Aryael

Short answer: Water God.

Long answer (in chronological order):

1) Heavenly Second Prince (the current heavenly emperor) saw the Flower Goddess and fell in love at first sight.

2) Second Prince accidentally met with Flower Goddess at the mortal realm as she was viewing an opera. Knowing that she liked opera, he kept going to the same place and eventually they both fell in love.

3) Second Prince planned to topple the crown prince to assume power of the heavenly throne. In order to do so, he needed the political backing from the Bird Clan. Hence, to get the throne, he married the princess of the Bird Clan (the current heavenly empress). By doing so, he broke the Flower Goddess' heart.

4) Flower Goddess returned to the flower realm heartbroken. Water God, who's her senior from the same teacher, comforted her. Actually, the Water God had always secretly liked her. Under the Water God's companionship, the Flower Goddess recovered from her heartbreak and fell in love with the Water God.

5) The emperor couldn't forget the Flower Goddess. He wanted both the throne and the beauty. Hence, he tried to persuade the Flower Goddess to be his concubine. She refused because she had already fallen for the Water God. The emperor raped the Flower Goddess and imprisoned her in his palace, not knowing that the Flower Goddess was already pregnant with Jin Mi. This was why he misunderstood that Jin Mi was his daughter.

6) The emperor found out that the Flower Goddess had fallen in love with the Water God. Out of spite and jealousy, he arranged for the Water God to marry the Wind Goddess. The Water God declined and told the emperor that he will only marry the Flower Goddess.

7) The heavenly empress was jealous of the Flower Goddess. She tried to kill the Flower Goddess but she escaped. However, she's seriously and mortally injured. She knew she did not have much time left.

8) The Water God went to the Flower realm to ask the Flower Goddess to marry him but the Flower Goddess turned him down. She lied that she had never loved him and that she had only ever loved the heavenly emperor. The Flower Goddess decided to do this because she knew she was dying and she wanted the Water God to have a happy and long married life with their childhood friend, the Wind Goddess.

9) The Water God was heartbroken. He believed the Flower Goddess and had no choice but to follow the imperial decree. He married the Wind Goddess.

10) On the day of the Water God and Wind Goddess' marriage, the Flower Goddess gave birth to Jin Mi. Before she died, she gave Jin Mi the Unfeeling Pill. This is the first scene in Ep. 1.

Therefore, the previous misunderstanding on who is Jin Mi's real dad stemmed from the heavenly emperor thinking that Jin Mi was his daughter (because he raped the Flower Goddess and because Jin Mi said she was born around 4000 years ago at a later date which was a lie the Flower Leader manufactured in order to hide Jin Mi's real identity). In actual fact, Jin Mi was born on the day of the Water God's wedding which was a year earlier than the date she was given. The Flower Leader kept the Flower Goddess' death secret for a year before announcing it to the world. Again, this was to keep Jin Mi's real parentage a secret. Hope this explains the confusion! :)

They are dallying it a bit. Jin Mi gotta go to mortal world to suffer first and this is the part not in the novel. As far I can remember, she only went to the mortal world at the end of the novel after the showdown battle between Xu Feng and Ren Yu. Therefore, from Ep. 18 the go down to mortal world to pay for your wrongdoings part is an addition. I hope they won't prolong the unnecessary addition for too long! I wanna get to the "tissue"/ important scenes too!
p.s: i also wonder if they gonna show the part where Xu Feng and Jin Mi "mutually cultivate" or is it too racy or suggestive for general viewing? ;)

Uh huh! Ep 17 onwards, deviation from the novel or maybe it's an addition to prolong the drama to 60 episodes? I hope they don't dally for too long. I can't wait for the important climaxes in the story!

Yeah, I feel ya! Collabs are still limited: one, because it's heavily monitored and regulated by the Chinese government, and two, majority of the big Chinese producers still prefer 'traditional' method and local artists for big production dramas and movies. Including Korean artists in certain dramas are more for dramas relying on their idol power to pull in audience. Besides poor acting, most Korean idols who collaborated with Chinese artists can't speak good and fluent Mandarin. Mandarin is a language where a slight change in pronunciation changes the meaning of the word entirely! Being a Mandarin speaker, I often cringe at the bad pronunciations but I appreciate that they are putting in an effort to speak the language. That said, there are a few Korean idols who can speak pretty good Mandarin but they are the rare cases. I admire these people because frankly, I am multi-lingual (8 languages) and Mandarin is by far the toughest language I'd ever learned (and it was one of the first I learned since childhood!). So for them to learn Mandarin in just a matter of a few years and get the pronunciation and nuances correct is a thing to be admired! :)

