RubyBloom

The Demon Hunter’s Romance

A Moment But Forever

Eternal Love of Dream

Love Beyond the Grave

When Destiny Brings the Demon

Rattan

Destined

Wrong Carriage, Right Groom

The Starry Love

The Blue Whisper

Lost You Forever

Feud

Joy of Life

Warm on a Cold Night

My Uncanny Destiny

Against the Current (great women centered drama, but romance may disappoint if you’re expecting that to be the main focus)

Love of Nirvana

The Coroner’s Diary

Legend of Zhuohua

Who Rules the World

Legend of Fuyao

How Dare You

The Blossoming Love

Have you seen “The Glory” or “Glory”?

Or both?

Personally I much preferred Chen Duling’s awesome revenge role in
“The Glory”.

I’m not sure?
Even if the color is contacts, the shape and way he uses them to express emotions makes them all the more lovely.

Thanks so much for the links!
I look forward to checking them out.

There were some good discussions about WOF on Reddit like these:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CDrama/comments/1otxoaf/whisper_of_fate_an_analysis_in_three_acts_act_1/

https://www.reddit.com/r/CDrama/comments/1p40wwp/whisper_of_fate_an_analysis_in_three_acts_act_2/

There’s a third act entry if you’re interested.

Perhaps the links you shared are similar or maybe totally different.
I’m just happy people in various places/on various sites cared enough to offer such in depth analysis.

I’m sure getting info directly from mandarin speakers will give new insights.

Hopefully drama like WOF continue to do well.
Recently I enjoyed Against the Current with its mature themes and focus on female characters.
I know it drew controversy for not being a romance (the usual complaints).
But imo it was a beautiful story well worth watching.

I believe it’s done well in the mainland, so hopefully we’ll see a trend of more mature writing and plots that don’t solely revolve around romance.

Again, I enjoy a good romance
and more salacious fare like the currently airing
The Vanishing Beauty.

But I prefer those types of idol dramas to be balanced with ones like ATC & WOF.

Thank you for the conversation!
Makes me happy to know I’m not alone in my age and views💜

I love it so much!

The premise is pretty silly, but I’m a sucker for game type setups.

I don’t mind if it’s totally contrived and unrealistic.

Fl was very convincing in her crying scenes. She really tugged at my heart
with her tears.
She was also great in comedic scenes.

ML is incredibly attractive with expressive eyes and a commanding presence that makes your eyes stay glued to him when he’s on screen.

He and FL have great chemistry throughout. I was invested in their romance.

Empress Dowager was a proper cruel villain, tho not that smart when it came down to it.

I would’ve watched so many more episodes of this!

Glad we at least got 24 tho.

One of the best short dramas I’ve seen.

His eyes are especially gorgeous!

Unfortunately I’m beginning to see you’re right about MDL being mainly frequented by romance drama watchers.

It feels like it wasn’t like this to such an intense degree even a few years ago and the people here were interested in a wider variety of types of dramas.

I get that tastes and trends change. That’s to be expected.

But the influx of new cdrama watchers in recent years, esp the much younger ones and those who seem to hate on anything outside romance, seems to have had the unfortunate effect of non-romance dramas being rated poorly simply for not being what they never claimed to be.

It’s so weird to me!
Like, why bother rating things you actively hate and don’t suit your tastes, especially when they never were advertised as catering to specific interests or being in the romance genre?
I don’t get it, lol.

But aside from all that,
I’m really happy for the success Whispers of Fate has achieved and the milestones it’s hit.

I really hope the WOF director, screenwriter, and other creatives get many more projects to work on in the near future.

Right now I’m enjoying Shadow Punisher
with Luo Yunxi &
Alen Fang.

IMO it had alot of similarities to WOF with its aesthetics, humor, relationships, grand world building, and mysteries.

I hope more people will give non romance focused dramas a chance.

There are so many amazing non romance novels/webtoons etc
that would make fantastic dramas.

So long as non romance stories are shown to be profitable and able to draw in large audiences, we’ll hopefully be blessed with more dramas like WOF

I’m not quite there yet, but I’m 43
so I feel you on some level.

The internet wasn’t a part of my childhood up til my senior year.
Sr year I started using it more for online messaging like ICQ/MSN messenger, coding in Neopets,
and visiting niche sites/forums.

I’m so grateful n happy I got to experience being a kid/teen/young adult before social media became a widespread thing.

I also remember when there were only a few critics people listened to get ratings from
like on tv shows
with famous critics like Siskel & Ebert or newspapers/magazine reviews.
Def a different world!

