Isn’t it every woman’s dream to have a man who loves her and who would willingly sacrifice much for her happiness? Well, in Princess Silver (白发), Rong Le is one such lucky lady. Instead of 1 man, she has 3 men in her life who don’t mind going to great lengths to keep her safe and happy. If you have watched the drama or read my Princess Silver review, you would know the gist of the story. So, from the 3 men – Wu You, Fu Chou, and Rong Qi, who would you choose to be Rong Le’s other half?
Wu You
I would think that Wu You is the least problematic of the 3 characters. He has the least baggage and no hidden agendas unlike Fu Chou and Rong Qi. His only weakness is that he is pretty arrogant as a prince and likes to do things his way.
In the drama, Rong Le seems to be the only woman he is comfortable with. They share the same interests – drinking tea and playing chess. They also have the same ideals in implementing a fair and just administrative system for the people. The extent of Wu You’s love for Rong Le is clear to see. He fought for her during her wedding to Fu Chou and willing to sacrifice his dignity and the throne in order to save her.
Why Rong Le’s hair turned white is not within her control, but Wu You’s white hair is his own doing. He chose to consume a special poison to change his hair to white to protect Rong Le from being framed as a murderer and stop rumours. Towards the end of the drama when Rong Le grieves over Rong Qi for 5 years, Wu You patiently waited for her. He neither wavered nor questioned her. He just understood her feelings. Where can you find a man like that except in dramaland?
Fu Chou
So many people are rooting for Fu Chou to win over Rong Le despite him being the villain in a large part of the drama. This is because despite him being tormented by revenge, he still has room in his heart for Rong Le. He did use her but he never meant her any harm. He just couldn’t bring himself to hurt her. Rong Le was cold towards him but he patiently longed for her to accept him as a husband. He also respected her wish to keep things platonic between them.
When Fu Chou mistakenly harmed her in his battle with Wu You and caused her hair to turn white, he deeply regretted what he had done. He risked his life to get a rare plant that could cure Rong Le. This plant feeds on fresh blood and he would cut his hand in order to keep it alive. Despite the danger of being caught by Wu You and his soldiers, he made his way into the enemy’s territory in order to give Rong Le the plant. Such is the extent that Fu Chou would go to to make amends to the woman he loves.
Rong Qi
Rong Qi’s life is a tragic one. Although he is a king, he is merely a puppet with his mother pulling the strings. With poison being passed to him from his mother while still in her womb, Rong Qi is an ailing ruler. His mother uses medicine that he requires to control him to do as he was told. Rong Qi and Rong Le fell in love when they met but the latter lost her memory when she was caught while trying to escape from the kingdom.
Thereafter, Rong Qi was forced by his mother to assume the identity of being Rong Le’s brother. He also had to give her hand away to someone else although she was actually his lover. As Rong Le had also been poisoned, Rong Qi had to find ways to keep her alive. From afar, he tried to keep her safe from enemies and helped her to find happiness with the man she loves. However, all these appear to be cruel on the surface which caused Rong Le to distrust him.
Quietly doing what is best for the woman he loves while being misunderstood best describes Rong Qi’s situation. So, you can imagine the pain that he has to bear alone. In the end, he sacrificed himself to let Rong Le live. He died taking away all the poison from Rong Le’s body.
Who Is Best For Rong Le?
If you have chosen Wu You to be with Rong Le, you will get a happy ending in Princess Silver. Personally, I prefer Wu You too. This character is more suitable for Rong Le who has gone through so much. He has no secret agenda or hidden skeletons in the closet which makes it easier to trust him when Rong Le keeps getting betrayed by those working for her. It is clear that he loves her and there is mutual trust between them which is the foundation of a healthy relationship.
Why Not Fu Chou & Rong Qi
On the other hand, Fu Chou’s character has a dark side with his obsession for revenge. I think no matter how much a man loves a woman, this hidden part of himself is a little unnerving. I know many viewers prefer Fu Chou to Wu You. But I just can’t accept Fu Chou after what he did to turn her hair white. This is the dark side to him that I’m alluding to.
As for Rong Qi, I’m not sure if any woman would want that kind of sacrifice from a man. Yes, he is sickly and is not expected to live long. But to exchange his life for hers would just make the woman feels incredibly guilty. The ultimate sacrifice may sound very romantic but the woman may never feel at peace. Well, in the drama, Rong Le grieved over Rong Qi for 5 years. I guess she has to. Otherwise, she would appear cold and unappreciative of his sacrifice. It would also make Wu You look good for being so patient and understanding of his wife’s feelings to give us a happy ending.
