Each episode of this drama gives you a glimpse 7 years ago into the people who crossed paths with Lin Rulan and were drawn into her battle as helpless witnesses to her injustice

The experience negatively impacted each of them, with them feeling the brunt of corruption and set them all on a course to gain control of their own lives.

Now 7 years later, after her death, they all return, intent on seeing the justice she couldn’t achieve done on her behalf.

Meng Wan was a force to be reckoned with. A silent and incredibly patient storm.

When we meet her, it’s clear that her temperament is very different from rulan’s. She’s very calm, and quiet. Where Rulan was a free spirit, Meng wan carried the burden of a girl forced to grow up too quickly.

Rulan was her safe space. The bright and shiny girl who pulled her out of her misery, if only momentarily.

But that too was stolen from her as she watched as bit by bit, Wu Lian and their community drained the light from Rulan’s eyes until there was nothing left and so she set off in a course for justice… or vengeance.

Waiting, watching and biding her time.

This was an incredibly heavy story about a woman’s fruitless attempts to gain justice for her rape in a society where a woman’s morality is tied to her “purity” (not unlike our own).

Rulan fought and lost.

Meng Wan fought and won.

But it was clear that this win isn’t because society changed but because they were unable to look away.

She forced the world to see the ugly so that they wouldn’t be able to sweep it under the rug any longer.

It also highlighted different aspects of their society’s impact on the lives of women and how limited they felt their choices were as a result.

From the woman who remains in an abusive marriage to a drunk because she doesn’t know what she’d be in their society without a husband, to the woman who sacrificed others to gain respect and maintain relevance after her husband’s death because without him, she cannot stand on her own and finally the woman who sold her soul to have a place to stand in this world because she believes that the loss of her virginity renders her unclean and underserving of a proper place in this world without the mercy of a man.

It was gripping from start to finish.

Solid writing, no distractions and very few problems.

This was a really good use of episodic storytelling. Every episode served the characters and the plot.

My only issue was how lenient the story was with his accomplices.

They somehow made it seem like he was the only wrongdoer in the end and everyone who assisted him were simply led astray or victims themselves

While it is true that one can be both a victim and a perpetrator, that does NOT mean absolution.

She told the wife that from the beginning to end, nothing was her fault, and I shit you not, bile rose in my throat.

She had fault. She fed him new victims every year. Women who trusted her. Whose families trusted her. Her family and her reputation were his access to a steady supply of these girls and she knew it, knew what was happening and was still complicit.

Madam Ning sacrificed these girls and many other people that Wu Lian harmed in order to maintain her fickle relevance in society and Meng Wan didn’t consider her a villain. She was the reason he was able to get away with his crimes for as long as he was but all we asked of her is that she stop assisting him??

Prefect Chen’s ending also wasn’t all that satisfying.

The only people I could kinda understand were the servants because they aren’t servants but slaves. They didn’t have a choice and even then, I still blame them. Years of helping this man rape the young women in your care, covering up for it and not one of them strayed or attempted to help until it was convenient for them.

He was the bad guy. He was the rapist.

I agree wholeheartedly.

But he didn’t do this alone and pretending that because the women who assisted him in his deviancy were prisoners of their society counts as “time served” is despicable. They are guilty and hateful and should’ve been punished accordingly-or atleast there should’ve been a proper acknowledgment of their guilt and complicity instead of absolution.

I do want to point out an appreciation for the realism of the story as it relates to his victims-their willingness and their hesitancy. As well as how it highlights that rape isn’t always something done through force-sometimes it CAN be that nuanced and not as clear cut but that doesn’t make it any less rape…but this seems like a good place to stop no?