Luminous Lotus

I read the novel first and follow along as it was slowly translated. it was good enough that I stuck with it. Even tried to translate it myself when the translator was on hiatus (not recommended). Definitely a different tone. The drama is more light hearted and comedic. The ML got soften up for the drama. The novel doesn't get super dark but it's definitely less comedic. I really love the ML and I gush when he does little things where you can tell he's starting to fall for her. There's nothing obvious like in the drama when he built her a replica of SiMing's place although that was very sweet as well. There's a little bit of drama at the end before you get your happy ending. I don't want to spoil the novel but you should definitely read it if you like bad boys who fall for good girls. He's not an evil dude but for sure a bad dude unlike where it's toned down for the drama.

i see your take on it and they quite likely changed it to suit mainland china's taste. Personally I'm just really disappointed after being super hyped up to see the first episode. I'm a big fan of the manhua and read it several times and almost bought the hardcopy in chinese when I saw there were no more translations (due to publishing hiatus). I hate drama (reasonable amount is fine) so the changes are not to my taste.

i feel compelled to write my first comment on MDL. I only watched to ep 7 but crazy chopsticks is right about how awful the FL is. The manhua is way better. They did all sorts of "add salt, add vinegar" to spice it up when it didn't need it. 90% of the stupid decisions she did in the drama wasn't in the manhua. they also added extra characters like the cousin. It took her four episodes to get out of chang'an when it only took two chapters in the manhua. (i read this years ago so I might be slightly off) The backstory isn't complete yet either. Her mother was supposed to have given her a hairpin which will later play a role.