Anyway, all these 3 men are very loyal and decisive on who they love. There is no wavering from start to finish unlike Zhang Wuji in Heaven Sword And Dragon Sabre. In that aspect, they all deserved to be loved by Rong Le. So, who would you prefer to be Rong Le’s lover in Princess Silver?
Images Credit: Tencent
Fu Chou was my pick. I was hoping that he would be the one to have been Rong Le’s first love, even though I did suspect it was Rong Qi. Really though, once Wu You had slept with her it was pretty obvious that they were going to end up together.
I think Fu Chou put up with a lot from Rong Le and even though I liked her to begin with, by the late 2o’s episodes I could barely stand her. Wu You I hadn’t liked from the beginning because he was boring, arrogant and only wanted to act like a prince when it suited him (duties, princely expectations, etc. Fu Chou had much more depth to his character and despite his dark ambitions and previous experiences, he was always considerate of Rong Le.
I stopped watching somewhere close to episode 40 because I found it hard to watch after a certain point. I feel like nobody empathised with Fu Chou and I was really hating both of the main leads by this point. Kudos to the viewers that made it through the series.
But yeah, Fu Chou was my pick.
I know exactly what you mean, I was ok with the MC’s initially but right now I can barely stand them! Rong Le is especially annoying to me and they’re both pretty bland. It seriously pisses me off that they belittle Fu Chou’s trauma, his mother committed a crime and he was sentenced to death by his own father for it and had to be on the run for years while he was just a child and the MC’s just act holier than thou instead of even trying to put themselves in his shoes and try to understand what he went through
If you watch until the end, you might change your mind and like Rong Qi.
I read the novel, all of the spoilers, and currently watching the drama. I’m rooting for none, to be truthful. I just want Rong Le to be happy with whomever she choose to be with. I don’t really like Wu You from the start as much as I don’t like the actor that plays him. Lol. His love for Rong Le is passionate and strong, yes, but he did ‘use’ Rong Le for his personal gain. I don’t think I can like him wholeheartedly.
I totally agree with you about Rong Qi. He’s indeed pitiful; imagine sending the woman you really love to marry someone else in faraway land just because your mom told you to. But (if I’m Rong Le) the sacrifice thing will make me feel absolutely guilty, and to spend another 5 years of my life just to show people that I’m grieving is a very logic way I would happily do. But that was it. Nothing else to feel.
Meanwhile about Fu Chou, I slightly like his character more than Wu You. His (tragic) unrequited love for Rong Le also make this man appear more likeable (and pitiful). What I don’t like is how he even considers to use Rong Le for his revenge plot. He didn’t use her for real, yes, but we know that fate speaks differently. In the end, it’s like he puts the biggest stamp in Rong Le’s long suffering eventhough he didn’t mean it.
I definitely vote for Wu You! Of the 3 he’s the only one that didn’t purposely try to hurt her. Sure he used her at first to get the book but that was only because she wasn’t being honest with him about who she was either. When he shamed her by talking about the night they spent together it was only because his pride was hurt and he was questioning how she could spend the night with him and yet marry someone else not as a way to maliciously embarrass her. His major fault is his arrogance but he can’t be perfect and they need to have some conflict otherwise if they get together so easily it wouldn’t be a drama lol.
While it’s true that Fu Chou and Qong Ri also both really love her two they are both responsible for her biggest pain that turned her hair silver. True Fu Chou didn’t know it was her at the time but what despicable guy uses a woman like that to win? Even though I felt empathy for him because of the way he was treated I couldn’t fall for him because if that. Although I was hoping he would at least get a happy ending with Rong Les sister at least. As for Qong Ri yes he made the ultimate sacrifice for her but how could he let her take the destinys poison for him. If I was him I’d rather us die together than let her go through that same pain knowing that she will forget all their memories together.
Wu You also sacrifices so much for her how could you not love him? He gave up on his pride and revenge by surrendering Just to save her. He was also tortured and yet he didn’t want her to feel like it was her fault. He was willing to wait patiently while she mourns for her first lover. He always wants her to feel free so even when she was pregnant and didn’t want to see him he understood and let her have her way. It pained him to stab her but he went with it and trusted her. I only hope that I would be so lucky to find a guy that loves me like he loves her. Also doesn’t hurt that he is so hot!
