oh no there are killable characters
oh no
question: can you accidentally kill a character? i would hate to accidentally kill long qing.
by “accidentally”, I mean one that is led up to by subtler choices, rather than an outright:
choice:
“Kill Long Qing.”
“Spare the bb.”
Not sure if it has been asked before but is it intentional to fail the trial?
I believe that something is wrong with the code. They are working on it though 
@resuri08 a hahaha this is getting dangerous… From now on I can neither confirm nor deny any theories about why Long Qing is not MC’s blood sibling… 
if not I’m going to accidentally spoil something big.
@Scorpio00 yes there will be lots of drama bc I live for it tbh. Ahem. Currently as touched on before there will be at least two routes to raise r/s with ROs, one cute and one dramatic. But for Long Qing it’ll probably be more like cute (MC getting their heart broken) and drama (both your hearts and a few other bones being broken).
@violet fortunately or unfortunately you cannot subtly poison/slowly assassinate Long Qing before his time bc we need him for the plot lol… But you can murder him while making it seem to the world that you are doing it for the greater good/with minimal damage to your reputation. If you’re asking if your choices to prioritise other things/not unveil certain plot points will accidentally cause any characters to die, that can happen to none of the major characters (basically the ROs for now). But hey, who knows about other characters… 
On a lighter note, there will be a mini present for yall on valentines day (that is 14th Feb right) although sadly no, it isn’t an update (I tried 2 updates in a week last week and we are never repeating that experience friends)! Please look forward to it lol.
Ooohhh… 
Now I am looking forward to romancing Long Qing… I’m just speculating based from historical dramas that I watched. I really hope that you will be able to finish this. I love a little drama for my MCs!
ヾ(´∀｀)ﾉ
you’re killer, Hilsee!
Is the trial bug fixed? 
Oh, and I’m looking forward to romance Long Qing hehe
Uh, coughs nooot yet. I’m trying to pump out more content before festivities lol sorry.
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! 
As promised here is a little Valentine’s Day present for y’all so that everyone (including me) can be a little less confused about characters and their cough relationships with each other. 
Minor spoilers in image under cut (it’s nothing y’all won’t read about/guess in the upcoming chapter but it does give away some upcoming new characters/relationships not yet mentioned explicitly in-game)
Stay tuned for Ancient China Trivia Pt 2: Imperial Kitchen coming up soon!
I’m very confused. Hahaha
I am still betting that Long Qing might be the Imperial Consort 's son from a previous marriage or lover based from your hint that they are not blood related. 
No need to answer though. XD
I love this! Thank you so much, this is great.
(for some reason after poring over this i seem to be more drawn to long qing?? lol)
Its says the Imperial Consort was lovers with the Emperors brother when he was sent to bring her to him.
Oh yeah… Thanks for the info. 
No problem 
What I’m guessing probably isn’t true since they have 0% blood relation.
Ancient Chinese Trivia Pt. 2
御膳房 aka Imperial Kitchen
As its name says, the Imperial Kitchen was the exclusive culinary department of the royal family in Ancient China. I couldn’t find the origins of the name 御膳房, but it was definitely present by the Qing Dynasty (today you can apparently visit the one in the Forbidden City which has been remodeled into a display hall for antique furniture).
The name Imperial Kitchen conjures up images of scrumptious feasts like those we see in historical dramas, but apparently life for an Emperor wasn’t very fulfilling when it came to foody desires 
The Qing Dynasty Imperial Kitchens had five divisions, roughly translated as: Meat/Fish (uh… Flesh Department???), Vegetables, Rice, Boiling/Roasting, Dessert. All together the number of workers in total is estimated in the hundreds. And as the Imperial Kitchen catered only to the Emperor and Empress and some other high ranking Consorts, this all sounds pretty extravagant.
However back in the day refrigerators were a distant fever dream even for the Emperor. So, in order for food to be delivered on time whenever the Emperor called for it through a relay system of eunuchs, all meals were prepared before hand. But as different kinds of dishes (for propriety’s sake for each meal there were around a dozen dishes, even though the Emperor’s stomach only had space for maybe three mouthfuls of each dish) have different preparation/serving time, the result was often that half of the dishes were already gone cold by the time the Emperor could eat them, especially after taste-testing by retainers etc.
