Quan Chong Hei Xin Lian (2025)

dubious morals, rotten or ruthless characters, not much steamy romance

I am trying to not die of boredom watching full length c-dramas this week (recently aired ones being just that) and this popped on my IQIYI feed next to Trace the Shadows of Time (could not find it on MDL with Eng title but was changed since) with Zheng Feng, so I watched them back-to-back and here is my impression.
Love of Black Lotus is for folks who like ruthless or rotten (but cute or charming) characters with at least dubious (or no) morals. Here we get a really cute FL who cultivates hatred and scheming attitude (courtesy of scheming and hating environment) and as a result does all kinds of evil deeds without batting an eye. She is trying to manipulate ML who is drop dead gorgeous and somehow adores all her evilness while not being that bad himself. Their interactions are actually not ruthless per se as, apparently, they are really a match made in heaven. The tropes are just mundane and predictable and people who like violence and humiliation will enjoy it.
The benevolence of ML gets stamped with "I don't give a hoot" in the end while FL from "I don't give rat's ass about anybody" grows to semi self-reflective in the end, with happy ending that for me was really a relief that it is over, but here is why I enjoyed watching.
1. Very handsome ML and very pretty FL
2. Waiting around to get yet another joke about ML being a eunuch (incl. his clothing rising upon ingestion of aphrodisiac)
3 Recognizing yet another stereotypical moment from other dramas
4. Identifying OST borrowed from at least 10 full length dramas. Around ep 7 I became acutely aware of the music used in this micro-drama. I recognized tons of songs and bgm and then it became a game - let's name that tune!
I have to say that compared to this the other micro called Trace the Shadows of Time (the FL played in both) had a more interesting plot and FL/ML characters so I hope somebody else will post a raving review about this one as I really cannot

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