Bring this thread back. Updates for the novel aren't consistent, but I'm craving more tragedy (I actually just came back from the Ballad of something Gu). So the ending is just MC vanishing after letting go? I wish she gets a nice second life where her feelings are returned wholeheartedly. I also wish that in that second life, ML gets reborn and sees everything so he gets tortured by despair (I really don't think he deserves her).
Actually my reading of the ending was a bit different... Spoiler: Last Chapter Previously, the Emperor realizes that the person he had loved from his childhood was actually MC and he lets the concubine leave the palace. Before leaving she tells him that even if she had been the person to send him soup when he was cold, it would have been only one small task and in comparison, MC had stayed by his side all her life and helped him in so many other ways. The emperor falls ill after that but decides to go to the battlefield where MC had died. He neglects his body and gets more ill by the day preparing to go to the battlefield. One day when he is in his study alone, he dozes off and keeps coughing in his sleep. Somehow, the MC gets the power to touch things for a moment and she covers him with a coat. When he wakes up and sees it, he checks if the eunuchs have come in to cover him and when they deny doing so, the emperor gets fixated that it must have been MC who did it. He sits alone in a hall and talks to the MC's ghost. He tells her that he will go to the battlefield tomorrow and if she is alive, he will let her choose. If she wants to be the minister standing by his side again, he will giver that or if she wants to live her life as a simple woman, he will make her his queen. If she doesn't want either, he doesn't mind giving up the throne and living a simple life with her. However, if she's dead, he will follow her into death. MC doesn't want this and her ghost shakes her head in denial but he can't hear it. She thinks to herself that if the roles had been switched and he was the one who had died, she would definitely have followed him into death but the love between them had never been equal. However, now it is equal after they are separated by life and death. (To me this meant that the ML had realized his love for the MC and expressed it. The MC also knows now that he loves her.) The next day, the emperor starts his journey to the battlefield. Surprisingly, his health gets a bit better during the journey but the closer they get to the battlefield, the MC's ghost starts feeling more tired and losing more of her memory. Eventually she starts fading away. The night before they reach the battlefield, the MC has almost completely faded away. She closes her eyes for the last time and when she opens them again, she is back in a dream version of the imperial palace but the ML is there too. ML sees bits of her memories like the first time they met, the things she did in secret out of love for him and her death. There, the ML can suddenly see her and talk to her. She tells him that the things he saw were her memories. He tells her that he will accompany her in death and hopes they can be reborn together next time. The MC tells him he must live well and if they do meet in the next life she wants to be one who is loved more by him. In the end, she tells him she still loves him and he responds that he loves her too and she is the one and only person that he has always loved. When he breaks the embrace, she has disappeared. So a tearjerker for sure but the ML realises his love for the MC and tells her. She moves on in peace, knowing that the person she loves will live well. Overall not a bad ending.
note: I am not reading the whole story just a bit in the ending. I think I remember, when the news of MC's death reach the emperor, there is another person who was sad too. But that person is like a nemesis to MC in the court or something like that. Do you think that person actually someone from MC's past before she got bought to palace? Actually, I am really interested to that character...
He's the concubine's brother (PM's son). Earlier, the ML was in love with a girl who had left him soup when he was ill and cold as a child. He thought that was the Prime Minister's daughter because she was in the vicinity when he woke up and saw the flask of soup. Later, when he was a prince vying for the emperor's throne, the PM's daughter was about to be married off to another prince who was distasteful to her. ML had asked MC to save her from the marriage but MC didn't do it out of jealousy and using politics as an excuse. The night before her wedding, the PM's daughter was said to have committed suicide to escape the wedding. This caused a rift between ML and MC and made him treat her harshly. After the ML became emperor, he took a girl who looked exactly like the PM's daughter as his concubine and made the MC a minister under him. Secretly, the PM had saved his daughter and smuggled her away to save her from the unwanted marriage. Noone knew this and later the PM's daughter took a different identity and entered the emperor's harem as his concubine. The emperor doesn't know about this till much later and thinks that the PM's daughter is dead and his concubine is just a woman who looks a lot like her. The other man who was sad when MC died was the PM's son. He and the MC clashed a lot politically over the years and he always felt that the relationship between the ML and MC was too intimate. He didn't like her both for political reasons as well as because he felt like she was more intimate with the ML than his sister, the concubine. He knew how she felt about the ML. However, at base, he liked her too as a person and in different circumstances, if she didn't like the ML, maybe there could have been something more there.
oh... I thought he was someone from MC past. I think I remember I read that before she got bought to palace, she has a boy who she thought as her little brother or something. Actually she want to bring the boy with her before the maid (that went to buy her) told her that if a boy is bought he will become eunuch. As she doesn't want the boy to become eunuch, she then leave him. Is there any news of him? and I thought the rival was him...... Haaa... I think in some alternate universe maybe the ML can be the PM son... (I don't know why I really like him. In my eyes, he was like a boy who is a little mean to a girl he likes as he want to gain the girl attention or something, nah...) Edit: So, I reread the last chapter (MTL) and actually there is two person in court in that grieve when heard she is died. 1. Zuo Ninghao, the brother of the so-called ML's first love. He was the one that was crazily said that he didn't believe until he saw the corpse. Somewhat like where is her body but the messenger just said that the body is disappeared from battlefield or something. The MC thought Zuo Ninghao do you want to whip my corpse too... (she think he really hate her from her indirect cause of his sister to dead??) 2. Zhao Yunyuan. It was who I suspected as MC's little brother like figure when she still in slave camp (before she got bought to be a palace maid). It is said that in the first MC deliberately annoyed him but he still unshakeable or something...but then she think their relationship is a bit better....until there was time where MC get drunk (when ML married the He concubine) and bumped into him. They talked and then MC said that she actually ML childhood friend, since she was six years old, that there is some different in how he treated her. (if he is the brother figure, maybe he realized that there is only one child palace maid in the past and that is his sister figure in slave camp).
If I remember correctly, it was when the concubine asked him why he loved her so much or something. When he told her of the incident, she revealed that it was not her. Not sure which one anymore, but one of them remembers that the only one eligible was actually the MC, so it as revealed that the one he loved had been the MC all along. The concubine commented and laughed at the ridiculous situation. When she left, the ML was stupefied and he asked, why had she (MC) never told him the truth?
Such asshole disgusted male lead. I happy he didn't end up with mc because I hate him. I think mc should dump him and hate him for blame her. Girls is so easy for men to control her heart. I think ml should die and mc marry another man happy ending.
Honestly, he should have a dream of her 2nd life and see 1st hand that she's living a much happier and fulfilling life without him. That her life will forever be better without him.
All are blaming ML but you should also blame MC who never told him what she felt. Do you expect ML to have some sort of telepathy to know what MC is thinking?
Mee too.. But well they both suffer. Well I think he is more pitiful than the MC. He will suffer for the rest of his life while the MC is already gone in peace. The one being left behind is the one who will be left in pain.