Worse, there were apparently cases of corruption among the eunuchs in which they pocketed parts of the (astronomical) budget for the Imperial Kitchen, pushing up already expensive costs of food supplies in an age without preservative refrigerators.
Even when the Emperor held feasts for celebrations in the harem/with the royal family/courtiers the menus were apparently pretty unbalanced. Qing Dynasty Emperors’ meals were recorded in a book named 《膳底档》and an example of Qian Long’s, one of the most renowned Emperors of the Qing Dynasty:
燕窝红白鸭子八仙热锅十品
葱椒鸭子热锅一品
炒鸡丝炖海带丝热锅一品
羊肉丝一品
情蒸鸭子鹿尾攒盘一品
煳猪肉攒盘一品
银葵花盒小菜一品
银碟小菜四品
咸肉一碟野鸡爪一品
竹节饣卷小馒首一品
孙泥额芬白糕一品
螺蛳包子豆尔馒首一品
饽饽三品
果子粥进些
大肉面一品
奶子十品
tldr: duck x3, chicken x2, lamb X1, pork X1, buns x2, vegetables x2, fruit(probably nuts) congee(?!)x1, meat noodles x1 oh god there’s too many but you get the idea.
Soooo basically apparently Imperial Kitchen food wasn’t as good as the dramas claimed although it may have LOOKED presentable. But hey, there’s still dessert, right?
https://puui.qpic.cn/qqvideo_ori/0/o0560cyb0p3_496_280/0
(Insp for Yue’s rose puff)
Btw, I can’t believe I’ve written this far into the fame without properly considering this problem, but, uh, I haven’t actually decided if non-heterosexual marriages will be a thing in this game? So far all of the (rather few) couples in the game (not including MC ofc) are. This will mainly affect the avaliability of endings in-game, but if I input freedom of marriage there may not be enough space in the current narrative to elaborate on the issue. But well, this is fantasy, so I’d find a way… What do you guys think?
Also, about MC sexuality: currently I’m thinking of making the choices only between asexuality and (what’s the opposite? sexuality?) bc while I understand that allowing sexuality customization fosters greater immersion into the game, I don’t really want to lock players out of RO choices later in the game, especially if players who play a character and not themselves change their mind halfway (I’m guilty of this). I’m not sure how other authors deal with this in-game? The asexual option exists to toggle between romantic scenes of varying uh degrees(?)
I don’t see this as a problem. If it’s about an heir one can be chosen from within the royal family as a successor.
Yes, I was thinking of either going the adoption route (which does have historical precedence in the case of infertility/death of direct successors etc) or the Choice of the Court(?) route where in this case advancements in magic have made biological same-sex kids possible.
The bigger problem is worldbuilding - I don’t really have the space in the prologue or even chapter 1 to establish what is a rather significant element of the world. Do you think it would be too jarring/sudden to dump exposition about this the first chance I get (which will be about halfway through chapter 2)?
Choice of Romance: Affairs of the Court, but close enough. 
—
To me it doesn’t really matter. An info dump in Chapter 2, if done in like a side-story format, would do the trick.
Or you know, you could make non-hetero marriages or even relationships “forbidden” and give it a political twist. Revolution and all that.
Honestly though, I think you should just stick with whatever feels right for your story. This is your brain child, after all. I trust you’ll make good decisions.
A couple things here - a common solution is to have the RO all player-centric. This means many things but in the end, it is usually the flexible choice of handling preferences for newer authors.
Also, asexuality is something to handle with kid gloves because it doesn’t mean “frigid”, emotionless or without love and if you are not careful when writing, it can really hurt those individuals.
I personally, in my game, asked the player to indicate if they were interested in romance/sex and if they say “no” I have flavor text and branches relating to the various degrees of friendship targeting them (if they indicated yes to that).
For those indicating no to either, I tried to allow them a more “action orientated” story - one with character interactions but nothing with lingering attachments concerning the player.