I had such fun reading this! I'#ve watched the show twice now and would happily watch it again, but yeah, the plot gets a bit obscure, muddled and/or weird at times, which helps me because I easily forget what happened before my next re-watch.

are any of these Mongolian characters being played by Mongolians? (Or is it another case of paested on yey beards—)

I have no idea but I was impressed by the fluency with which they spoke their language.

- When did we actually learn about Duo'erla's boyfriend?

Wasn't that part of the whole 'cloak' thing? I had the feeling I knew there'd beeb a BF for quite a while before he showed up.

- One of the best things about "Sleuth" is that it answers the slightly tiresome ‘this canon if X had a gun’ meme. The character who most needs a gun has a gun; nothing is faster due to this.

:) Point!

- In the flashback, someone named Yu Liang gets selected as a palace eunuch. Yu Liang's already been through so much, getting curb stomped at weiqi over in cdrama "Hikaru no Go". Must he lose his dick, too?

That cracked me up!

I was also told it's based on a danmei novel and just assumed that the producers had been extremely cautious in a way the producers of Guardian or The Untamed had not been; having said that, I'm not really interested in any ship here that doesn't include Wang Zhi. A threesome would work best. :)

for most of Duo'erla's tenure in the story the show does stage everything from her entrance to their boat language learning conversation as though Duo'erla is Tang Fan's love interest. It's all pretty plausibly deniable, even when it comes to her final sacrifice. That does, however, blur the viewer's focus. She gets the visual cues and stand-by scenarios that should be aligned with romance.

I read it as Tang Fan being her (oblivious) love interest. But I admit I'm bad at catching on to ~~vibes~~ sometimes.

- It’s kind of odd that Wang Zhi, who is not one of the romantic leads, has the show's clearest arc. His position at the story's end is materially different from his starting point, and we can easily describe the change in his personal life as well. He basically sums it up for the audience. I sort of feel the story de-facto excludes him from the 'potential main love interest' category by virtue of his being a eunuch, which I have some qualms with.

I love Wang Zhi, he's by far the most interesting character of the three. I love how he is introduced as a potential threat but is in fact incredibly loyal to them once he has accepted they mean well. Also, my competence kink...

(Though, Sui Zhou's voice? *SWOON*)

This is like CMOT Dibbler telling Vetinari a thing or two.

LOLOL Wonderful!