Frost_edelweiss

I did the same, lol Such a feel-good, fun story !

😂😂😂

Bitter? She was so funny with Xing Zhaolin in Eternal Love 1- 2 -3 !
But of course she can play serious too, did very well in Side Story of Fox Volant.
She was also playing very well in the other dramas I followed her to : You Are My Destiny, Handsome Siblings, The Day of Becoming You.
I have seen less dramas with Joseph Zeng but am catching up, since Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Sabre, Rebirth For You, TFAYAH, Heroes. Looking forward to Mysterious Lotus Casebook, upcoming, so clicked on Hi Venus in waiting. Not disappointed !
So I clicked for both Joseph Zeng and Liang Jie and already have a big grin on my face when they appear on screen as "mogui" devil and ex torturer 😂 Fun drama.
Screenwriter and director are also good references.
And Joseph Zeng and Liang Jie played together already in Time Flies And You Are Here (TFAYAH) : a bit lengthy one with too many misunderstandings, but I still liked that one which was my first introduction to the mystic whale in the sky that has been a hallmark of many fantasy c-dramas since, lately Thousand Years For You. Details that link c-dramas make this type of drama quite interesting : it can also be theme songs that get reused, or snippets of past dramas that appear on a background television or other screen. I am starting to look out for such details that also contribute to enjoyment!

😘

There is something repellent in loving a twin in a different way from sibling love and loyalty. Ren Di and Li Xun are like twins in a way, so they cannot ever be more than good friends, in my opinion. Her life style was quite alien to him. he could not stand to stay too long in the live houses where she performed, and him staying in the Urban Hideout suite was like staying in a hotel room, not in his home. She needed the excitement and drama of stage, whereas he needed the calm of his rooftop or office for his analytical work. There was no heavy metal or other encroaching music in his base.
All coders don't necessarily hate loud music, but everyone is not the same : among the coders that I know, one is into heavy metal, the other into anime music, one dislikes music except some classic music tunes from Bach or Holst ; I am the only eclectic one who revels as much in 16th century motets as I do in Philip Glass operas, The Peony Pavilion kunqu, Beijing X underground, Carsick Cars, Mongolian rock, Pink Floyd , Nine Inch Nails, Teresa Teng, Guang Liang, Jay Chou, Luo Tianyi, Genshin Impact tunes, Adele sad songs, Naxi or grassland folk tunes etc 😁. [ I was, just before I read in this forum, amusing myself listening to 'Set The Controls for the heart of the Sun', with its Chinese Tang poem references lyrics after having sung 'Betwee'n from L&P]
Li Xun seems not that interested in music. Only in investment to support someone who looks like she has the same type of drive as his own. Nothing romantic. No shared intellectual or musical interest with Ren Di.

RenDi's dropping out is irrelevant : she was aiming for and applying different resources than academics to build her success. Even Li Xun was not finding it necessary to spend overmuch time in university. Not that he looked down on formal training. He did not need it.

But in my view, he thought Zhu Yun needed more academic training, so his way of pushing her away was to make her unable not to go abroad (thus obeying her parents who would support her when he could not), through smashing her views of him to smithereens as hard as he could. If he had given her an inch of warning, she was not going to believe she could not stay waiting for him and could not take care of the company herself. Maybe he was too hard in his evaluation of her incompetence then, but what he did made her grow into a potentially powerful specialist, which she probably could not have become without the additional training she had been ready to sacrifice for the comfort of sentiments that she took for granted. So she needed a cruel jolt to change and further grow.

He never adapted to Zhu Yun's life style, btw. It is more her who did the adaptation to his way of life: she came to the lab, the rooms and the house he chose and she worked on the projects and in the line he chose: she was his follower, more than she ever became his boss.

But I can't really dislike Zhu Yun. She was a cutey pie and did have enough chemistry with Li Xun to make the romance satisfactory for me.
Still if I have to choose which character I like best, it is undoubtedly Li Xun. He's much like some people I knew and still know and admire, spikes and all. Not toxic, not narcissist : conscious of his worth and with a relatively clear view of his life path. Neither are role models, but they are types of people that exist and can in real life become friends or good business acquaintances.

😉 Plurality of likes and opinions makes the world more interesting.

