Frost_edelweiss

Jiaxu is 5 years older than Zhi, they have birthdays about two week apart, hers before his, in the late spring hot months. (she turn 19 in episode 15, and he turns 24 in episode 17)
Sang Yan is one year younger than Jiaxu. (mentioned in ep13)

Since you hated Love Like The Galaxy and consistently disliked most C dramas you tried, I'd say don't torture yourself, leave here, forget HL, and find some K dramas that are better to your taste.

Of course, it gets better, but I wonder if you could appreciate it, if you can't see that the first episodes are precisely about a child...
You might jump directly to episode 8 skip the first "coping with heartbreak" 9 minutes and start at the university part, but you would be puzzled about why Sang Zhi is so shy, so defensive about Duan Jiaxu who is accommodating but clueless about why Sang Zhi acts like he's hurt her before (it is due to a misunderstanding).
Perhaps if the story finally gets to your liking, you'd go back to the parts you did not feel attuned to, at first, and see how well the story was woven from start to end (some do indeed prefer starts in media res and use flashbacks to explain, but the scriptwriter did not choose so in this drama and preferred a linear timeline).

You'd like to watch an only "adult" story? Try Road Home instead then, but since it is a c-drama, perhaps you'll find ML and FL baffling and the story too slow or something.

If you are into gritty stuff and adventure, although it is not fantasy but close kin as historical costume, if you are not afraid of long dramas, you might try Love Like The Galaxy.
To me, like this one, it was 10/10 because of the stellar pairing of Zhao Lusi with Wu Lei. The story features two other suitors, one who will set wonderful jealous sparks for the other two, as funnily depicted in this short humor fanvid : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYd8dENwbFI
There is a nice balance of humor, dark drama, mystery and love story in this drama that has a rather complex, even triggering beginning. It takes some episodes to get used to Zeng Li, Shaoshang's mother there, polar opposite to her role as mom of Sang Zhi. But after some time, her behavior can finally be understood and forgiven. The BTS with the director and cast relaxing are also interesting to check out, on the way.
But if you dive into that drama, be prepared to spend at least one month on it, or prepare enough food and drinks and cushions for several sleepless nights. :D
You might have a look also, on the way, at the Discussion items posted on the MDL page, and at videos such as the ones here that give clues to the historical backdrop : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ahZC1fiOqA&t=17s (click on the name of the author C Drama to find 3 other videos related to LLTG of particular interest to understand some fine points and better admire some details).
LLTG is on YouTube (amputated of some sound at times), full on Viki, on Tencent WeTV original platform (needs subscription after ep4), and on the kiss, cool, and similar sites well-known to the economically restrained or georestricted audience who don't mind less pix definition. I'd recommend Viki now, or WeTV, or Netflix if it still is there.

Can relate, but then why so stingy? Do you really think it is not as great as Meteor Garden?

I copied this post for you into the pinned Discussion https://kisskh.at/discussions/hidden-love/108799-book-vs-show which already had another translation of that chapter, posted by HanyVu.

It is interesting to compare these versions of the steamy chapter.

Still, language-wise, I fell they could be much improved. Of course, it is not easy to translate, and the first version by HanyVu which is not worse than the other one, came with a clear warning that it was machine translated. For a good translation, a human touch can do away with some things that feel not fluid of even grammatically incorrect, and translation being adaptation, it is not necessary to keep original text directly, when it can be explained in footnote if there is a joke, a double entendre, that sort.

So, to me, these two chapter translations are interesting as drafts, but not final translations.
Personally, to carry the weight of the repeated "gege" word, I would not have hesitated to translate it as "bruv", "old bruvver", "big bro" or something of the sort, or even "coach" if the meaning of elder tutor and educator was to be included :D

Just to remind those of you who watched the episode 25.5 : you can rate it too, on MDL. Here : https://kisskh.at/755511-hidden-love-special

It is nice that they release these BTS which are both fun and lovely. I was amused by the candles that did not want to go out : happened to me once too !!

