didn’t prepare one for him, which meant that Li was aware that he already had 1. Man, this seems like quite a stretch on the writer’s part. Li attacking GFE makes sense, since he was close to CP, but I had thought CP chose Xu to help him with this plan because they weren't outwardly connected at all. So why would CP assume that Li would attack Xu, along with GFE and LWP, and therefore Xu should have 2 cheat sheets? But maybe it’s just me...

 

About CP being intelligent, you right, you right. But I guess that’s why Li wins this round, he was able to write 2 sets! of answers in the same amount of time  

 

On 8/21/2020 at 9:36 PM, bluehibiscus said:

Lu recopied the exam questions and destroyed the ones forged by CP, effectively taking on the blame to protect CP. That was why the Emperor commented to Dian Shuai, “Right, they (the handwriting) look virtually identical.” (because they were both written by Lu).

 

I totally missed this plot point. I had thought Lu ‘said’ he rewrote it, only as part of his ‘confession’. I didn’t realize he actually did it. Thanks for this!

 

Ep5, towards the end, where Li writes the characters “supervision” and “vigilance” (according to Prime), can you tell me what this scene is about and what the symbol he draws in front of each character means?

 

BTW, I’m with you on enjoying the overall love story (and production value) more than the conspiracy plots, but when I really like something, I want to understand it completely. Even though it makes my brain fry, I feel like I have to get it straight to fully enjoy it. Sucks for me and now for everyone on his board  So thanks again for your help!!

[bluehibiscus]

On 8/24/2020 at 2:39 PM, Fangsi said:

Li didn’t expect Zhao to give the originals to CP or for CP to get the originals into Qi’s place. So, he’s uncomfortable only for a moment, and he takes the blame to protect Qi, knowing that the renumbering evidence will eventually exonerate him.

 

Think I got it now?   
 

 

 

Since Li was working with Xu, he already knew CP’s plan. Li’s intention was to allow CP’s plan to proceed along the expected lines so CP would have no inkling of what’s in wait for him until the very end. That scene of Li with Zhao was Li playing along for CP’s benefit and it also let CP know that Lu Wen Pun got entangled so the letters CP forged would include Wen Pu’s room number (on rewatching, I discovered CP expected his teacher and Gu Feng En to be in trouble but not Lu Wen Pu). Li showing discomfort when the original was found at Qi’s residence was playacting.

 

Zhao appeared to be Xu’s uncle but he was really Xu’s servant. Xu’s plan meant Zhao would forfeit his life in the end. Knowing this, he was still willing to go ahead so Xu could carry out his larger plan (which we did not find out due to the last arc of the drama being cut).

 

Quote

Ok, I think I finally get this now. You’re saying that if Li wasn’t aware of CP’s plan, he would have made cheat sheets for Xu, LWP and GFE, and therefore Xu’s room would have 1 from CP and 1 from Li. But since there was only 1 in Xu’s room, it meant that Li didn’t prepare one for him, which meant that Li was aware that he already had 1. Man, this seems like quite a stretch on the writer’s part. Li attacking GFE makes sense, since he was close to CP, but I had thought CP chose Xu to help him with this plan because they weren't outwardly connected at all. So why would CP assume that Li would attack Xu, along with GFE and LWP, and therefore Xu should have 2 cheat sheets? But maybe it’s just me...

 

On the surface, Xu was Zhao’s nephew and Zhao worked for Lu for many years. To CP’s thinking, Li would make Zhao accuse Lu of recruiting him to put cheat sheets in Feng En’s room and in return, Xu would also get a cheat sheet in the exam. Li added Wen Pu into the equation probably because he was worried about Wen Pu’s father who was familiar with the tea-horse trade and who was assuming the post of Yushi Zhongcheng shortly.

