Stories 1-3 are stories she wrote. The main storyline was a story he fashioned for her to get her to remember, weaving it with one of her stories to get her to wake up from her coma.
Thus the majority of the drama was a dream. Her powers were never real. But certain facts were true. - They did meet by him sticking a bookmark into her tales she wrote and meeting at the library--most of story 3 is true. - The romance scenes from the first story where the male lead of that missed the female lead were also true things that happened to them. - The story about the woods and so on, that was partially true as well, and they went into the woods together.
The main story, as she said, was mostly false. He's not a rich cold CEO. He's warm-hearted which is indicated in the second story when he sacrifices his ticket for her. The cat is true, though. But she picked him up as a kitten, he didn't own her.
Which means by the end of the story, you find out after her coma, she had been dating him for a while, and the story that was the most true was actually story 3. She's been in a coma.
This is under the story structure Dream Record which originated from the Ming Dynasty.
The novel FL had more edge to her. They kept the pettiness of the FL from the novel though.
Drama version, I'd call her acting childish, but not in reality, smart, but not clever like the novel. Petty and she still likes food, though they haven't shown the oil-faced yet. She's definitely not air-headed like the female protag of The Longest (disappointment) Promise drama. So she's a bit whiny, though supposedly faking it, rather than straight up annoying because she can't learn anything or apply anything she's learned in the previous trials. (See Longest Disappointment for that). So far, has passed the Mako Mori and Sexy Lamp test. Slower on the Bechdel test.
Novel FL is more clever than smart. She notices things and endures things because she has to. She's not at all childish. She's really petty and vengeful which is played for laughs, and she's more tolerating the male lead for most of the time. She puts up with him. She's also very, very slow to realize her feelings. Because she is so similar to the ML in personality in a lot of ways, she matches in IQ to the ML, but is slightly slower in EQ. In the novel, ML falls first and hard and you know this is true from their first fight, he really liked her, but she frustrates him by not noticing, so they end up bickering, and the more she fails to notice the harder they bicker. This dynamic is similar to Romance of the Tiger and Rose.
If you ever watched A Girl Like Me, the female lead of that is more similar to the FL of this novel. (Except in the second life of the novel which is straight up used to make fun of FLs in wuxia.) A good fighter, clever, a little petty, and tends to bicker, but be a bit slower emotionally. But FL of the book of this is more book smart too, and loves reading, etc and using it against the male lead.
The novel protag manages to pass the all the feminism tests very quickly.
Best part of the novel is the straight up bickering. It's some of the best I've read in the genre of hate you but don't want to admit I like you.
I don’t think there was one in the novel but the drama seems to be going towards that direction…
In the novel, there wasn't really one, he kinda popped up later in the second life in the novel, but didn't figure that big until later. There wasn't a SFL, though, not like this. There is a lot of moving around.
It's not following the book 1 for 1. There is a lot of moving things around. I'm a tad disappointed, tbh, because the book challenged a lot of the stereotypes of xianxia, but the drama does a lot of reinforcing of them?
In the novel, it spends a lot of time setting up that they had no connection to each other prior to fighting, and being so ignorant that they spend most of their time fighting before they start to realize that something is wrong they need to fix.
But they shuffled things around, so that's no longer true, but in doing so, it kind of feels like your typical xianxia rather than challenging it.
And I loved the petty bickering in the book too...
There are intimacy supervisors for sets in real life, but they don't do anything like kiss the stars. And they are mostly absent in East Asia. You also have to have psychology/sexology degrees in order to become one for set. It's not that exciting of a job since mostly they make sure that everyone is safe within an intimacy scene. i.e. It doesn't devolve into sexual assault, etc.
Like shown in the BTS of Hidden Love, mostly actors mime the kissing to work it out and then kiss for the final scene. It takes a ton, ton of discussions on intimacy scenes. Kissing is only done on real takes. The two most difficult scenes on actors are kissing scenes and fight scenes.
I guess I'm the only one that liked the entire story beginning to end. I didn't think the story was that hard…
The beginning of the story starts cliched with a contract marriage between an actress and a CEO of an app company. It has all of the bells and whistles of a cotton candy drama--mindless no calories, type, but as the story moves forwards, there's hints things aren't quite right. For example, the FL can't seem to remember the fate of her parents, who randomly pop up during the story.
And then the FL can't seem to remember how the ML and her really met. He has to remind her.
Then slowly, more and more amnesia plots seep into the story as if someone is trying to remember something, as memories repeat. Until she states she doesn't need to go on the honeymoon and the ground shakes. She remembers the earthquake on their honeymoon.
The huge twist that's waiting you all along is that the first part of the story isn't real. It's been hinting at you the entire time that the story isn't real, because it was from a novel. It's a novel that her husband and her respun to have him and her while waiting to be rescued after an Earthquake on their honeymoon and he'd told her this story while she was slipping in and out of consciousness to keep her from dying.
She loved all these escapist stories with cliched plots because their love story didn't seem sweet enough for her. They had to struggle really hard to make small things happen. And a lot of the events from earlier that seemed like epic pieces were broken down as moments they had to work really hard for with very little cash, but I think this made things much sweeter. It wasn't that he was rich and could afford all these fancy set pieces, it was that he struggled to put them all together despite him not being rich like she liked to read in her romances and still tried to give her what she wanted from her romance novels--things he could not live quite up to like she wanted.