Thanks for reply. That confirms my infos: as you say, paparazzi follow this family every step. So we get to know waytoo much that we really should not bother about even when interested in fandom groups . Let's hope the young man stays level-headed and never get entrapped into something unpleasant in the years to come , I also want this young actor to continue giving us good value for our time watching his work 😊

My own dad was a heavy smoker too ; it finally caused him to die earlier than he should have after three bypass operations. And I also did smoke for a while, until I decided to stop long before he died. I have a strong willpower, so it was easy to give up and not stay addicted - so yes I know how smokers smoke :sigh: Today, cigarette smoke around me causes me to cough.
I don't blame people for being addicted anyway. It doesn't mean they are necessarily evil. Will power is not the same for everybody. Addiction doesn't get people hooked same way, some can take some poisons without too much damage.
I am a caffeine addict 😎 staying with the report I once read that regular coffee drinkers who don't mix it with cream and sugar or unnecessary add-ons, and who keep with certain types and brews, are better protected against heart attacks or stroke. Me: it is Hawaiian Kona, Cuban or Nicaraguan Maragogype and French press with clean spring water not too laden with minerals, frothing in a nice China mug. I feel fine drinking it any time of the day or night: it warms me in cold weather or refreshes me in hot weather ; it neither stimulates me too much or cause me insomnia -but I have "deep space alien genes" unlike common Earthlings so it might work differently for other people 👽😁

It is indeed nice that they aren't too perfect and that neither Li Xun nor ZhuYun are saints in this story. Ren Di is psychologically alike the Li Xun character : cold, goal oriented, apt to push away a lover but still getting back with the singer ; that's why Li Xun and Ren Di were instantly good friends, but nothing more. They were not working in same field, whereas Zhu Yun was really interested in what Li Xun did, so of course Zhu Yun was a better companion, also because she attracted his protective bent further to the unmeasurable chemistry. So their love was rewarding to both, despite the hurdles they had to overcome. I also think Zhu Yun like Li Xun was indeed a one-person only lover: she never let a chance to Gao, always treated Tian as just a dear brother.

And of course it is natural that Zhu Yun inquired why he had repaired and kept the photo she had taken on the mountain and ripped apart when she was pushed away. But it was not so natural that she argue about her ownership of the picture. It goes without saying that, if Li Xun kept it in prison and after, the meaning was clear that he was thinking about her, missing her, torn that he could not tell her if she was going on to marry Tian. It is one of the things she did not need to do: argue about the picture at the hot springs episode. It did not bring any good for either of them. She ought to have been more explicit about her time abroad and her exact relationship with Tian, as soon as possible, not have Li Xun guess and find out at the hospital.

Ah the incriminating video where ZY exited the L&P office where she met Xu Lina &Gao, wearing a different coat from the one she got in with because Xu Lina deliberately spilled (coffee, tea?) on her . The one that Gao had made to set her up as "cheater /homewrecker" and wanted to use to discredit her and Li Xun.
Gao was going to use it anyway.
That it came from ZY's own Weibo account was puzzling enough so the set-up would be evident, especially after the company was recovered. So I think she gambled that her "loss of reputation" would be temporary anyway. I think she thought hard and quickly about the pros and cons of taking preemptive measure against Gao, that way.
Yees, maybe ZY was better suited than I thought. She did grow a good bit, and managed to talk to Li Lan, so the sister thought he had "changed for the better" (well I think he already had, high achiever and all that, accepting university, launching business according to laws.) also since he'd remembered his promise about the Pu Shu concert (but that just shows he always cared about his "extended" family and was indeed warm hearted though cold blooded and not showing his affections, not to have people like Gao or Fang use them to hurt him or them, and he was right about that.)
Anyway, Li Xun was not going to hunt for a better deal, and we never saw one that could fit among the other "contenders" (Ren Di: too much like him, Liu Sisi, so pitifully empty-headed, Fang Shumiao, Xu Lina... impossible in their various ways) so it had to be Zhu Yun.
I like what you say about Li Xun 😘
We spend a lot of time about this drama...Maybe I should move on, now. Looking for some old ones on my tbw - since this week's avalanche of new ones is not as spell binding as L&P.

CFY is perfect ? Not addicted to tobacco, alcohol, little ladies or worse? Polite, talented, well connected and well educated.... 😃😎😋
Btw I think he was too young in the States, yes, so he would indeed have been carefully watched by caretakers or parents. Did he also attend a Beijing international school like his elder brother did ?

