DramaAjumma

I really like Yan Shifan and the actor that plays him. He's another saving grace of the show.

I am told that this was a low budget drama. But I have no idea what that means. :D I too am surprised by its popularity considering how pedestrian the storytelling is. Perhaps it's the melodrama and the leads that the local audiences dig. ;)

Don't you think it's obvious what the endgame is two-thirds of the way through? Would someone who watched the show the whole way through not be clear even before the finale how the love triangle is slated to pan out?

As a police procedural, this show delivered the goods. Nice team dynamic and the cases interesting. But I'm not sure why anyone thought that romance was absolutely necessary especially when the chemistry was just not there for that kind of relationship. I wonder if the showrunners had second thoughts because their colleagues and friends are constantly trying to push them together with comments and gossip. Nie Yuan looked liked he was just as enthused about the romance as I was.

I guess my views of this show are quite different from most. To me this show is decent but doesn't quite hit greatness largely due to a rather thin plot that's stretched beyond its capacity. It has flashes of brilliance but its parts are better than the whole. I started the show liking Jin Xia more than Lu Yi. I found him obnoxious and humourless and it took a while to warm up to him which I did some time around Episode 10. I really enjoyed the first 20 plus episodes when it behaved like a detective drama. Then it got frustratingly tropey and the political stuff was pretty standard fare. The middle was saggy and fillery. The melodrama between Da Yang and Shangguang Xi was very uninteresting and went on longer than it needed to.

I also didn't dislike Xie Xiao that much. I loved that he made LY jealous which made me chuckle and laugh along the way. He was pretty harmless for the most part and I never thought he was a serious contender. Yeah, I can see how he was annoying but he didn't annoy me that much because he did genuinely care about JX.

The thing that saved the second half of this show for me were the leads and their dynamic. It was funny, sweet and deeply moving at times. I really liked the change in LY. It wasn't extreme but palpable. JX amused me all the way through especially with regards to her love of money and food. One of my favourite scenes was JX's mother wondering why LY would want to marry JX. That exchange never fails to crack me up.

I am also rather tired of the Romeo and Juliet trope as well even if it ends well. It's usually just used to separate the leads before the end. Which is exactly how it was used here.

I don't think she looked more beautiful than when when Xiao Song comes to visit her in prison. She was so happy to see him. The way she looked at him and said, "You haven't thrown away my fox's lair, right?" I don't know how he could have not completely broken down at that moment. But I guess he averted his eyes to that end.

My feeling is that if by the 10th episode, you still haven't taken to it then it's probably not your cup of tea. :D
I loved it from the first episode. Never bored once. But I grew up on old school detective dramas/fiction. I have the opposite opinion of you. I think the investigations actually move quite quickly. The pacing of this drama is much better and more consistent throughout than most C dramas I've watched.

I think he really was but retracted because he saw that she wasn't ready for it.

I've revived my old drama blog. Plenty of extra time due to COVID-19 restrictions. If anyone's interested. I've got several posts related to Miss Truth based on stuff that I had written in another forum. I expanded and rejigged some of my ideas.
https://lilyroots4love.blogspot.com/

A poor mainland Chinese version of Moonlight Drawn by Clouds. Dropped it a third of the way through due to silly antics of the FL. Draggy and cliched. Show doesn't do anything not already attempted by other better made productions.

I think the first half of the drama is much better than the second when it was much more of a crime/detective drama. The middle and end sags with subplots. The main romance is lovely but I didn't feel emotionally invested in the other romance where the melodrama seemed to go on forever. The leads are great. So is the actor that plays Yan Shifan. But yeah... cast of a thousand has its own set of problems especially if the scripting is uneven.
The show would have been much better if it trimmed off 15 episodes.

It's not a dealbreaker for me either way. :D Of course I prefer the first version that I saw because it was a natural, logical outcome to his trajectory.

It's alternative to me because the first version I saw didn't have it.

I'm surprised he didn't lose all his body parts.

http://maplestage.com/episode/dLj50/%E5%A4%A7%E5%94%90%E5%A5%B3%E6%B3%95%E9%86%AB-%E7%AC%AC36%E9%9B%86-CN200214D-Ep-36-THE-END
Click on the second "Other" tab

Maplestage. The second video

Ah... there's an alternate ending in the second video which confirms that a second series might be on the cards. Interesting.

I guess for me I don't really feel that sorry for Su Fu. Yes, he is a tragic figure in a Shakespearean sense. The man he was and what he became was a direct result of his own choices. Of course he is an important character in the story. That's clear. His actions feed into the villain's plot. However, if he hadn't been greedy and deluded himself into thinking that he could live with his dual identity and keep her by his side, he wouldn't have had to take the mind-control drug in the first place. It absolutely clear from Day 1 that a relationship like marriage with Ran Yan was never possible especially considering the crowd he was hanging around with. He put her in jeopardy first and had to correct his mistake. If he really, actually cared about RY, he should have left her with Xiao Song the moment they were married. But of course, his ego got in the way and he had to stake his claim.

He was too sure of himself. Too sure that he could maintain the deception... have his cake and eat it too. Yes he is a sad lonely figure but he was using her too while seemingly protecting her as well. The mind-control drug only brought to light and exacerbated the darker side of his personality.

It isn't that he lost in this love triangle although that's how he would frame it. It's that he was never really in contention in the first place because of the layers of deception he had to maintain in order to be in the running.

You can watch it with Eng subs here...
https://productiveprocrastination.site/
The subbing is still ongoing. Don't forget to leave a message to thank the subber for doing this on her own time.

Thank you so much for your kind words. Very much appreciated.

After rewatching I've changed my mind about the romance and the love triangle. The love triangle was absolutely integral to the Bad Guy plot and its resolution. This may be one of the better uses of a love triangle I've seen. Or let's just call it the reverse harem and include Sang Chen into the mix. I'm not usually a fan of love triangles but this one was decently employed within the limits of the genre.

If anyone's interested in my ramblings about the subject, I've blogged about it here: shorturl.at/epFN2