absurd

I see what you mean. But (IMO) it looks good in pictures, but in the actual drama... still weird. He does have something purplish(?) swirling in his eyes in the trailer (that sounded somehow wrong, didn't it? LOL). So maybe. I still hope not all the time, though.

I don't really know anything about it. But I just saw a couple of more official sources say it's Tencent's 1Q drama and, since they will be the only ones airing it in China and with all of their activity around Xiao Zhan (meaning his personal channel on WeTv), I felt it might air pretty soon.

No, it didn't. For VIP's yes, but for free watchers there are still 8 episodes to go. What did they replace it with?
Besides it's not like they have a TV schedule. I just think they will wait for LOF to end because those two might clash.

Have to say that seems very likely. I'm actually starting to believe that this will air right after LOF ends in February and the Oath of Love will probably wait for DC to end

With the speed of Chinese dramas, who knows what will happen when (and if) they actually get to season 2 :)) Maybe you are right

This is reeeealy bad. But if you can bear the sheer absurdity of what's going on in front of you, there's one good use for this drama: Chinese listening practice. The dialogs are simple and it has both Chinese and roman characters, aside from English subtitles, on youtube. There are even some tongue twisters there. Maybe it was actually intended for children learning the language.

I just started watching this, but there one thing that bugs me. The ML name is Handsome, like literally his name translates from Chinese as Handsome. WTF?! I don't know if I want to laugh of facepalm, because every time I look at him now, all I can think about is Prince Charming from Shrek

I really doubt he will be recast, if there is actually a season 2, as he is one of the biggest attractions of this drama (meaning even if fans of original novel/anime don't like it, his fans will still bring an enormous audience). Also, when I said it looks weird, I meant literally on every Chinese actor, considering they all have naturally dark hair and dark eyes. But that's a matter of preference, if it looks ok to you, all the better. Maybe they will make it work with CGI.
But as far as I'm concerned, if they make a good interesting storyline, I don't care if the characters look like anime or not.

It's also available on iQIY, though for some reason the link doesn't show up on this page

Honestly, I really hope not. Things like blue hair and unnatural eye colors look good in the anime, but in live action they usually look extremely ridiculous. I just can't take it seriously when they do that.

The trailer has XZ own voice (while FL is dubbed) and he seems to have a pretty good mandarin pronunciation, judging by some interviews I saw, so there is a good possibility that he dubbed himself

You're really patient :) I actually dropped it after 10 episodes and then came back maybe two weeks later, because I had nothing to do. foreveryoung is right, it does pick up around 20 something episode. Probably 22, for me, because there are finally some explanations and something happening that moves the plot forward. Unfortunately, I was already disappointed in this drama, so I didn't really "watch", just skipped any time I got bored. Maybe, I'll try again later, just start from episode 22 :)
Totally agree about the number of episodes: everything that happened from the moment they came down the mountain, until they came back could have been condensed into maybe 3-5 episodes, without loosing anything.

Wow, I didn't know that DC writer is the same as JOL. That just gave me so much hope for it :)))

Maybe it's a plot gap? I don't remember the 10 years part, but I have selective memory, so maybe my brain deleted it as unnecessary information :))
You're probably right about marrying in late teens, but everyone was like "you should have been married already!", so I felt like she's probably in her early twenties.

I guess, I didn't really feel like I was missing anything until maybe last 3-4 episodes. And the first half was kind of dragged out, IMO. But, well, it depends. Probably depends on how many of the XZ scenes they removed :)

I haven't seen the original broadcast of course, but the things you listed were not the things I had a problem with. Every drama has to go through censoring and most of the dramas are dubbed. While watching the Guardian, I didn't feel like I was missing scenes, I felt like character actions made absolutely no sense sometimes, they added a lot of unnecessary stuff in the beginning, but made an absolute mess of the main storyline.
Honestly this is not the place to discuss this, in a comment section for another drama. But let me just say: I don't believe even for a moment that the censoring is at fault for it being a mess. And I didn't have any problem with the dubbing.

You're right, I forgot about that. Don't know. maybe. I mean more money to make, right? :)) Still think it's unlikely, I mean they didn't have a TV broadcast in the end, why not broadcast the uncut version in the first place?

Totally agree about secondary characters, especially ones that die after one or two episodes. I made my own ZF/XY сut by using fast-forward button :)))
IMO, it's usually better to watch first, read after, because even if adaptation is good, books still have a lot more details, so it's like expanding on the story, rather than comparing the drama with what you imagine while reading.
My only hope for DC is that it didn't have a big budget or famous actors while filming (XZ got popular later) and both the novel and the anime already have a big fanbase, so they might have put more work into it.

I'm reading the other one by the same author (The Guardian) and it's really good, even with the amateur translation, so I think it's definitely worth a try.
The only downside is: you might be even more disappointed with the drama after reading :))) That's what happened to me with the Guardian, that drama is a disaster to begin with, but after the novel it's even worse.

I actually did like some side characters. I think Li Sheng had a pretty good character development, he grew into a leader his aunt wanted him to become. It's a very good point, I think: leader is not someone who's good at fighting, but someone who can bring people together.
I agree with you that romance worked, but it just feels like a romance that didn't necessarily need a Wuxia setting. It would have been nice to actually have an interesting plot, otherwise they could be high-schoolers in the modern era, for how relevant the rest of the stuff going on around them is. By the end of it, I didn't even care what is that thing everyone is searching for (The color of the ocean whatever). I still don't know and it doesn't bother me.
It's funny, I watched two dramas recently one had an interesting plot, but the romance I didn't care for. And this one the other way around. I have to say, out of the two, I prefer the first combination.

Ok, so out of sheer boredom and dumb curiosity, I actually did skip-watch this mess of a drama. It's going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think it deserves the rating that it's got.
Don't get me wrong, it's not terrible. The acting is good, the main characters and some of the supporting ones are pretty interesting. I don't really care about things like CGI in c-dramas (I mean what are you expecting, Avengers?) and I got over the dubbing pretty fast. The love story is cute and it works (if I didn't know ZLY's actual age, I probably wouldn't even notice).
The one and only real problem I have with this drama is: it's appalling production quality. It takes 20 episodes to actually pick up and move forward with the plot. 20. In a 51 ep drama. Who has that kind of time?
But even after it does pick up, everything other than XY and ZF storyline is still kind of meh. What are they doing? Where are they going? Is there actually a point in there somewhere or is it supposed to be like "Charmed" - new adventure every week?
I got the impression that the production team thought: "you're gonna watch it anyway, because it has JLY and WYB, so why bother". And they were right weren't they? Even with the ratings being so low, it's still very very popular. The overall thing is a mess, the small details, that usually don't matter, when the story is good, stand out more, because it isn't. And also because this drama, supposedly, had a big budget. A budget that apparently went into costumes, that characters change every episode or two. While travelling. With a small bag. I've seen princesses with less wardrobe changes. *facepalm*
The trailer set some really high expectations for me. This could have been really good, if someone had actually bothered to put some thought into it. I feel bad for the actors and the author of the novel. And also kind of afraid for Duoluo continent.