#Meng Li

[dangermousie]

I continue to love what the drama did with the husband. It would have been so predictable and boring to make him a villain who would do anything for a promotion but he's just a pathetic broken man who loved his wife but not as much as his own life and perhaps only realized just how much he loved her after he committed unforgivable acts against her.

I love that he's haunted by her even as he knows she's alive. The haunting did not stop after his finding out.

This whole scene was amazing, where he does talk to her in the flesh and she confirms to him that he's nothing to her.

I loved this confrontation for her because she deserves to live free of her past and her pain but for him it's a different kind of liberation - a bleak one but one nonetheless - she is alive so he did not kill her after all, but he's dead to her and he can't even console himself in her past love, not really. She's not dead but she might as well be as far as possibility of ever being together is.

Love him walking through his own music video afterwards.

The thing is, her being alive has dispelled some of his guilt and by that restored some of his sanity but it's not good news for the princess because now the man who's snapped is playing with all his own (bleak as fuck) marbles. With the confirmation of her being alive on top of the confirmation of her understandable hatred and on top of long realized confirmation that the princess doesn't like him or love him or even care if he lives or dies and just wants to torture him for kicks, and with any sort of hope or fear tormented out of him, this is a man with nothing left to lose but a hell of a lot of plans for revenge of his own.

I mean, look at this scene, where he's kneeling in the cold/snow all night. These are some serious Tantai Jin eyes here.

And when he goes in and she keeps slapping him, there is no fear, there is no shame, there is no self loathing, there is not even mute endurance, the way there used to be. This is a man who is letting a lunatic vent as needed to get whatever he wants done.

I mean, look at this man as he says this to the princess. He's barely bothering to conceal how false his words are even if the killing intent is very real. If I were her, I'd sleep with a knife under my pillow but she's so demented she doesn't get it.

Instead she pokes him some more, another confirmation as to how she doesn't see him as human.

Lady, this is the face of a man who would like to wear your skin as a cloak. You are so epically DUMB!!!!

He's got more human emotion imagining his wife than in the whole above scene. And once again, I love love LOVE how he's haunted by the woman he very much now knows is alive. Because what's dead is his chance at happiness and his happy marriage and any real path forward.

It is SUCH an unusual take on the usual villain from past life/evil spouse our FL must overcome and I love it!

[sarangkstars]

The Double

[arutai]

Meng Li

[lostinadrama]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐞 (2024)

[black-is-no-colour]

Meng Li, photographed by Giada Ramera and styled by Simone Folli for L'Officiel Arabia, July 2023

[kdram-chjh]

Cdrama: The Double (2024)

吴谨言 墨雨云间定档 回头看，轻舟已过万重山。0602我们如约相见！

Watch this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YPBPg6QMdIo

[4ever-always]

I Love You - 2022

[xiaolanhua]

Blossom 九重紫 (2024) Dir. Zeng Qing Jie – Ep. 1

[mutantfactor]

Fangs of Fortune 𓆩𓆪 Zhuo Yichen & Zhao Yuanzhou

[eulaties]

theyre unparalleled

[moonlightsdream]

DRAMAS in 2024: 25 | Blossom 九重紫 (2024) — dir. Zeng Qing Jie   

[dangermousie]

The dynamic between Jiang Li and her husband continues to be FASCINATING to me and honestly, while man needs both serious jail time and serious therapy, he is the most interesting character in the drama to me. He saved her during the examination (it hinged solely on him whether she lost and had to go to the nunnery or won and stayed) but here this all comes to a boil point blank. Princess Wanning brings the charge of her actually being Xue Fangfei and when her other witness implodes, decides to use Shen Yurong to prove her identity.

(Side note: loving that she managed to put in a dig about him loving her even in the middle of this! She's unhinged as fuck, is this really the time for one of her games?)

The problem is if you push someone enough they will break or hit back and honestly, Shen Yurong is at the stage where he's reached both. Maybe if she did this right after she made him kill his wife, he'd be in such terror etc he'd agree with anything she said and did. But he's been living haunted by what he did and wandering his mansion clutching his hair for months; he's dug up the grave like a mad person, and she's abused and humiliated and ground him down non stop since then (and at one point almost killed him), basically smacking down any time he tried to show any will or idealism and messing with even his career. He's just burned out. And if she can't control him by terror, she can't control him (he may feel some lust for her, who knows, but certainly not enough to derail his sanity or overcome his issues.) This man is a ghost and ghosts are not really controllable.

I love the intercut of him walking towards her in court as to how he walked when he tried to kill her because that is what he is flashbacking to and picturing in his head.

This is a dead man.

I am genuinely unsure as to whether he believes this is his wife who survived and is protecting her (because he didn't want to kill her and doing so thrust him into hell so he's trying to make amends/dealing with regrets/trying to appease his demons) or he's so utterly broken he believes his wife is dead no matter what he sees (because he needs to, to maintain some sanity) and so his denial sticks to that an also is making some sort of protection to his wife's doppelganger in her honor. I don't think even he is 100% sure because he's not 100% sane any longer. But I love it.

Love Li's face as princess loses her marbles in the background. For the rest of her revenge, it's very clear cut for Jiang Li - they are all monsters and for most of them she has no feeling and never had (the Jiangs, the princess, the new magistrate etc.) But the thing with the husband is so complex - she hates him but she loved him, he married her and killed her, he killed her under duress and is living in hell but HE KILLED HER and it's all such a mess. Whether she ultimately kills him or not, this is the target who haunts her the most.

This is amazing. He's found the courage of despair and a spine because being spineless made it all worse. Once again, he's got nothing to lose so what can you threaten him with? (By making his life so bleak, she's taken away a lot of his fear of death.)

OMG, he SNAPS!!! My jaw dropped open.

She's really lost it. It shows what a loose cannon she is btw. Even if Shen Yurong was saner and more terrified of her, at least coordinate with him earlier, psycho! Even a fully rational man with zero pangs of conscience and genuine fondness for you (we are 0 for 3 here with SYR btw) might decide admitting this is his wife would lead to big issues for him and not bother.

I am beginning to heavily bet he murders her. He was fail at first murder (seriously, there is no sufficiently describing the fail - he hit his wife with a shovel and she didn't even get a concussion; he buried her so shallowly and in such loose soil she was able to climb out with arms tied and without any martial skills) but practice makes perfect.

[therukurals]

[In]Correct Quotes (insp.)

Blossom 九重紫 (2024)

[dingyuxi]

BLOSSOM 九重紫 (2024) dir. Zeng Qingjie — Raising a child is more tiring than running a business. It's more exhausting than fighting a battle .

[da-man-si]

The arrow that has haunted Dou Zhao bursting into millions of tiny petals of purple crape myrtle, a flower that represents Dou Zhao and Song Mo's love and support for each other. The fear of the arrow ends here.

[deokmis]

Blossom (dir. Zeng Qing Jie)