Also check here : https://kisskh.at/discussions/hidden-love/108799-book-vs-show

Thanks, but no. Checked three times rather attentively now. There was no special lag around lip movement or movements that did not conform with what was said from what I heard, in the exchange between parents and daughter until she left the table. The movements with no sound when opening and closing mouth were normal hesitation ones to me, not missing words or sound; although perhaps the similar quick movement of lips from the mother could have lacked sound as in gasp or be similar hesitation.
So, that was not an issue that would ruin the drama for me and start gunning it down for consistent and constant bad editing with the voice-overs.
-- Were you really bugged by feeling the voice-overs were too annoying? Haven't we got used to them anyway because of the bgm, which is nice but always (in every drama), somewhat distracting until mentally edited out since this is the conventional way to make them, as opposed to stage plays.
I am not going to nitpick because of dramas or movies are not like stage plays.
It is not as if we had a long moment of mouth movements with no sound, or completely disconnected to speech (even not being a lip reader, it did not look like they were saying something else, like spewing subliminal, charged messages ; that was a tall tale about some American dramas, btw). Besides, the dialogues to my mind, were not politically or otherwise so controversial that they needed to be overdubbed by something radically different . The censoring authorities did not have much work to do on this one. Hence the laudatory piece published in the Beijing newspaper that unusually came to rebut some haters stirring up unfounded rumors.

Why don't you watch the drama to make your own opinion ?

I pinned it here too : https://kisskh.at/discussions/hidden-love/108799-book-vs-show after your post came to my attention via another one who mentioned it :)
btw, I like the picture on your personal page ! Very sweet.

Joining the club of 10/10 raters, Sarah :))
Thanks ! Let's continue to enjoy stuff like that !

There's also the post production changes yes generally. But I have serious doubts that this came in really here insideout91. Or, can you pinpoint some specific instances with timestamps so we can check? Isn't this nitpicking on HL anyway.

To me this sounds very much nitpicking. The drama is lovely and I did not even notice what you come up with here to gun it down. If you feel like that, just avoid watching any c drama and even any drama, since this could also be your pet peeve in spoiling your pleasure.

Thank you. I pinned this also in the "Book vs show" Discussion where the first additional chapter was posted.

yes, you are welcome, and you saw that I added the link to the 85 chapters page and the link to the other discussion which had the wedding extra, added by HanyVu, lest it get lost from our amused reading :)
Let's keep up the good collaborative work to have pinned facts and links of interest preserved in those Discussions ! and signal to new members how to find them and better make use of MDL.
In addition to Discussions, there are Articles, which I have not checked much : only noticed there is an interesting and well illustrated "Ultra Fan Guide to Zhao Lusi" (New members can find it in the column to the right of this one, if they are curious about it).

For all who are interested in pinned Discussion posts, just click on "New Topic" and it will get you to the list of discussions. Then you can either click in each and check them, or go to mine ("Shooting locations and dates, misc other links") in which you can find a sort of directory of those discussions with theme, MDL member author and start date, some with a brief presentation of most current info there. And link of course. https://kisskh.at/discussions/hidden-love/109103-shooting-locations-and-dates-misc-other-links
Hope this helps.

I was also puzzled about the difficulty to access Discussions until very recently (the box above was missing for a while although it must have been there before in time, since Discussions were started long before my own.
Since I didn't want the one I launched to be too messy with things that can go elsewhere, I put most of my music comments and finds in Peachey Blossoms OST Discussion, and advised those who had stuff about book vs drama discussion to head to the one Nope had started...

That's nice statistics. Perhaps you could pin it into a new Discussion item about "Hidden Love reception and influence" so your work on this time snapshot does not get lost in the avalanche of small talk and personal feelings and thoughts here?
PS that was a very enjoyable FB fan page (coming from someone who usually avoids them because there are too many FB pages and I don't usually have much time for them).

