Episodes Corresponding To Novel Chapters & New Changes in the Adaptation, Manhwa Link

🔥Episode 01 -04 ➔ Ch. 01- Mid Ch. 10🔥

🔥Episode 05 -08 ➔ Mid Ch. 10-  Mid Ch. 22🔥

I have decided to update according to plot points for convenience; in a word it might be irregular number of episodes; due to the changes in scene arrangement of some chapters coming earlier or later in the drama,

⇒🪴 In the novel, Sima Jiao really had a weak period during the 500 years new moon; but even his weak period was many times stronger than those people in Gencheng immortal mansion but the eight palaces overestimated themselves so he could free himself. And there was no spell placed on him against self-harm; bcz Sima Jiao would never attempt to die like this; he would only die after burning all his enemies and getting revenge. The drama changed the part of weakness into fake,  so he forced LYT to stab him. In the novel, LYT was only forced to kill someone by Sima Jiao when she was bullied by the daughter of Yue Palace, Yue Chui Hui in later plot. 🍃

The drama toned down Sima Jiao's personality quite a bit, adding a human touch. Otherwise in the  novel author herself once commented that, "this article has no big villains, because Sima Jiao himself is the biggest villain". The fact that he is an overpowered ML is no joke.

⇒ 🪴About Sima Jiao's mother story part, due to ban they changed the incestuous marriage into marrying someone from a different lineage of the same clan. In the novel, both Sima E and Sima Shi were the last two Sima left and they were blood related twins. There were no clan leader either. After Sima Shi went supposedly crazy, before they could give birth to another child, a girl who could continue the bloodline with Sima Jiao; so they asked Sima E to wait for Sima Jiao to grow up and have a child with him. This totally devasted Sima E, she tried kill Sima Jiao but the Shi family leader of that time saved Sima jiao; of course for their own purpose. Later, Sima E burned her body, flesh, blood into refining the spiritual fire and send it into Sima Jiao's body so that he could grow up and have the power to protect himself. Both Sima E and Sima Shi planned this to give a chance for Sima Jiao to survive which will be revealed in later plots. 🍃

However, The drama did keep the cannibalism part which surprised me.

⇒🪴 There was no scene of Yuan Sheng, the heir of Yuan Palace asking to teach a lesson to LYT like the drama. In the novel, Yuan Sheng tried to control the bone eroding poison in LYT's body multiple times with the bell and didn't make an apperance in front of Sima Jiao until later when Sima Jiao and LYT moved to bailu cliff; Yuan Sheng asked her to meet him and complete the mission of the demon world of killing Sima Jiao. Of course Sima Jiao solved this issue neatly. Yuan Sheng defected to the demon relam and wanted to destroy the sect so needed to kill Sima Jiao through LYT.🍃

⇒🪴 In the novel, LYT and Sima Jiao never had a conversation of her wanting to leave here and go back to her valley like the drama. LYT understood that she has already been labelled as being in the same team as Sima Jiao so leaving him means she might not survive so its best to keep holding onto the grandmaster's powerful thigh. I think, the drama changed it to to show the thinking process of LYT and to increase her interaction with Hongluo who now have had an extended story line in the drama as Yu Ruling.🍃

⇒ 🪴The diversion and control of spiritual energy by the Shi clan from bailu cliff part in the drama was modified a bit. In the novel, the sansheng or three holy mountains was the only living place of the Sima Clan. It had the most abundant spiritual energy; after the eight palaces imprisoned Sima Jiao they diverted the spiritual energy below the mountain to the spiritual veins in their living places for cultivating faster; of course Shi clan held the most resource. Also, the sun moon flowers only existed in the three holy mountains. After LYT woke up from the coffin, they moved to bailu cliff. 🍃

⇒ 🪴In the drama they showed, how Sima Jiao became a bit flustered to see LYT change dress and avoided it and LYT also felt a bit embarrassed but in the novel he was shown completely calm so LYT gave up on  being shy. Sima Jiao had a 500 years ancestor baggage so even when he truly gets obsessed in the future he will downplay it so LYT will always be relaxed so their relationship dynamic always had a natural old married couple feel, and right now his obsession was just showing signs. The novel  scene below-