Everyone being able to openly share their opinions & ratings on things has its upsides & downsides.

I only rate things I really have a strong reaction to usually and generally review shows I really enjoyed to help others get an idea of what to expect.

Of course tastes vary.

Compared to MDL
I’m much more involved in several cdrama subreddits where people make posts to talk about dramas/actors/actresses/directors/etc and
where airing dramas have member led discussions where everyone can participate and share their opinions.

I like Reddit better for in depth conversations and getting a feel for if I’ll like a drama or not.

But you’re right. Ratings shouldn’t determine if someone watches something or not.
They’re meant to be a helpful guideline and not a hard rule to follow.

A good bromance xuanhuan mystery is airing eight now (Oct 2026) with
Luo Yunxi as ML & Alen Fang as SML:
Shadow Punisher

It has very similar aesthetics to WOF.

If you like comedy,
Pull Strings was a recent fun one.
But it’s totally OTT humor and not serious like WOF.
There’s a romantic subplot but it’s not much of the story imo.

Once Upon A Time in Lingjian Mountain
is similar to Pull Strings.
It’s an older drama so lower production values, but
(imo) very funny & worth watching.
Xu Kai is great as the hilarious ML.

You might enjoy these low to no romance,
more bromance focused dramas.
Some have more fantasy than others,
but all are wuxia to some degree:

These 3 are in same universe-
The Blood of Youth
Blood River
Dashing Youth

Sword Snow Stride
Joy of Life (s1-2, 3rd upcoming)
The Immortal Ascension
(2nd season upcoming)
Zhan Zhao Adventures
Mysterious Lotus Casebook
Fangs of Fortune
(some romance but barely there imo)
The Journey of Legend
A League of Noblemen
Ancient Detective

Bromance mystery with more a supernatural bent,
some set in Republican era:

- Guardian*
-Archives: The Nanyang Mystery
-Mystic Nine (2026)

*male leads are romantically in love
(in source material for
The Untamed at least)
but due to censorship it comes across
mostly as bromance:

-The Untamed*
-Word of Honor*
-Kill to Love*
- Realm’s Night Rain Dreamlike*

Why the hell has the rating dropped to 8.1?

Look, if you want a romance drama there are plenty of those (like seriously
there are a TON!) you can watch.

WOF is not a romance drama so don’t watch it expecting that and then give it a poor rating.

This drama was top tier in every regard.

Stunning costumes, gorgeous soundtrack, unique story, compelling mysteries, witty & thoughtful dialogue, wonderful relationships between the MC & his friends, a great backstory for the villains,
many philosophical themes & tie ins with Buddhist principles, totally inventive fantasy environments, etc.

It deserves far better than an 8.

Also, to those who rated episodes you never watched:
SHAME ON YOU!

Why drag down a drama you never saw or bother to lowly rate a drama simply because it doesn’t have romance?

Please grow up.

Actual adults with broader minds should be the ones to rate mature, intelligent shows
while immature minds
with limited perspectives should instead stick to only fluff or easy to watch shows and rate what appeals to them.

Ps- there’s nothing wrong or less worthwhile about romance focused dramas. I love a good romance and sometimes enjoy mindless fluff dramas too. But my palate isn’t restricted to those types of dramas. And I won’t rate a drama based on something it never was advertised as.

I can see your point with work vs being actually part of the family (against her will) .
I see both sides,
but still feel it was out of character based on how much she’s tried to fulfill her mother’s wish she “live & live well”
since acting that way would set her up for a rough time & conflicts with the family.

Not the end of the world tho.
It def doesn’t ruin the show for me or anything!
Still love her & am loving the drama.

I thought the public slap was way out of character too!

Personally I could totally see her doing that to him as soon as they were in private…but not as part of the wedding ceremony/celebrations where there was a huge audience to witness it.

Mehhh.

I still am loving this drama overall, but I wish writers would respect their audience more & keep characters consistent throughout instead of inserting random stuff like the slap & being disrespectful to the elders
solely to create some drama.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand in Cdramas, it’s
manufacturered angst.

There’s been plenty of reasonable, grounded dramatic moments up til now that fit within the story & characters’ personalities.

I only hope the rest of the series will go back to the original style it had before.

Maybe later episodes have different writers?
I’ll have to check to see if that’s the case.
If the writers changed,
that would explain this out of nowhere nonsensical behavior by Lanxiang.

I was also dismayed at that scene.

I understand she has deep seated resentment towards the Lin family, especially the grandfather, for callously breaking the engagement between their families and not warning the Shens.

