I know this kind of story is not very common in anime and even more rare from a different culture perspective, but it was something familiar to me. When they introduced Loulan in the earlier episode, I already got the feeling that Loulan would be the main focus of this season just telling from her name, and it would likely be a very sad story.
Names like Loulan were very popular to be used in a historical tragic romance novels in the 2000s in China.
The word, Loulan, was originally an ancient kingdom in Xinjiang, the northwest land of China. It was said to have a large area of desert and a very unique culture from the majority Han Chinese. The people there were passionate and good at dancing. It was very common for the Han emperor to have a beautiful wife from there.
Based on some ancient tales about Loulan, 2000s Chinese net novels made a whole niche creation about Loulan. The most used scenario would be a beautiful Loulan princess had to get married with the Han emperor for politics, and she had a lover which she would be able to meet again. Often the story would be a sad but beautiful revenge to the emperor and the rare palace.
I never read the manga but I guess the author of this anime might also adopt the same niche concept from those Chinese novels.
And of course, considering the Chinese history and culture, stories of girls trying to get out their traditional family culture are to this date very popular in the net novels.
I personally think 2000s time was the first ever in the history that Chinese young generation values more individuals over their family, especially for girls. From then on, there were less and less arranged marriages. And female net novels then were the reflection of those value changes.

Okay enough for background, let's go back to the anime.
The second season did a good job on continuing the story though I saw some screenplays with lower quality than others but I guess they will fix that in the DVD and BD version.
I was not that surprised about the story itself as I have explained above, but I am happy to see Jinshi reveals his identity to Maomao. I would say some part of the story was quite impossible in Chinese novels (for example NO WAY a woman can control his husband or even be the head of a whole clan that time) but it is okay if you consider the story happened in a more or less fantasy world rather than historic China (I mean eunuch is totally different to what it was presented in this story).
I would rate it to 70/100 because some screenplay's quality really annoyed me. I wonder if there will be another season or what can be told in the next season. The trick is usually the expectation of the relationship to drive audience to keep watching it. Now Jinshi's identity is revealed, I hope they would find a good way to make audience attached.