You got some points there, although I think Li Xun and Ren Di are too alike to be a likely pair. Zhu Yun also annoyed me at times,but "love is blind" so if Li Xun was into her, I was in to see how he'd find his path, and the sweet scenes of tickles, falling on the camping bed etc punctuated the story well. Tian Xiuzhu was necessary as a buffer and shield between Zhu Yun and her mom and to show that Li Xun was not a saint but could feel jealousy, more than in the karting episode with the volleyball champ that was pure college romance drama type. Fang Shumiao was necessary as the faithful friend who eventually played a role in the legal recovery of the company. So I do not mind the side characters.
Lack of chemistry in the first part? No from my pov I for once thought there was a lot of chemistry both on and off screen 😁. But the unforgettable love was, yes, maybe not enough emphasized, perhaps because of Chinese cultural timidity there. It is all in allusions, isn't it? Rain on windows, cut flowers blooming, kettle boiling...
To me the pacing was generally Ok and I did not mind it was 36 episodes : less daunting than the 40 or 65+ we got in other dramas, anyway. Perhaps I've gotten inured to those "impossibly long c-dramas". Well, I was also on board for other long ones before starting to "specialize for a while here", like previously watching Friends, Charmed, The West Wing, House of Cards, Desperate Housewives, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Six Foot Under, GoT, etc etc..... so length never was much of an issue for me, anyway.
Perhaps we should have got an episode showing (better than flashbacks) ML and FL time apart from each other. The mutual but not simultaneous inquiring about how they lived and felt did not bring satisfactory answers from either party. We may admit Li Xun is a taciturn one who relied on guessing what ZY thought and wanted.
ZY could have shown better female sensitivity but the character was all considered okay to me. Not a role model : no !! So, maybe Li Xun could have looked for a better"deal" in companion. But nobody's perfect, so to me, this conforms to the"realist" stance of the drama. Unlikely pairs do end up together and that also "makes the world go round".
I still like that drama very much. Not just for the romance.

😘

Those singers all merit attention + Jenny Zeng /Zeng Keni who sings "Falling You" and "Falling for you" and plays the role of Ren Di in the drama. And Tia Ray. And Zhou Shen. And Pang Chuyue + Taylor Fugit who sing "Between" (that was also end credit song of another 2022 drama, btw; there's another reprise, from Why Women Love, but I have not watched that one; I found that the musical cross referencing with other dramas etc was rather interesting too. ). Everyone on the exceptional OST https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61U2jsPrGcQ&t=1809s 😄
NLB also has some good songs. Liu Yuning's and Curly Gao's are my favorite (but Curly Gao's sounded too much like the theme song in The Sword and The Brocade, to my mind : so that annoyed me a little contrary to L&P, and NLB as a drama was not my cup of baijiu. My liking goes to RESET and LLTG, in addition now to L&P.)

I got bored with the endless lectures about horrible 2nd prince and more and stopped mid way of NLB because I thought it dragged and got too sanctimonious. Not my type of baijiu, even if I enjoyed in the beginning the sight and memories of the dishes.

Now that's harsh. But I admit I also got annoyed by ZY's withholding important information and acting coy several times. Well, nobody's perfect, so if Li Yun, who appears to be a "one woman" type-character had chosen her, then I was satisfied that the story went on to bring them to a happy end. I like faithful characters. He sometimes went too far to satisfy her but never lost sight of his professional goal and personal ethics.
Perhaps the "every dog has his day" translation was unfortunate. It also annoyed me.
Btw CFY said he prefers cats to dogs anyway.
In fact I saw those two characters more like a tiger and a lioness : different species, same genus. Not the best pairing, but can be compatible for breeding if not always for hunting together.

You just don't know what really toxic is. Gao is toxic. Fang is eminently toxic. If you keep on and take off your biased spectacles, you will understand the difference. Perhaps, if you are not obstinate in your bias and if you care for realism about a character who is not a "common classmate in a college youth drama" but a young entrepreneur conscious and unapologetic about his worth and the way he can lead teams to success.
Have met enough toxic people to not mistake someone who is challenging and does not do false humility with areal toxic person.

But Li Xun may appear too blunt to some. Not to me. Even through the "driving away ZY episodes". He is not a saint and anger or jealousy can make him lash out (when he knows he 's gone too far, he apologizes and tries to repair damage). But he respects ZY even when she is drunkenly throwing herself at him and on his bed! He patiently waits until she is really ready for intimacy. She goes from "goody-two-shoes" to more mature, and worthy of Li Xun's sentimental attention. But for a long time, she does not requite to him her own demands of communication, and ends up being hurt because she withheld important information. Li Xun has to guess what she wants and what she thinks!

Sometimes I wondered what he saw in ZY, grudgingly accepting that she could be devoted to their common dream even if her naive justice-seeking traits got him into trouble, and they both had to pay for her actions and lack of actions (simply stay with Li Lan might have prevented Li Xun from uncharacteristically fighting physically). She had much blame to bear (even if audience only see her pretty face and coo over her hate of Fang) but she finally atoned for it and, as a reward, had a happy end for their story.