But like you said, Patriarch Lin & Lin family didn’t directly order the execution of her family.
Yes they were cowardly & only protected themselves.

So while it makes sense for Lanxiang to have a low opinion of them/him, it does not make sense for her to start off her life as Young Madam in the Lin household by disrespecting the elders.

She reassured her parents that she would have a good life there since she’d be the young madam and not a maid.

Yet she purposely chose to set herself up for future misery in the Lin family by being rude at their first meeting & displaying poorer manners than she had when she was a maid there.

That will lead to friction be her & the family, promote strife, and make the Lins even less supportive of her being Jinqi’s wife than they already were.

Also, after doing that she was determined to stay behind and care for the elders (who now hold an extremely dim view of her)
without Jinqi there to protect her. How could she think that would be a good situation for her?!

It all seems both out of character for her and off balance for the story.

She could’ve acted reserved & aloof without being outright disrespectful.
I really don’t think, based on how she’s been thru the whole show, Lanxiang would willingly endanger herself or purposely make things harder on herself.

To be clear, I 100% agree they don’t deserve
her respect whatsoever
and I’d hate them too in her position.
I guess because she’s been so level headed until now this scene really stands out and seems
out of character for her.
But as someone else commented,
“Grief isn’t rational”.

Still, I find it a weird departure from
her normal behavior that makes little sense.

Ah well.

I hope things will look up for our couple and they’ll both behave more reasonably.
Tho I don’t expect Jinqi to be any less shameless 😅

Right?

She’s so bitchy about Xiuru even tho she basically helped save her daughter’s life by stepping in and taking her place in the marriage to Duke Yuan.

The horrid grandfather was ready outright kill Xiuwan to preserve the family’s “honor” and reputation.

It was Jinqi stepping in and suggesting Xiuru take her place since the Duke’s family only came to set up marriage with a Lin daughter and hadn’t specified which one.

The mom is delusional and petty to the extreme.
She can’t even see how her derogatory comments about others actually hurt her daughter the most since she’s the one hearing them and being reminded of her painful mistake.

I hope she gets a clue.

But at least Xiuwan has matured & grown up. It’d be a shame if she hadn’t learned from her mistake and remained stubborn due to her mother’s bad influence.

I do wish he had done some things differently,
but he kinda could only go about it in this way at this point.

So yeah, not ideal on his part. But I empathize with his intentions & reasoning.

Right?
Poor guy suffered in a beyond loveless (purely antagonistic) marriage for half his life before getting free.

Plus (despite her low social standing) who wouldn’t fall for a pretty, sharp minded, talented,
fairly educated (esp for her status)
quick to find solutions, kind, pragmatic woman who has protected not only him but his whole family?

On my WeTV smart tv app (LG)
they have an option to scan a QR code to pay for express episodes.

The link opens to the phone app.

I personally still don’t want to pay and extra $6 mo ($15 total) because as I said before, I’d be willing to
Pay as much as I do for IQIYI premium VIP
($12 mo) because they respect their customers enough to offer that option.

But if you do want to pay for it, your smart tv WeTV app might have that option with QR code.

I’m sorely tempted to pay for the express episodes but I refuse to on principle.

I wish Tencent/WeTV had a subscription that included express episodes like IQIYI does.

If they do have a higher tier of subscription available I have t been able to find it so far in my region (US).

IQIYI premium VIP is $11.99 mo.

Tencent/WeTV “VIP” is $8.99 mo.

So yeah, way rather pay $3 more a month and get all episodes as soon they drop without having to pay for each of them.

I believe these all take place in the same universe:
Rattan
Parallel World
7 Relics of Ill Omen
Love On the Turquoise Land
San Xian Mi Hui
and the upcoming
Long Gu Fen Xiang
with
Jing Tian &
Zhang Binbin.

Really looking forward to this one and LGFX!

I think maybe
the lower rated drama which I haven’t seen,
The Wind Chime,
and another
(poorly rated) movie I forget the name of
are also part of the
“Wei Gu universe”.

I just started watching the donghua Secrets of the Rivers which is based on the same novel.

I recalled hearing last year I saw a post on r/Cdrama about the drama version coming out but forgot about it until I stumbled across the donghua on Tencent/WeTV.

I haven’t read the novel but I’m enjoying the donghua.

Already was interested for the cast and the story being part of 7 Relics universe.

But now that I’m more familiar with the story thru the donghua, it looks a lot more interesting to me.

Hope it gets released soon!

Ps- I’ve really enjoyed every drama based on this author’s work that I’ve seen: Rattan, 7 Relics, & Love On the Turquoise Land.