Xiao Qi Qing Rang (2025)

A Slow-Burn Love Sci-Fi Drama Where the Antagonists were more Modernized than the Protagonists.

I can say this was in my more anticipated dramas this year as I wanted to see the pairing of Reba with CXX as well as ZL as the awesome villain she can play and the sci-fi aspect as that's rare in cdramas. Now while the acting by literally everyone was spot on, the storyline had a lot of issues after the halfway mark. Let's discuss.

Pros: The chemistry of the leads and everyone's relationships be they team evil or good was the top contender. We had an ancient enemy known as the fiends that in their non-human forms looked like aliens that wanted to take over earth and a group of hunters appointed by an ancient king called the Nanshan or South Mountain Hunters and this duty was passed down from generation to generation. What the hunters didn't realize until the ML or YT met the FL or NJL was that the fiends had found a way to take on human forms and only those that still lived underground looked alien-eske. They were living amongst humans and the one in charge or LRX played by ZL had a whole farm where she used generations of actual kidnapped humans as "blood bags" or basically every inch of their body is consumed by a fiend who than looks like that person and is stronger than humans. But they are careful in their selection as they don't want to attract too much attention.

YT's parents and sister (about her we learned only briefly at the very end but not how) were murdered because his father owned a mine which could be used by LXR--or fake Lin as I called her because she took on YT's mom's name after the fact--for when the fiends went through their transformation to human. So Fake Lin and her posse of fiends plus the humans she employed—lord only knew why they were so loyal to her—raised YT and an unrelated sister that was born, to later be used as a blood bag herself. YT didn't know the truth until he grew up and found his mother's diary and from then on both he and LL (the sister) who also knew the truth lived in constant fear and had to conduct themselves appropriately but he was definitely trying to learn the truth and find ways to free them both.

It wasn't until he met NJL that everything changed. NJL was a sculptor by day and a Nanshan Hunter, one of the strongest because she wielded the Mad Blade as it was known. Her mother was one as well but was presumably killed 20 years ago and not seen again until the end. NJL was trying to quit the hunters but it kept coming back to her. She too lost her family to the fiends; first her mother and then her father took his own life from depression. She was raised by uncle Jiang who was the leader of the hunters and he and another woman trained her when she was a child and gave her, her blade which she had to accept by giving her blood as she was a direct descendant.

Through a series of encounters with YT, NJL learns to her horror that the fiends are now walking around in human form and this is why the last 20 years when they patrol the mountain it's been relatively quiet. Her relationship with YT starts off as combative but as he proves with information that he is trustworthy, they slowly become friends, than partners who help each other when wounded and other times and than it turns romantic. It's a slow burn which is expected given that romance isn't the primary storyline. To YT, NJL is the hope he's been looking for in him seeking the truth.

Meanwhile, fake Lin starts to suspect her "son" is finding out more than he needs to. We never really learned what plans she had for him other than helping her run her huge company filled with unsuspecting scientists and other people who do research on different DNA and other things meanwhile all of that is used in her quest to turn more and more of her kind into human form. She does charity work and other things on the side like investment and marketing that are legitimate to hide her side business. We start seeing clashes between fiends, their human sidekicks and hunters when one is kidnapped briefly and while he is released, Jiang-Shu and 4 others are taken and this is the start of everything that culminates in the battle at the end.

There's a second couple of LL and the doc friend and sponsored by fake Lin named Lv Xian who are pushed together because the only way LL can become a blood bag is if she gets married and has kids. Fake Lin feeds her raw meat and drugs her with milk. But the two become friends and later more than that. He helps YT and even NJL later rescue LL from the house; he also knows the truth but only reveals it to YT at the end. But YT gets caught, first with his mother's diary for which he is imprisoned at home for at least 15 days and than because a jealous hunter XS who has a thing for NJL, says his name in the exchange of prisoners with fake Lin which is when she realizes that YT "betrayed" her when he and his whole family "should be grateful to her for everything she's done." Delusional doesn't begin to cover it. So he's imprisoned in the mine for over a month and when NJL and another hunter rescue him, it's obvious he's gotten severe trauma. It takes a long time for him to come out of it; but he does with the help of NJL's now blended family; her caretaker, LL, and a dumplings guy who was also saved from the fiends when he harbored LL for a bit.