Different business model used. The Koreans are into aggressive marketing and fast turnover rate because they cannot rely and survive on the long-term on a small market (South Korea). They need to appeal to the International market. Hence, they prefer the produce-as-you-go model. Everything is done quickly (including subbing). Regardless of whether you finish watching the drama or not or if the story went downhill after the first few episodes, they've already earned enough from the initial hype, hence they are fast to recover production costs. The Koreans are not looking for you to commit to the drama itself, but to the 'products' within the drama such as the idols, lifestyle, tourist places, cosmetics, branding, other products etc. That's where the real income from Korean dramas come from.

The Chinese prefer a more 'traditional' model. Most if not all dramas are pre-produced and go through rigorous post-production work before they can see the light of the day; which explains why many Chinese dramas we see now were actually shot a few years ago! The Chinese entertainment industry is highly regulated by the government as the Chinese views it as a form of art and a medium for expressing Chinese culture, history, politics, music, dance, philosophy, values etc. In other words, the Koreans corporatize their entertainment industry while the Chinese politicized theirs.

Also, with the large number of Chinese in the mainland and overseas who can speak Mandarin, the Chinese entertainment industry need not depend on non-Mandarin speaking audiences to survive. Whether the drama is subbed or not, billions around the world are already watching it raw. In many cases, subbing it will not bring big or meaningful difference in income as the non-Mandarin speaking audiences are the small minority. This explains why many South Korean artists are trying to break into the lucrative mainland Chinese market and why many South Korean idols are working hard to learn how to speak Mandarin. This is how scary the Chinese industry is - the numbers in the mainland alone is astounding! Add to it the number of Chinese-descendants living all around the world (literally where you can see the sun on this planet, you can find a Chinese-descended person!)....we are talking beyond the billions already living in the mainland! When you already have a huge world-wide audience without the need for subs, is subbing a top priority? Instead, wouldn't learning Mandarin become a priority?

Love how this drama has stuck closely to the novel. There were extra scenes but they added to the storyline perfectly! Now that we've gone past the revelation of Jin Mi's identity chapter, let's sit back with our tissue boxes and hold our breaths for what is to come. TRAGEDY!

As for epilogues.....aren't there 5 epilogues after the end of the story? Three epilogues on what happened during Jin Mi's time as Phoenix's book boy and two epilogues on Jin Mi and Phoenix's life after marriage with 1 of the epilogue chapter describing their son's birth and another describing how Jin Mi naively brought her son to the River of Forgetfulness to "fish" for a wife and accidentally bumping into Ren Yu (The Heavenly Emperor) and they parted peacefully wishing happiness for each other? Are there any epilogues I've missed?

Her father is the Water God. Later on (in the novel), Jin Mi will be known as the Water Goddess after her true identity's known. Her real self is a Frost Flower (her mum being Flower Goddess and dad being Water God). In Ep. 9, the frost flower she spoke to when she fainted after experiencing pain in her heart is her true self. Hence, the novel's title "...ash-like FROST". I find the pairing interesting coz the male lead's a fire phoenix/ Fire God and the female lead is the Water Goddess. They are the opposite of each other. Technically speaking, the female lead is more suited to the second male lead who's a Dragon-Koi as their powers can complement each other. But of course, what's the fun in pairing like with like eh? This is a story of how opposites attract! ;)

I think we cannot take robots/AIs in romantic dramas seriously. These dramas are meant to break the robotic laws because they are all about robots/AIs developing human feelings. Only by breaking robotic laws can these machineries develop feelings of love, hate, anger, jealousy etc. We see this sort of law breaking in Ando Lylod: AI Knows Love and in Zettai Kareshi.......all of these stories are about robots who started out as robots following robotic laws but later deviated, developed their own consciousness and hence feelings.

Which then begs the question: If robots can evolve beyond their programming and develop their own consciousness, should we treat them like humans and give them equal rights to live, love, marry, have children, get a job etc? I think Hollywood had tried to present these ethical questions in the past in many of its AI-based movies. As a scientist, my immediate response is "It's not possible for a programmed machinery to act beyond its programming no matter how smart it is"; hence your so-called 'robotic laws' being in play.