[ [ Liao Tingyan instantly forgot about her troublesome ancestor and began a joyful dress-up game, enjoying herself so passionately that she forgot all worldly concerns.   She was about to try on a red gauze dress, barely undressing before putting it on when the door kicked open. Sima Jiao, who had just seemed to be ignoring everyone and wanting to be in isolation, walked in irritably and demanded, "What are you doing? Who told you to run around?" Liao Tingyan instinctively tried to cover herself, but seeing Sima Jiao's expression, she thought, "What's the point of covering up? He seemed to have no interest in women, as if he didn't even notice her beautiful curves." He angrily kicked the beautiful clothes and jewelry away. "Come with me," Liao Tingyan rolled her eyes as she silently put on the red gauze dress. "Where are you going?" 

 Sima Jiao sneered. "Didn't I tell you that when I get out, everyone will die? Now, of course, I'm going to kill people." ]]🍃

⇒ 🪴The drama showed Sima Jiao and LYT going to the competition arena only once, however in the novel they went there on the 2nd day too where LYT slept on Sima Jiao's lap. Also Shi Quanlu wanted to test how scheming LYT is and how much she matters to Sima Jiao so he arranged for people from LYT's master place (the serene valley) to compete; to test the reaction of both Sima Jiao LYT. But LYT just slept through the whole competition, so this plan came to nothing and they thought LYT definitely slept on purpose so she is very cunning, but they did confirm one thing that grandmaster was truly infatuated with a woman as she let her sleep on his lap.🍃

⇒ 🪴Barging into a banquet to feed LYT scene in the drama added a bit idol type scene followed by some new addition in conspiracy by releasing fake information. The novel didn't have  anything like that; LYT felt hungry so Sima Jiao just straight went to the head table of the party and when those proud disciples who didn't know his identity tried to say something, Sima Jiao just threw him onto the water, then one of the people there identified that its the ancenstor.. so they all just stood aside like quails while LYT and snake kept feasting on delicious food and Sima Jiao kept bursting grapes with his finger. Honestly, I prefer the novel scene here more; the drama one felt a bit awkward to me.🍃

⇒🪴 The new additions in conspiracy regarding spirit vein stealing with fake info intentionally spread by Sima Jiao. That was for settling scores for the extra chain nail to prevent self-harm  in his imprisonment which is also a new change in drama. Also, not killing Yuan Sheng and working with Yuan Palace head are all changes. How these changes will set the plot next we will know in further episodes. In the novel, there was no self-harm restriction, and spiritual energy of three mountains were diverted to 8 palaces after imprisoning Sima Jiao. When Sima Jiao destroyed the chains he also destroyed the spiritual energy diverting arrays. So, there was no plot of it further and as everything had been in the hands of those people for a long time there was no point in pursuing these things; and Sima Jiao's goal was to destroy the gencheng immortal mansion so he cared nothing about it. Also, Sima Jiao had zero concern about the opinion of 8 palaces so killing Yuan Sheng after the soul search was nothing and he was always a one man army so he never worked with others. I guess they changed the ML character a bit and added many new plot settings.  Actually, in the novel, after meeting LYT he didn't kill people randomly like before, he only killed those who deserve it so it is not necessary to change his personality too humane in the drama.🍃

⇒ 🪴In the drama, LYT was going to attend the gathering after receiving the master's letter and Sima Jiao arranged something with the Yuan Palace master here. But in the novel, after asking about Yuan Sheng's death and Sima Jiao snatching a floating house artifact from the moon palace master daughter Yue Chuihui, Sima Jiao acted nonchalant like what if I killed, you have more than 20 sons and many grandchildren, what if I took that house; should I kill your daughter to make it ownerless, so after being frustrated by his answer, Shi Quanlu asked Sima Jiao to let LYT meet his master, Sima Jiao said that LYT is dead.. but actually Sima Jiao kept her in the floating house he snatched fed LYT a transformation pill and then she became an otter and faked her death. Because he knew that they would always try to grab onto her to control him and her original demon spy identity is also an issue and he will take action for his revenge plan soon so decided to keep her safe and hide from the 8 palace people's eyes in this way.🍃