YT and NJL's romance picks up more at the end after her selective amnesia goes away and they have their "reunion" kiss and another intimate moment though not shown, it's understood. It's an HE for all intents and purposes; creepy ending notwithstanding. The entire story I won't tell but it's pretty cool in the first half. The second is as well but the storyline takes a dip at YT's mine time and never really recovers; but that'll be in the cons. Usually I list the characters that I liked the best, but honestly every single one did a great job. The leads and ZL were the best but I can't point to my favorite character because they all pulled their weight. The fights were great except the last one; my favorite was the one at the farm between NJL and fake Lin.

The amazing CGI especially of the non-human fiends, and that red cave thing where the earth demons dwelled plus the membrane NJL's mom put her in where YT rescued her from. I think that's why this show got an S+. The entire soundtrack fits perfectly as did costumes, sets, etc.

Now let's head to the cons. Sadly, there were a lot of those.

Cons: They started cutting scenes around the time YT was in the mine and the rest was spliced together; things you'd see in previews or official photos, you never saw on screen. There were so many plot holes, you could fall into one. Some of the examples are: They hadn't trained in 20 years; everything was outdated and they were at a severe disadvantage which is why the final battle was a hot mess. They weren't even physically strong to take on the human fiends let alone their non human counterparts. When was the last time any of them went to a gym? It's like YT knew how strong fake Lin was because she lifted him off the ground with one hand when he was locked in the house but he used the tranq gun like a bat? I mean really? He couldn't shoot her? She disarmed him in under 3 seconds and shot him instead. Make it make sense, plz. Uncle Jiang knew about the earth demons (NJL's mom being the only one who retained her consciousness) but never told the hunters and XS only read half of it from a book but never studied further to know they would take out their own brethren. Everyone was waiting for a serious battle because of the build up and we got that?!? The writers did put the hunters at a serious disadvantage by making them not modernized like their enemy was. They could have used Mad Blade's blood to make real bullets with real guns, so much could have been adapted.

The fiends had adapted with resources, modern tools, even drones at one point, while the hunters looked almost embarrassing in comparison, stuck in outdated methods. Viewed from an outside perspective, the hunters seemed like a poorly maintained car garage, while the fiends operated like the Italian mob when they had real power. In that final battle, the hunters were pretty much slaughtered and that’s because they spent 20 years sitting on their asses eating, joking, and not training and their equipment was 20 years behind schedule, AT LEAST. Then there was the fact that they could not watch each other‘s backs and that’s why SQ was ambushed, which by the way was so out of the blue; like he barely got a chance to fight. But all the strong hunters had to sacrifice themselves one way or another or get badly hurt to kill essentially 2 human fiends because NJL with her "Mad Blade Medicine", took out the two huge non-human ones. But at least Jiang-Shu got some revenge and killed the dude with the blade who killed him, but I think he was glad that he did that. Fake Lin just stood by the side waiting for YT (who by the way basically shot maybe three times the entire time; otherwise he just ran around and pointed that rather useless tranq gun) and NJL. And the anticlimactic non-fight between fake Lin and NJL. We were really building up to it and literally nothing happened; other than talking but then they stabbed each other and it was over as NJL fell and then mom came flying in and decapitated fake Lin. 32 episode built up to that; what a waste!

Also when YT was rescuing FL from the membrane, his hands were red and blistered but next scene, they're fine. And probably the most ridiculous part was the selective amnesia. She remembered everybody except him. Every single time something was brought up she remembered the fight, she remembered the people. He was there alongside her, by her side every step of the way and yet nope, she didn’t remember him. Thankfully that lasted only 1. 25 eps. There were more but I already forgot them.

Would I recommend it? Despite the absolutely insane amount of plot holes in the cons and cut scenes, the series itself is still quite good. Hence it got the score it did. The acting was phenomenal and the overall story is good. Watch and judge for yourselves.

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