Definitely Fu Chou. I like his char better than Prince Li.
I’m disappointed that he didn’t kill Rong Le. He got trained to be mean killer since childhood. If I were him, seeing his beloved with another man… … me would kill her first hehehe
Rong Le chose the wrong man.
From the twin, one got very lucky and smart. While the other bore all the bad luck and one sided love. The story becomes somehow too fake.
Rong Qi is the best choice. Rong Qi sacrificed himself to save Rong Le. In the last episodes, we found out that Rong Qi tried to protect Rong Le and keep her safe from Fu Yuan’s plotting. He loves her very deeply, but because of his health and his mother’s control, he had to let her go and marry another man in a far away land. He felt that it is better to be misunderstood by Rong Le because he wants to ensure that Rong Le will end up happy with Wu You. Rong Qi knew that Rong Le will choose to keep the poison instead of passing the poison to her baby, therefore he kept Rong Le with him until she had given birth. Rong Qi lived a tragic life, but he also deserves to live a happy life with Rong Le. Rong Qi had no choice, but to sacrifice his life for Rong Le because Rong Le’s happiness is the most important thing for him. It was a bittersweet ending for me.
I’m eternally late to the show and I just want to say that I’m a diehard Rong Qi fan.
I wanted very much to like Wu You, but him shaming Rong Le in front of everyone by saying that he’d slept with her, and then dragging her off against her will and locking her inside his mother’s mausoleum with him for 3 whole days? Not cool at all. I lost whatever respect I had for him from then on. Like, sorry but not sorry, I’m not a big time feminist, but I cannot tolerate “ooh, he did X because his pride was hurt” style explanation. Like, no. Okay, the shaming part, I can accept. He was hurt, and he wasn’t thinking who the audience was. His intention wasn’t exactly to shame her and paint her as a whore, so I can forgive that. But forcing her to stay inside the mausoleum for THREE whole days? This isn’t a spur of the moment anger thing anymore. This is a cold and calculated act. NO ONE can continue raging for three full days when secluded away in an isolated place. Three hours? Fine. Three days? Nope. And if he really was that mad for three full days, then this man clearly isn’t husband material at all. On top of that, I’m really not a fan of the “guy is a jerk to all women except the one he loves” trope. Wu You always wants to be free from palace intrigues, and yet the way he lives, the way he treats other people, screams of royalty. For all his talk of caring for the people, yada yada, he places himself on a pedestal and is really not someone who can live with the common folk. And don’t tell me he can because if his first reaction to being touched by a girl is to beat the crap out of them, oh boy. And don’t tell me he’s traumatised either. What? Traumatised by seeing a man kill his mother? Uhh… Well, okay so PTSD acts weirdly, and so I shouldn’t judge, but it’s also in the way he treats the girls AFTER he’d beat them up. If he was remorseful and apologetic, I’d give him a pass. As is, he continues to be all righteous, like “how dare you touch me you peasant”. Not cool.
Fu Chou to me feels very forced. Out of all three males, he’d spent the least time with Rong Le, knows her the least. I think he doesn’t love her so much as he loves the idea of her. I believe he sincerely wanted to keep her safe, but I don’t think a relationship where the girl feels nothing for the guy while the guy only loves the idea he has of the girl will stand the test of time. Again, not a fan of how he treats other girls and other people. Why is it that poisoning Hen Xiang is okay but Rong Le is not? I feel like ultimately, if Rong Le ends up with Fu Chou, it’d be for pity and not for love.