 

Quote

About CP being intelligent, you right, you right. But I guess that’s why Li wins this round, he was able to write 2 sets! of answers in the same amount of time  

 

Li didn’t need to prepare the answers personally. He had many people working for him. Also, as the Chief Invigilator and the Deputy Invigilator, both Lu and Li knew the exam questions before they were sealed. They wouldn’t need to steal the exam questions so Li had more time to prepare the answers. Besides the original exam question, Li asked Zhao to hide drafts of the cheat sheets in his home. 

 

Come to think of it, he also had time to bribe the 3 candidates (who would later turn around and accuse CP of leaking the questions) with his in-law’s money. It must have been a fortune for the candidates to sacrifice their years of studies (and likely their chance of ever becoming officials through the Imperial Exams although their punishment was not mentioned). Li interceded for Xu (he was forced by CP’s torture to give a false testimony) so he was not punished and could retake the exams. Hence, it was more than likely Li already had a plan to frame Teacher Lu, Feng En and Wen Pu and had set some things in motion before Xu approached him.

 

Quote

 Ep5, towards the end, where Li writes the characters “supervision” and “vigilance” (according to Prime), can you tell me what this scene is about and what the symbol he draws in front of each character means?

 

Li was showing off his wit and taking a dig at the situation they were in (privately he was probably laughing at Lu who had been an esteemed Chief Invigilator for a long time). He added a radical (“jiu” which normally means “nine” but Li stated it has the meaning of wrongdoing; I’m not really sure why) to the characters for “supervision” and “vigilance” (what the 3 of them were supposed to be doing) to transform the characters to 尴尬 (awkward/embarrassing) to describe the irony of the situation (the invigilators who were supposed to guard against cheating were under suspicion of leaking the exam questions). The radical for 尴尬 is actually not “jiu” but “you” without the dian/dot (尤) so some viewers thought the drama made a boo boo but in the olden days, people could purposely modify the way a character is written under special circumstances. You can see other variants (in the same line as the second circled character and the line after) in the picture below.

 

 

[bluehibiscus]

@Fangsi @PPB I have made some revisions and additions to my latest reply after having a chance to rewatch some episodes. As always, thanks for joining in the discussion and reading my replies.

[PPB]

On 8/25/2020 at 7:04 AM, bluehibiscus said:

@Fangsi @PPB I have made some revisions and additions to my latest reply after having a chance to rewatch some episodes. As always, thanks for joining in the discussion and reading my replies.

Thank you for writing them, truly much appreciated, thank you. 

[Fangsi]

Thanks again, @bluehibiscus !! You have successfully walked me off the ledge with this conspiracy plot  Though I am disappointed to learn that CP failed at every step (I had thought he got a little stab at Li, at least) I so appreciate your taking the time to rewatch these episodes, even more so because I know they aren’t my favorites either. I think I’m good with the rest of the conspiracy plots (thanks to previous posted on this forum), so I’m sure any future questions will be about scenes we both would enjoy rewatching  Take care!

[bluehibiscus]

@Fangsi You’re most welcome. Actually there are quite a number of notable scenes in the exam cheating saga that I like so I didn’t mind rewatching the episodes (e.g the interactions between Teacher Lu and CP that showed how they were closer to being father and son than the Emperor and CP, the brotherly banter between Feng En and CP, the moments when CP interrupted the interrogation and got rebuked by the Emperor, the scene where the Emperor unravelled the truth before CP, the scene in the snow where Wenxi called out CP’s true identity, the scene in the prison where CP said Wenxi was under his protection etc). I believe Prince Qi was not clued in to the situation by Li (as Qi could give the game away) so CP did manage to upstage Prince Qi for a moment there.

 

The main message of this saga was to show Li was a cunning adversary so there was much CP would have to learn before he could defeat Li and in so doing, CP had to be careful not to turn into the very people he was trying to outwit. We also saw that the Emperor was wary of Li.

[PPB]

All this talk makes me want to re-watch RN... I miss it  and when I finished watching it  and started watching something else, nothing seemed as good.... 

[bluehibiscus]

Some fans in China have designed their own limited edition RN merchandise for preorder. They managed to get the master who did CP’s calligraphy in the drama to provide the calligraphy sample.