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extrapenguinIt continues! (I'll probably take a long(er) break after these because some exams, travel, and Yuletide, but I'll catch up in blocks of four, like I did NiF.)
The Empress gets a name. It's Xun Shi. She is presented as rather gullible, I think; Punyang Ying is presented as a suspicious character (SPOILERS confirm this), using Xun Shi's concern for her son Yuanshi (who's about 10?) as a way to get into the palace. He's a priest of the same sect that the superstitious Southern Chu believe in, so no obvious links to Da Yu.
The conspiracy to sink the ships was apparently not supposed to sink them, but rather just delay them. However, Langya list #4, Duan Tongzhou, is there under a pseudonym, apparently to stir up shit/make the situation worse/generate a bad situation for Xiao Pingzhang. Pingjing and Lin Xi investigate, and manage to find the surviving witnesses, who've been hidden by Prince Yuanqi, Pingjing's cousin and the Emperor's nephew. (Yuanqi's dad is dead and mom is lonely.) Yuanqi's mini-arc over these two eps seems to be foreshadowing him becoming something more than a man of leasure. (I also irrationally find his face annoying. I know.)
There's a standoff, during which Pingjing displays some martial arts (and is very good-looking while at it), and they get rescued by reinforcements sent by Tingsheng. Lin Xi can actually dodge darts, Pingjing! She knows that he's the guy she got deathbed betrothed to (by seeing his necklace when he stripped to dive into a river), and later on they had a nice enough interaction when he asked her why she always interpreted everything he did in the worst way possible. If this is the canon het we get, I am okay with it, depending on execution. Pingjing has showed less bratty and more adult/smart/capable parts of himself, and Lin Xi is rather stoic/no-fucks-to-give to everyone. If Lin Xi gets to stay her mostly unimpressed self and just slot Pingjing into "people I like" and Pingjing continues with the adult/capable bits and learns to respect her abilities, I'd like it.
The Empress gets a name. It's Xun Shi. She is presented as rather gullible, I think; Punyang Ying is presented as a suspicious character (SPOILERS confirm this), using Xun Shi's concern for her son Yuanshi (who's about 10?) as a way to get into the palace. He's a priest of the same sect that the superstitious Southern Chu believe in, so no obvious links to Da Yu.
The conspiracy to sink the ships was apparently not supposed to sink them, but rather just delay them. However, Langya list #4, Duan Tongzhou, is there under a pseudonym, apparently to stir up shit/make the situation worse/generate a bad situation for Xiao Pingzhang. Pingjing and Lin Xi investigate, and manage to find the surviving witnesses, who've been hidden by Prince Yuanqi, Pingjing's cousin and the Emperor's nephew. (Yuanqi's dad is dead and mom is lonely.) Yuanqi's mini-arc over these two eps seems to be foreshadowing him becoming something more than a man of leasure. (I also irrationally find his face annoying. I know.)
There's a standoff, during which Pingjing displays some martial arts (and is very good-looking while at it), and they get rescued by reinforcements sent by Tingsheng. Lin Xi can actually dodge darts, Pingjing! She knows that he's the guy she got deathbed betrothed to (by seeing his necklace when he stripped to dive into a river), and later on they had a nice enough interaction when he asked her why she always interpreted everything he did in the worst way possible. If this is the canon het we get, I am okay with it, depending on execution. Pingjing has showed less bratty and more adult/smart/capable parts of himself, and Lin Xi is rather stoic/no-fucks-to-give to everyone. If Lin Xi gets to stay her mostly unimpressed self and just slot Pingjing into "people I like" and Pingjing continues with the adult/capable bits and learns to respect her abilities, I'd like it.