⇒🪴 LYT was given a plot setting of frost fish, extreme cold spiritual power which is a new change. In the novel, she had no extra buff given except when Sima Jiao gave her his spiritual in the 2nd Arc before he dies; after all she is a salted fish so no serious settings were given for her. I guess the drama made some changes for more dramatic effect or something. There is also demon immortal relam barrier and some ancient war history which is new and connected with Yu ruling/ Hongluo character. We will see how these changes play out.🍃

🔥Episode 09 -12 ➔ Mid Ch. 22- Mid Ch.28 🔥

⇒🪴In the  Novel LYT didn't attend any gathering, the 8 palaces couldn't afford to seal Sima Jiao again so no banquet and LYT had no interaction with his master from Serene palace after going to the three holy mountains  so  those drama scenes like LYT's master asking Sima Jiao to spare LYT  etc. were all new additions. Also, in the novel LYT had to maintain that otter form 3 months straight, Sima Jiao didn't change her form as he wished like in the drama. After LYT turned into an otter along with all the other interactions with Sima Jiao shown in the drama, there were other scenes in the novel that wasn't shown. When Sima Jiao went to soak in the pool, he would pull the otter LYT to lie on his stomach in the pool; the otter LYT couldn't stand the cold pool so she would fly ashore and sleep on the couch. There were also some warm scenes of the snake playing with otter by the pool and then Otter riding on the snake head going to play, Sima Jiao teasing the otter and snake, also otter and the spiritual fire banter and interaction and Sima Jiao waking up the otter from its sleep by pulling its beard.  I wish they kept all the otter scenes. 🍃

⇒🪴Settings like Shi Zenxu's relationship, Anxue etc. were all new in the drama. The novel didn't have those roundabout plots in finding the Yan city. Sima Jiao originally had some suspicion about the Shi family, he just sensed it based on his speculation these days and went straight to Yan City. The drama didn't have the scene of the otter being almost eaten by the light flower. The drama toned down the brothel scene and some explicit dialogues in that part. Also, the Yan Huan part was elaborated in the drama as a minor story but in the novel, this part was quite fast paced, and Yan Huan wasn't a good character either, Sima Jiao just used soul search to find the information he needed and then burned him into nothing; then impersonated him and went to the Yan house and used truth buff to find out everything and then head for the Baifeng mountain. The whole Zhou Qing er and Yan family part from episode 10 to 12 and a half plot were all new fillers and weren't in the novel. Also, unlike the drama LYT didn't participate in anything here, for e.g. in the novel

[[ She had a feeling this ancestor was up to something big. After all, he'd said from the beginning that he'd kill everyone once he left Sansheng Mountain. He'd been quiet these past few days, and she'd assumed he'd given up after escaping, realizing the rapid growth of Gengchen Immortal Realm and its population of a million was too great to kill. Now, she thought he might have other plans.  Whatever those plans were, they had nothing to do with her; after all, she was just an innocent otter. ]] 🍃

⇒🪴The drama showed a minor conflict regarding the truth spell which is also new; in the novel LYT doesn't take it that seriously because after confirming that she had no malice or bad intensions for him;  except for some teasing Sima Jiao doesn't use it on her that much either. Later, after dual cultivation he could always sense her mood and when she is anxious/excited, he could even read what is going on in her mind so truth buff wasn't used much. The novel didn't have a confession scene, they directly entered the relationship after dual cultivation, because Sima Jiao downplays things and acts like this is as how it should be, we are together which is super normal, nothing to be flustered about... so LYT relaxes and let go her girlish shyness and they settle into like an old married couple.