But creative thinkers often wonder beyond these scientific and logical reasoning to romanticize robots/AIs - much like how we romanticized vampires, werewolves, aliens, gods, demons and time/dimension-travelling. Can any of the laws of physics and science apply to any of these genres? No. They are creative works and anything mentioned in them (if any) are pseudo-science at best. I, too often find these sort of dramas hard to swallow and some of them are to the point of ridiculousness, but sometimes we need not take these dramas seriously. It's entertainment. So, I've decided to drop my IQ by at least 100 points in order to enjoy these dramas and just let the writer make a complicated mess of things. That's part of the fun and those of us in the know can shake our heads or give a little chuckle here and there! Clearly, the "science" in these sort of creative works are not meant to be dissected using our cognitive understanding. What they often aim to do is to stimulate your affective responses which then leads to commercial success. ;)

严禹豪 (Yan Yu Hao).

20 episodes for season 1.

Unfortunately, no....unless someone pick this project up.

Absolutely! And the chemistry between the couple is very sweet and believable. Basically the female lead kept going in and out of different stories in an attempt to save the male lead. At first, she doesn't know this until she kept meeting the same guy over and over again in different stories and each time, they would end up falling for each other.

It is later in the story that she will discover that he was actually her childhood friend who went missing, but her memory was wiped clean of him. The only way he could get out of the stories is through her. If you like The Journey and The Journey 2, you will like this drama. The setting is similar:- a strong-headed heroine who had lost her memories being caught in a situation where she has to play different roles in different stories in order to save the male lead while the male lead kept searching for her through all the stories until one day, they meet in real life. Already, I am anticipating a bittersweet ending, much like The Journey. :(

Here's the MV for the OST for this drama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY9yJuGdDNI

A talented young man who deserves to be the male lead!

Completed it. This is an ok drama though not a 10/10 for me. Story is predictable and quite common to a typical crime, revenge, law Korean drama. What really shone in this drama is ironically the baddies. Actors acting Ahn Oh Jo, Cha Moon Souk and Nam Soon Ja are to be commended for their excellent acting! They outshone the main characters acted by Lee Joon Gi and Seo Yi Ji. My summary for this drama: watch it for the baddies!

Love this drama. Top marks for character development, script writing (love the conversations and underlying jokes), quirkiness, "non-mainstream" triangle-love storyline and all the foods! Here's to hoping that the drama continues to deliver till the end!

Ji Rou spent a short time in the orphanage when her mum ran away and left her without guardianship. That was when she was taken in by Zhen Yu's family. For few years, she lived with Zhen Yu's family; hence she and Zhen Yu developed a close sibling-like relationship. Then her mum returned but she married Wu Han Wen's father. So, Ji Rou went and live with her mum and step-father and step-brother. That was how Ji Rou ended up as Wu Han Wen's sister. They do not have blood relationship but are siblings because of their parents' marriage. Hope this clarifies Ji Rou-Wu Han Wen- Zhen Yu relationships.

So far (at Ep. 22) the story is good enough to keep audience's attention. Looking forward to the last 2 episodes. I started watching this 2 days ago and marathon-ed 22 episodes to catch up. It's my intention to delay watching this until nearing the end to reduce suspense if the drama turned out to be good, but if the drama turned out to be bad, I would have read about it through reviews and would not have bothered to start it. The chemistry and interactions between the leads were good and funny (at parts). Sometimes it gets frustrating as well because of the female lead being a bit dense and not very smart. Because of her lack of intelligent perception, she misunderstood the male lead many times. Thankfully, this annoying character of hers wasn't overly done and forgivable considering the many funny and sweet moments between her and the male lead.

Thanks for the reminder! Jealousy Incarnate is a drama I started when it was airing (only watched Ep 1 & 2) but did not continue. I was experiencing severe drama slump then and nothing short of a miraculous drama could pull me out. Now, I'm back and in the mood for KDramas. I'll definitely check out Jealousy Incarnate.

Love Jang Hyuk but I don't mind him not being the male lead if the story is excellent. At his age, it's time he takes on mature roles of older characters while help promoting young actors and actresses (using his popularity to promote young newbies)- sort of a mentor role. I love his character in this drama as a gangster boss. I love the female lead character as well -she's funny, quirky and lovable. The male lead (the chef) has a fiery character with lots of emotional baggage. This is an interesting pairing. The conversation so far cracked me up! Very witty! Hope they can maintain this level of entertainment throughout the drama. Looking forward for more!

This drama is ok but not the best youth, sports, romance C-Drama around. I rated this around the same as Whirlwind Girl. Which is the best C-Drama in this genre? My Mr. Mermaid! :)