Rong Qi, on the other hand, is always for Rong Le. Sure, he has his fair share of secrets, and also what do you mean “marry Fu Chou for a year and I’ll bring you home” asdfjk how can you make a girl sleep with a man she doesn’t love for one whole year? But you can see that his hands are tied in most of the things he do. He lost a shit ton of points for me when he ordered his men to kill the people from Wan Yue Lou, but ultimately, if you think about it, he’s the king, and a puppet king to boot. It’s either these people die, or the nation falls and Rong Le gets into deep shit. I guess he ultimately got a pass from me because he wasn’t doing this for the sake of personal vengeance and in the grand scheme of things, you always see him scheming to get out of the clutches of the Empress Dowager and rarely to actually cause harm to anyone out of jealousy or spite or vengeance. Even then, I wasn’t completely set on Rong Qi as being The Man (TM) until around episode 55, when we see him walking around the village dressed as commoners with Rong Le. The way the commoners greeted him like he was a familiar face and one well liked by everyone warmed my heart because it tells me what kind of person Rong Qi is when taken outside of the palace. It may be because he’s rich and patronises the people in the village, but the villages weren’t drooling over him when they greeted. Their attitude was more “oh hey, look, the friendly rich guy is back in town again!” The way Rong Qi freaks out over Rong Le climbing the tree because he’s worried about Rong Le and Wu You’s baby warms my heart, the way he wishes Rong Le to gain happiness from Wu You because he knows he won’t be able to give her happiness is simply heartbreaking. Sure, he had his moments of anger and jealousy, but I love it that he pulled through in the end and made the decision that is best for Rong Le.
Ultimately though, I don’t dislike any of the guys. If anything, it’s Rong Le I dislkike. IDK if it’s the script or the acting, but Rong Le’s attitude towards the guys is super irritating. The way she got pissed off at Wu You for getting close to her for the San He Zhi? Well, girl, you yourself was using him all the way until the previous night. Don’t you think Wu You, too, deserves a chance to explain himself before you go all righteous “You’ve been using me all this while!” at him? Also, when she gives Fu Chou the cold shoulder, it irks me because Fu Chou could literally treat her badly and she has absolutely no cards to play to stop him. The only thing stopping him is Fu Chou’s love for her, and yet she’s all “You don’t love me” at him. I’m not saying she should be all lovey dovey and warm towards Fu Chou, but she did use Fu Chou when it was convenient for her, so she could at least spare some energy into being politely distant. Rong Qi? Surprisingly, her giving Rong Qi the cold shoulder is the only one that I can accept. She didn’t know it was her who lied to Rong Qi from the start, so in her mind, Rong Qi was the brother she loved and would do anything and everything for her. If she later on got pissy about needing to marry someone in North Lin after all (girl, you did agree to marry the North Lin Prince and gave some grand speech about self-sacrifice to Wan Yue), I blame it on Rong Qi giving her false hope. It’s one thing to make up your mind to be a sacrificial lamb. It’s another to summon the courage to sacrifice yourself, get told you don’t have to, let down your guard, only to find out you actually do need to become the sacrificial lamb after all. Not cool. She thought she’d been nothing but sincere to Rong Qi, while Rong Qi’s done nothing but made schemes after schemes with her as his pawn. While my heart bleeds for Rong Qi, I really cannot fault Rong Le entirely.
I completely vote for Rong Qi. He is the most handsome actor in this movie and it’s worth to see and admire his sad eyes.
I will choose Rong Qi. Only his sacrifice can be determined as true love in my eyes. Actually, when seeing the last episode I coudn ‘t help but cry. Rong Qi insisted Rong le to marry Fu Chou was just because he trusted that he may be able to bring the happiness she deserves. If that damn Fu yuan wasn ‘t the mother of Rong Qi, he would have long got his women. What is wu you? , What is Fu Chou?. Rong Qi didn ‘t even hesitate even a bit to save Rong Le. I really wished Rong Qi to be Rong le ‘s man. The only thing that Fu yuan said correct is “what i did was nothing comapred to the heartche Qi felt when he knew that you have fallen in love with zhongzheng wu you!”. In my eyes, even though at last rong le became wu you ‘s women, Rong Qi will be always Rong le ‘s man.
Just discovered Chinese and Korean dramas this year. I can’t believe I have been missing out on such amazing dramas. Just started watching Princess Silver, halfway through and it’s Prince Wuyou for me! Oh my, he sizzles. Thank you for your amazing reviews on dramas, your website is my to go website for reviews. Chinese and Korean dramas have made me neglect my American series, used to binge watch them but I haven’t watched one since C-dramas and K-dramas 🤣🤣🤣
Me like Wu You and should be the one to take Rong Le
The leading lady had no chemistry with any of the 3 suitors and she always looked like she was acting rather than in the role she was playing. As the series progressed she became less and less likable for her demanding demeaner and how she engaged with the leading men….she often took their love for granted and offered little of herself in return. She really wasn’t worth all the fuss.
Fu Chou’s love for her was always solid and never questioned. His love was much more mature therefore I would have prefered he ended up with somone else as she would otherwise dominated that relationship.