There might some spoilers ahead especially in the novel

1. Genre

The drama make it a sci-fi one and makes everything can explained by science. While in the novel, it's fantasy and has some historical (xianxia) events involved like Kunlun Mountain . 

2. Characters 

Zhao Yunlan has more weapons including talisman paper, soul guarding order the turns into a whip, a special watch and a special gun. ZYL is the reincarnation of Kunlun He is the reason why Shen Wei exist (literally).

Shen Wei  / Black Cloaked Envoy is  a King of Gui (ghost but don't have a soul) and more smarter than in the drama.  His weapon is  like  a spear but the end of the spear is a hook (idk what is the name). He has a twin brother, they both have the same powers but because of Kunlun he's a demi-god, that makes him more powerful than his twin and he's the keeper of the seal.

SID members

Lin jing- he's actually a Buddhist monk who is not al

ways follow the  rules of his religion. He's still make some weapons but he's not a scientist (lol).

Da qing- he is the pet of Kunlun and lived over a thousand years. Their difference is that he only transformed into a human twice only, he's a fat cat most of the time. He's the one who finds the 'Guardian' basically Kunlun's reincarnations.

Gouchangcheng- he has a TONS of merits that he get from his past lives. He has the same characteristics in the drama. He has a key role to the one of the seals his merits makes him the one who can lit up the soul guarding lamp. Hd  

Zhu hung- she's not fully evolved her human form, if she has a period she will become half snake and half human. She still like ZYL in the novel tho.

Chu shunzhi-  his power is can control a corpse (like wei wuxian) and he didn't have a brother in the novel, he didn't have any connections to Shen wei or black cloaked Envoy. 


 Xiangyi:

1. Genre

The drama make it a sci-fi one and makes everything can explained by science. While in the novel, it's fantasy and has some historical (xianxia) events involved like Kunlun Mountain . 

I would call it fantasy, rather than sf. Every episode has Shen Wei using ”dark energy”/magic to teleport, probe his surroundings, and the like. Zhu Jiu has similarly magical ability, but doesn’t seem to need portals. I’m only a quarter of the way through, but there’s been way more magic than science so far. Even calling the magic behind these abilities dark energy doesn’t alter the fact that magical thinking is required for these abilities to be plausible. Most forms of magic in fantasy contexts involve the use of “energy” to drive the magical process. Science fiction requires a logic of cause, effect, and explainable drivers of change, that is lacking in this series, which is full of causal leaps that make no sense. Any technology that is sufficiently complex to be beyond understanding might be called magic, because of the mental leaps required in any explanation of what is happening.