⇒🪴The dream scene was a bit different than the novel as the context was different due to restrictions. In the novel Sima E tried to kill Sima Jiao because those 8 palaces asked Sima E to have a child with his own son,  Sima Jiao  as there were no girls in Sima clan anymore; this completely devasted Sima  E so she tried to kill him which sopped by the then Shi Family leader. Novel dream scene-

[[ Sima Jiao dreamed of his childhood, one stormy night when his mother, Sima E, came to his bedside, woke him from his sleep, and grabbed his neck, trying to strangle him. This was a real thing that happened. If Shi Yongyou hadn't discovered and stopped him, he would probably have been strangled to death like that.

    The funniest thing was that he could sense that those who protected and cared for him all had a strong sense of malice in them, while when his mother was about to strangle him, she conveyed only tenderness, love, and cherishment to him. ]] 🍃

⇒🪴In the drama when Sima Jiao separated a small part of the flame and left it to LYT as protection, she had some conversion with the flame about Sima Jiao's dream which weren't shown in the drama. Also, the plot of LYT otter listening to the storyteller in the Yan family rooftop,  telling the story of the falsified glory of Shi family previous leader fighting evil cultivator which was actually the credit of Sima family. LYT also heard about Sima Jiao's gossip from the storyteller such as how the previous Shi family leader tried to reform Sima Jiao's temper but he never could so he once invited a distinguished monk from the hidden Buddhist nation of Shangyun Buddhist Temple to help Taoist Master Ci Zang suppress his inner demons. The name Ci Zang was given by that monk which means the Lord of Mercy. 🍃

⇒🪴In the drama, the impure Fengshan Sima blood human farm was portrayed in a restrained way due to restriction, it was quite brutal in the novel, different areas designated for different things: such as public mating room , birthing room, labor baby delivery room, and processing room for blood and flesh. So, Sima Jiao burned down everything with a large scale fire. If anyone is curious, try the manhwa scene. In the drama, the battle scene with Shi Qianlu and 8 palaces were at baifeng mountain. But in novel, Sima Jiao seemed much stronger and he went back to the Yan mansion to LYT and had that conversation about death and then Shi and others arrived. 🍃

⇒🪴(p.s. some personal opinion on changes, may be biased, also contains spoiler on 2nd CP. I tried to hold back my rant and be patient till more episodes get released but couldn't due to the scene of YR stopping the snake from informing Sima Jiao)

Because I love this story and both ML, FL character settings; also as the main lead casts were well suited for the drama so I tried to be open minded about all the changes since the story was following the majority of novel scenes of ML-FL.  I feel very happy every time I see my favourite scenes on screen. I was fine with all the roundabout extension of background plots until the addition of Ye Ruling and Snake new twists. In the novel, the female friend Hongluo that the FL met in demon relam was working in a pleasure house. Hongluo was practicing the Way of Love and Lust, a form of demonic cultivation that involves absorbing human yang energy for cultivation. LYT worked as a hired thug at the pleasure house as her cultivation was made high by Sima Jiao in the first arc and she adapted to fighting and killing in the demon relam. Their friendship developed depending on each other naturally in a depressing and cruel environment in the demon world. For e.g.

[[ Hong Luo, exhausted at the time, saw her flying around the rooftop and waved at her, saying, "Hey, if I die here someday, could you please collect my body? I don't want it to be sold to a corpse refiner, where who knows what they'll turn it into."
 She thought Hong Luo was joking, a man with a constant stream of dirty talk, so she gave her an OK sign from a distance ]]

Hongluo treated her sincerely when LYT lost her memory of the first arc so she thought she transmigrated to the demon world, so they naturally became friends. The drama extended a background story for Hongluo in the immortal arc as Ye Ruling. This character is completely different from the sincere straightforward royal sister personality of Hongluo. The whole Ye Ruling character and background addition feels unnecessary and extremely annoying. Ye Ruling is portrayed as a hypocrite who always has an agenda but keeps saying she won't harm LYT but the fact is just the opposite, how different is trying to kill Sima Jiao or her sister trying to taking LYT's core from harming her!! 

