Deerview

That would be good but I doubt the Chinese censors would let that happen. YunZhong and Shiming (the teacher) are real religious figures unlike your typical nameless heaven emperors in other xian xia dramas. The censors usually consider these plots to be historical revisionism and wont let it. This is why it didnt happen in the novel. And there is also the belief that any form of these fantasy heaven govt represents the real life Chinese govt so they wont let it happen

He was trying to disguise one of the water cloud fairy people and she said he lied because he didnt have any of their aura but she didnt care.

Yes forced separation and misunderstanding is just lazy soap opera writing.

It's on both IQIYI and youtube. You can search either the english title or the chinese title something will pop up. Here you go https://www.iq.com/play/love-between-fairy-and-devil-episode-1-2dzr9ruq36w?lang=en_us

Yeah always the same formula. The novels, manhua and the cartoons are where you have a lot more variations. Although the cartoons these days are becoming repetitive. But I figured there is a specific market that these xian xia formula are targeting that like it.

Yeah evil masterminds and their long winded plans

I will support any of the xianxia if there are no weird misunderstandings, no memory erase of one of the main leads. No weird jump ballet like fight scenes.

Yes, the 2 show teams are in close communication with each other. Both the cartoon and drama have different market audiences and Iqiyi wants to merge the 2.

Rong Hao and his faceless CGI ancient evil partner

He already admitted to his friend that he lied to protect her from her brother

As happy as you can get in one of these novels.

CGI overload

Give the cartoon version a try. The girl is less useless and annoying. It's on the IQIYI site just like this show

It's also his honesty. The other answers are basically full of hypocrisy

Yeah there seems to be that pattern

Some historic perspective for ya, this show is loosely based on the beginning of Han dynasty where Confucianism had officially taken root in their government policies. This idea where the parents are always right and need to be strict no matter what damage to their kids is being played out here between CSS and her mother and also happening in the royal family as well. You can see all the main conflicts are based on that. If you feel like the amount of family conflict over rules is so much more than other dramas it's because this time period you are seeing the most raw form of it.

Similarly CSS's mechanical knowledge are things that were previous lost during the previous dynasty and are still being slowly reintroduced into the country

He married the empress for political reasons.

what do you mean

All these MC girls are like this in these dramas. high pitch voice, always needs a guy to save them, always naive, always get bullied, always always

I am going to give the donghua a try and see if it fits the novel.