That I'm not sure about but I've had osmanthus pastry before when I was in China and it tasted really delicious. It's probably not that popular --- but if others know, let me know too!

It is astonishing how sharp, and how much more worldly wise a person becomes fighting for survival. LWY wasn't stupid to begin with, but she did live her first round in a sort of delusional way - implicitly trusting those closest to her for the mere fact of being closest to her. She was consistently used, abused, and betrayed, and she didn't seem to learn the lesson of trust must be earned until she was killed (or at least banished to the Cold Palace).
It was only in her second go 'round that she began to display more wisdom.
Da Furen is a weasel with a few tricks in her hat, but you're right, she's not quite on LWY's level. Da Furen's children, and almost any of the favored children, are fragile little idiots because they lacked a real need to learn to be wily. They are schemers, to be sure, but their schemes are always pretty easily detected and even more easily, it seems, turned upon themselves.
You almost wish they had been graded on this sort of back-stabbing stuff so they'd learn how to do it properly and pose an actual challenge to the lead, don't you?
LXR is a self-centered jerk who got plastered, essentially raped LWY's mom, and then punished them both by sending the child thus produced away to the boonies to be abused however folks liked, and never gave her a thought again until she might become a useful pawn. He actively dislikes her merely because he didn't raise her himself, and her mother isn't some super-connected rich lady from a mega-powerful family. He's a loathsome toad.

I know it doesn't seem like it right now, but Li Chang Le isn't quite as dumb as she seems. She learns under pressure, like Wei Yang did. That said, Da Furen sheltered her and Min Feng so much, and Chang Le has always had her trump card of her looks to rely on, that she can't handle things the way Wei Yang can. Chang Le's primary skill lays in the arts, which aren't that useful for internal politics.

Da Furen actually is dangerous and destroyed a number of people in her time. You have to keep in mind that Wei Yang has analyzed all the Li family several times over due to being reborn and knows them all very well.

The others think they're dealing with a 13-year-old kid who they've known for a few months, where Wei Yang is actually a 30-something empress who has tons of intrigue under her belt AND dealt with the Li family and the Jiang family for years in her past life.

A normal 13-year-old girl wouldn't conduct herself with such paranoia. WY got rid of Da Furen's spy in her household, overcame CL's rape scheme and MF's red ginseng scheme due to being extremely careful about reading the people around her, not because they weren't decent schemes.

At this point WY has been relatively gentle, too. She hasn't outright killed anyone even though CL tried to have her raped and MF tried to have her kicked out of the household. All she did was destroy their reputations. If they stopped antagonizing her they could still move forward, but they won't.

LXR is EXTREMELY self-centered, though that isn't without merit. He is the pillar holding up the Li family at court. The Li family isn't powerful without him, so everything hinges on his reputation and ability to stay in the emperor's good graces. That said, he isn't responsible for WY's abuse. The Ping Cheng family he sent her to was a well-off branch of the Li family and should have raised her as a normal young lady. She was tossed to the abusive farming family for other reasons.

LXR is primarily indifferent to WY. He doesn't have any fatherly feelings for her, but it's kind of up in the air whether he has fatherly feelings for much of anyone in his family.

She killed in first few chapters itself lol 💀💀🤣🤣