Perhaps you can find some answers to your questions in my previous answer 2hrs ago to a comment of 9hrs ago about why 26 or 24 is heard about Jiaxu's age.
I strayed into debating the controversial views of desirable marriage norm age as compared between China, the US, and some Latin countries...

All the fuss has to do with the ongoing struggle to change traditional norms in modern society.

If you dig deeper into sociology, you will find that older and even old men marrying young girls was not frowned upon (and is still acceptable in some countries), whereas the opposite was and is very much frowned upon, women being branded today as "cougars" for seducing younger men. It also has to do with polygamy, where men married 2 or 4 or many more women young enough to beget children, so their "family line" would stand a stronger chance to endure (that is, if an emperor or a war did not simply wipe out and kill everyone in the family).
Nutshell: it has to do with the desirable age for procreation ; it is indeed a fact that above a certain age, even with good medical care, having a child can put a woman's life and health at risk. Safest age for procreation is below 25 for a woman.
Not saying that all women above 32 or even 42 will have trouble, but I happen to know many who did : very very serious trouble, even with no previous overweight or drinking or smoking risky behavior. So they ought to know about it and also be prepared for C section instead of be coaxed to do natural birth with no safety net. Eclampsia and placental abruption or other placenta problems are some possible fatal conditions, for instance, signs of which should be taken more seriously than they often are.

The 26 quip was Sang Yan deliberately ageing his friend, as a taunt.

But Chinese traditional age calculation is an interesting subject to bring up there, because indeed a child's age was calculated around Chinese zodiac year + viewed as one year old from birth, so sometimes the traditional age was indeed two years older than our simple calendar year. More about this here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning Therefore, yes, it is not totally a joke to see Jiaxu as older than his calendar age. But then, likewise, Zhi's age should also be seen as older and riper in university...

Take Jiaxu as being 24 years old then, in our modern system as the true age in the drama.

And remember that in China, a person is legally an adult at 18, but not free to marry before 20 for women and 22 for men.

Still, remember that, like in many countries including the US, people who don't marry by 25 (age limit being stretched now until 27-30) are viewed as "old maids" or "Sheng nv", a derogatory Chinese slang term loosely translating to "leftover women", used to describe unmarried older women. As for men (after they pass the 30 mark), they'd be viewed with some suspicion as perhaps handicapped physically or mentally, pervert, or spitting on filial duty "old fogeys" by not a small part of the ordinary norms accepters. So, guys like YangYang the actor feel stung when their fans term them as "yongyuan danshen" (forever single) in a pirouette way of putting other meaning on YYDS "greatest of all" way of lauding somebody. Same for Dilireba and other actresses who have passed the desired marriageable age and are suspected of now being condemned to "stay on the shelf" and become less desirable for wedding, like too ripe fruit or produce becomes less marketable...
In France and in other Latin countries, unwed and virtuous (virginal) young women of 25 would be officially crowned and endowed (with money to live independently) as Rosières from the tradition going on from 6th century to present day in some towns ("In the 6th century, Saint Medard crowned virtuous maidens with white roses" albeit the age varied in time from 15 to 20 before stretched to 25), and viewed as models of morality, but also slightly despised and feared as spinsters who set religion above reproduction duties. Indeed those spinsters might be seen as sort of lay nuns, or just waiting to join a convent. On the other hand, in early days American settlements, the unwed women were literally suspected as witches and demon worshipers such as in the famous Trials in Salem, Massachusetts.
- Books and learned debates have long gone on about the evolution of social norms and freeing young women and men from psycho-sociological shackles. The Flower Children hippie generation wanted the norms to be subjected to a cultural revolution of sorts where every individual was free to love when and as long as they wished with no compulsory marriage ; some turned to look for models in matriarchal tribes such as the Chinese Mosuo ethnic minority near lake Lugu.
Since this sociological debate could take us to burning subjects about the gender debate, where people are not dispassionate about facts, I will just stop here... Let's say we be content with teasing with Z Tao's songs "Cross The Line"and "Adore" (Tao can be very mischievous in his songs).