Also,  The snake was just an ordinary snake. Sima Jiao gave it some of his precious blood when it was dying out of boredom after being trapped here so it grew like this. Later from time to time alongside disposing garbage (dead bodies) Sima Jiao would give it some blood when he was in a good mood so it grew from an ordinary snake to this version. In the novel, The snake never cultivated in human form until  the end of 2nd arc when Sima Jiao used a secret technique to transform the snake into a little boy who looks like him to spread the rumour that she and LYT had a son, because he was going to die soon so he made perfect arrangements for LYT to take over the demon relam as the next ruler. The snake never developed much intelligence, just stayed as a cute and silly snake and later a mute little boy (why mute, because although it was able to transform into a child; it still had low intelligence as it was originally an ordinary snake who changed after drinking Sima Jiao's blood so it never gained much enlightenment so talking was still a challenge)  looking like Sima Jiao. It was like a silly and obedient pet throughout the story. There were even some fun parenting scenes regarding the snake little boy between LYT and Sima Jiao  in the third arc. LYT named the snake Sisi and Sisi was always like a  cute, silly but loyal pet to Sima Jiao and LYT. The drama  changed our Sisi into some Hei Nan Ju who transformed from  into an adult with some lame romance connection with Ye Ruling which makes zero sense. This 2nd pairing feels totally unnecessary in this adaptation.

Also, the main thing about Ye Ruling character that annoys me is not her good/bad personality portrayed in drama but the way her influence on LYT and snake is shown which keeps getting on my nerves. 

Because of Ye Ruling, the ordinary snake who could become powerful now all due to Sima Jiao's precious blood and protection, just due to some lame plot device of becoming human after Ye Ruling returned his heart, actually turned back on Sima Jiao, refuted his words and that line " I wanted to stop acting like some domesticated animal obedient to everything" totally stepping on Sima Jiao's kindness and grace.. acting like Sima Jiao forced him to follow him or something, without Sima Jiao he would have been an ordinary snake that died long ago. I would rather Sima Jiao remain as an one man army than this kind of subordinate that's no better than a traitor. Our novel snake Sisi is thousands of times better than this. 

Ye Ruling character influence on LYT also feels infuriating. Every time it concerns Ye Ruling , the behavior of LYT feels like a different person not like her usual self when she is concerned about her own safety and staying away from trouble peacefully. A person from the workplace, someone who puts survival and peaceful life as first instinct how can they be so enthusiastic and open with someone they barely know; it feels so contradictory. We novel readers clearly know that LYT is not like all those emotionally silly FLs out there, she is a salted fish but never stupid and makes her survival the top priority even when she was alone in the demon relam in the 2nd arc. While she may look carefree but she is quite cautious when it comes to serious things. This Ye Ruling character is ruining LYT's personality. Some viewers have harsh opinion on LYT because of her overly friendly and trusting attitude towards YR where she tells her about everything feels super unreasonable. Honestly speaking, when LYT argued with Sima Jiao and defended YR multiple times, and also asked the snake to take YR as his master acting all cupid; I myself felt a deja vu of some annoying drama scenes from other dramas. They made a total mess by adding this unnecessary character and forced interactions. If it keeps going on, I am afraid LYT's unique salted fish personality would collapse .  Even if they wanted to add a friend to the FL in the immortal arc, they should have done it in the right way. This forced naive friendship play sticks out like a sore thumb.

Currently, I am feeling quite repulsive toward this Ye Ruling character ; I really hope we can see improvement on this in the next episodes and don't let it get worse. I will be heartbroken if this drama becomes those typical annoying Xiania due to supporting characters.

🔥Episode 13- 18➔ Mid Ch. 28-  Mid Ch. 48🔥

I planned to bundle all events together from episode 13 till the the major ending plot of the first arc in drama. So,  six episodes will be updated together and delayed a little. People wanting to read the details, please be patient and thank you for the feedback,🤗 I am glad that it helped to know the story better and give a chance to understand our Jiaoyan more deeply.