In my view, Li Xun starts out as a Roark-type intransigent individual (ref Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead) but gets much sweeter. Plus he is the real exceptional faithful one-woman lover (departing from the novel playboy), from the start, even when he teases ZY and has her "battle the virus" to see what exactly her studies could lead her to be expert in. The leaning back to watch her eat and the accepting her kicks in C-language class were so cute, the first public declaration from him "we can be together", the throbbing flaming red heart he designed when she was trying to understand his way of coding, his "Yinwei ai" declaration in the competition... also the taking her on his bicycle so she could have time for a shower, and so many small details showed his sweet attention, even if he did not "do coaxing babies".

7.4 rating on Douban from "over 150,000 ratings" as reported by Marcus, who, just as I did, clicked semi-randomly, got hooked by story and acting, liked it and recommends it. This drama is worth watching for those who don't hunger only for mindless stories with a lot of fluff and kisses and conventional tropes. It is definitely departing from the "idol drama" and "college youth romance" stereotypes. Arthur Chen Feiyu is excellent: he brought a lot of thought and found how to act the walk and way to sit of a person with a back injury; he also suggested some light-hearted moments with a ticklish bent... He aptly made his co-star shine in this (Btw, when its ZLS, Bai Lu, Zhao Liying, Yang Mi, to my mind, it's the other way round : they are the real force to make MLs shine ; perhaps someday Zhang Jingyi will do that as well. She said she put a lot of herself into the Zhu Yun character.).

Yes, let's stay zen. I do read the bad comments and sometimes try to give my different perspective, tempted to blame the commenters for herd-behavior, bias and such. Why not? That's how I feel about them.

I am apt to scold even a friend who wrote he was not going to watch L&P because to him it is just an"idol drama". Well, he is a Ma Boyong reader and engaged in other genre fandom, so OK it just made me explore a bit more what exactly defines"idol drama" and why I did not feel it was one. But several aspects are indeed close to the definition, so it is harder to contradict that view. Granted, CFY is not exactly an idol singer, but he does take part in so many TV and reality shows that he has attained celebrity level even looking away from the fact of his famous family. That the OST is so important in L&P and that some fans of the drama start to identify with characters or types and want to purchase merchandise in the theme, does indeed come under the umbrella term "idol drama" that some dislike.

So, what's your opinion? Idol drama or not ? And if not, what reasons ?

It was a sort of "42 school" type lab where the university under Mr Lin and his Computer Science colleague, allowed Li Xun to try out an optional type of sink or swim pedagogy, that could benefit both students and the university. Li Xun proposed the idea and it was accepted so his teachers allowed him to lead the peer to peer goal oriented project. Sometimes they stepped in when they thought it could be better handled through accepting to cooperate with "experienced" people, such as Zhang Xiaopei and the graduate school lab. The one who turned out to be a student exploiter.

Li Xun proved that he was better suited to lead that project, where indeed he did not treat students as kindergarten kids, but as adults who needed to prove their worth, in preparation for real life workplace. So he was indeed the boss there, only disputed by Gao, until Gao too, admitted that he was going to benefit from"following", although always chafing from jealousy and inferiority complex. But of course, Li Xun had no wish or competence to address Gao's psychological deficiency: he tried to help him the way he thought he could, but Gao remained resentful and ungrateful, until downright betraying his "equal footed" classmate.

Don't. Some hateful characters are just good actresses. Think mother Yuan Yi in LLTG...

But I admit I was also tempted to include Chen Duling in my hate of the FL character she played in LIFOW. It even made me somewhat wary to see her name included in three upcoming dramas I might have an interest for (TTEOTM -that one for sure-, Black Lotus Casebeook, Fox Spirit Matchmaker). Trouble is LIFOW was the first drama I watched where I noticed Chen Duling, and , as Li Xun said to Zhu Yun when he was annoyed by her encroaching on his private space: "wo kan [ta] bu shunyan" 我看她不顺眼 (I dislike [her] face).

Yes, smoking is now frowned upon, although China was a country that used to be very cigarette friendly. It has been banned with regulations in many places indoor accepting public, for many years already. Bringing a carton of cigarettes as gift is no longer a thing to do. Even hongbaos (traditional red envelopes with little or much money inside) are severely limited now, to improve morality and health 😁
There's a depiction of a hongbao in the episode where Zhu Yun gets her first princess dress.
Good thing that a lighter can be used to light fireworks and not only cigarettes.
Some actors are still addicted to tobacco but have to curb their use in front of cameras (stalkers, paparazzi...) but Z.Tao was caught by one, lighting one and stomping on the cigarette-butt in a parking, recently : he'll probably have to regret it... Having spent time in the US, I suspect CFY could be a smoker too, but don't know: he is officially known to like, as ZJY also does, hotpot, crayfish.. - but did not express an interest in luosifen 😂.