This culminates in her waking up from her coma, and waiting for him to get better, and despite the fact her used his body to protect her and lost his legs, she sticks by his side, because reality isn't these perfect overtures of CEOs with the budget to buy fireworks just for her. It's the ability to stick it out even when it's difficult--and that's what the story ends with. He may have lost both his legs, but they both decide to live life together. And the story ends with him waking up.
I get for people who don't like the truth of what love is--which is work to be the person you're with--they will hate his ending. But for me, I love this ending. Because it's not all being rich will solve your love problems, it's the careful building moment to moment and cherishing it, even when you think it's inconsequential and boring. But this story highlights that it's not inconsequential at all. Those small moments are what helps bond a couple together, despite the riches, etc. It's the effort put in to be together that matters the most, not false overtures and a magical glean.
I guess I'm the only one that liked the entire story beginning to end. I didn't think the story was that hard to understand. But then I also watch more Art house type of stories, so I understand non-linear storylines.
The story structure is based on Dream Record, somewhat... so I'll explain it in more detail in the spoiler below.
1 
1 
Thus the majority of the drama was a dream. Her powers were never real. But certain facts were true.
- They did meet by him sticking a bookmark into her tales she wrote and meeting at the library--most of story 3 is true.
- The romance scenes from the first story where the male lead of that missed the female lead were also true things that happened to them.
- The story about the woods and so on, that was partially true as well, and they went into the woods together.
The main story, as she said, was mostly false. He's not a rich cold CEO. He's warm-hearted which is indicated in the second story when he sacrifices his ticket for her. The cat is true, though. But she picked him up as a kitten, he didn't own her.
Which means by the end of the story, you find out after her coma, she had been dating him for a while, and the story that was the most true was actually story 3. She's been in a coma.
This is under the story structure Dream Record which originated from the Ming Dynasty.
Novel FL is more clever than smart. She notices things and endures things because she has to. She's not at all childish. She's really petty and vengeful which is played for laughs, and she's more tolerating the male lead for most of the time. She puts up with him. She's also very, very slow to realize her feelings. Because she is so similar to the ML in personality in a lot of ways, she matches in IQ to the ML, but is slightly slower in EQ. In the novel, ML falls first and hard and you know this is true from their first fight, he really liked her, but she frustrates him by not noticing, so they end up bickering, and the more she fails to notice the harder they bicker. This dynamic is similar to Romance of the Tiger and Rose.
If you ever watched A Girl Like Me, the female lead of that is more similar to the FL of this novel. (Except in the second life of the novel which is straight up used to make fun of FLs in wuxia.) A good fighter, clever, a little petty, and tends to bicker, but be a bit slower emotionally. But FL of the book of this is more book smart too, and loves reading, etc and using it against the male lead.
The novel protag manages to pass the all the feminism tests very quickly.
Best part of the novel is the straight up bickering. It's some of the best I've read in the genre of hate you but don't want to admit I like you.
In the novel, it spends a lot of time setting up that they had no connection to each other prior to fighting, and being so ignorant that they spend most of their time fighting before they start to realize that something is wrong they need to fix.
But they shuffled things around, so that's no longer true, but in doing so, it kind of feels like your typical xianxia rather than challenging it.
And I loved the petty bickering in the book too...
Like shown in the BTS of Hidden Love, mostly actors mime the kissing to work it out and then kiss for the final scene. It takes a ton, ton of discussions on intimacy scenes. Kissing is only done on real takes. The two most difficult scenes on actors are kissing scenes and fight scenes.
And then the FL can't seem to remember how the ML and her really met. He has to remind her.
Then slowly, more and more amnesia plots seep into the story as if someone is trying to remember something, as memories repeat. Until she states she doesn't need to go on the honeymoon and the ground shakes. She remembers the earthquake on their honeymoon.
The huge twist that's waiting you all along is that the first part of the story isn't real. It's been hinting at you the entire time that the story isn't real, because it was from a novel. It's a novel that her husband and her respun to have him and her while waiting to be rescued after an Earthquake on their honeymoon and he'd told her this story while she was slipping in and out of consciousness to keep her from dying.
She loved all these escapist stories with cliched plots because their love story didn't seem sweet enough for her. They had to struggle really hard to make small things happen. And a lot of the events from earlier that seemed like epic pieces were broken down as moments they had to work really hard for with very little cash, but I think this made things much sweeter. It wasn't that he was rich and could afford all these fancy set pieces, it was that he struggled to put them all together despite him not being rich like she liked to read in her romances and still tried to give her what she wanted from her romance novels--things he could not live quite up to like she wanted.
This culminates in her waking up from her coma, and waiting for him to get better, and despite the fact her used his body to protect her and lost his legs, she sticks by his side, because reality isn't these perfect overtures of CEOs with the budget to buy fireworks just for her. It's the ability to stick it out even when it's difficult--and that's what the story ends with. He may have lost both his legs, but they both decide to live life together. And the story ends with him waking up.
I get for people who don't like the truth of what love is--which is work to be the person you're with--they will hate his ending. But for me, I love this ending. Because it's not all being rich will solve your love problems, it's the careful building moment to moment and cherishing it, even when you think it's inconsequential and boring. But this story highlights that it's not inconsequential at all. Those small moments are what helps bond a couple together, despite the riches, etc. It's the effort put in to be together that matters the most, not false overtures and a magical glean.
The story structure is based on Dream Record, somewhat... so I'll explain it in more detail in the spoiler below.