One of the things I have been able to enjoy in the last few weeks was going to a underground Chinese website to watch a very well received, but now "banned Chinese Drama". It's English name is "Scarlet Heart". The story revolves around a modern girl transported back in time via soul migration to the past, Qing Dynasty China. She eventually falls in love with half the princes in the Imperial Palace as they all fought for the coveted role of Emperor, while knowing the final outcome of their struggle. She warned one of her lovers to help him prevent his own execution, but it turns out that her warning was the catalyst for what starts the entire feud for succession. In the end, she dies and revives incredibly regretful for interceding in the past, but her actions were implied to be a predestination paradox, basically it brings the entire plot down to the fact that "love is surrounded by consequence and fatal choice"

Yes, I know at this point half of you will probably think, it's Game of Thrones and doesn't have the nuances of other time travel story, or it's just not something your interested in.

I actually like the story line as it is probably the best incorporation of a conceptual belief that Chinese people hold: Universal causality. Basically, the girl goes back in time into an era, when women were playthings and servants were treated like crap (The Chinese practiced a form of servitude for the Royals, nobles, and the wealthy equivalent to indentured servitude, but with less legal rights). Her past life self was born from a noble family and she was sent into the royal court to become one of the waiting-girls for the Emperor. Waiting girls are the first step to becoming an imperial consort, i.e. the Emperor or one of his son's wives. The girl gets involved in a lot of court intrigued, including the infamous Chinese historical incident of the Yongzheng Emperor Succession, infamous as Chinese Historians have debated for over 100 years, whether the Yongzheng had in fact falsified the edict to assume to throne after his father's death, then systematically exiled or killed his other brothers.

There were a lot of formal and informal executions in the series as a result of the bloody purges. The Chinese had several hundred ways of capital punishment and execution, which are different for different classes of people. Poison is the preferred way of noble death. "Slowing Cooking" is the way of treason against the state, it is what it sounds like, a giant iron pot filled with boiling water and a person stripped naked and placed in it to be cooked alive until they became nothing except bleached bone and a stew for the dogs.