Skibbies

The romance here does humanise Ye Liuxi somewhat, it's also explicitly mentioned as dialogues somewhere around the middle I think? I think Ye Liuxi also sort of forcibly broke Chang Dong out of his shell by at first teasing him, he'd eventually move on but it'd take longer I think.

I sort of liked that they didn't necessarily need each other though, it's just they like each other and enjoy being in their presence, that's fine by me. I think that for the author, they thought romance was stronger than just adventure buddy, I don't necessarily agree but it works ok here I think.

they probably were mostly just added as afterthought, but the easter egg is kinda fun for book fans to make it bit more palatable i guess.

yeah that and the old man is a specific reference to a minor character that appears in several of wei yu's book. I assume tencent want to use him + some of the town names which reference some other books to indicate all wei yu's story are in the same universe.

Oooh glad you had fun! Some people had high expectation and was bit underwhelmed

he's a minor character from other books in wei yu's story, tencent is likely using him (and some of the town names) to string all the books together into one universe. It bought all the remaining wei yu books' drama rights, excluding the one with youku, and announced a wei yu universe in 2021.

Yeah I was looking forward to this due to his filmography too, such a shame that it turned out to be flatter than it could be.

Oh they swapped love my voice and ripe town's premiere date around then i guess? (love my voice airs when faithful vip ends, and ripe town airs when this drama's vip ends)

I agree with you, this novel is pretty much carbon copy of the novel, INCLUDING pacing. I've been told the novel have more atmosphere building (suspense/spookiness/folklore stuff), but the drama sort of failed it, esp in the beginning? To my knowledge, all the secrets and cool bits that book fans adore and our antagonists are in the last 1/3.

The goal initially for FL was "figure out who she is and what's going on" and ML is essentially getting closure, you wouldn't know about other world if well, the english name didn't tell you (the chinese name does not indicate another world at all). But that's the bit a lot of people were excited to get to, so it can feels slow in the beginning. They actually did hint some stuff that happens near the end, but it's just glimpses here and there.

I'm actually ambivalent towards the romance and still think there are some parts that's unnecessary. That said, the romance is kinda vital for the story since it's meant to be strong bond that cause the antagonist's plan to fail? I don't think this production team is particularly good at world building, there are lots of stuff you can expand on but they didn't?

it's sort of stricter? you can kinda tell if you watch the candle in the tomb series? the earliest one manage to get the vibe and more of the novel content across. You can tell very clearly from the cuts in worm valley and kunlun tomb. (it messes with the pacing of the story too)

there was rumour new candle in the tomb couldn't drop when this aired (this is a replacement drama for that for some, so a lot of cnetizens complain about all the romances); but i've seen rumours that candle in the tomb might drop after all, not sure how intact it would be though.

I think the main production crew (director and scriptwriter) being from taiwan didn't really help? it's the team's first drama, and you tend to have to know pretty clearly where the invisible line NRTA might set. It's very arbitary at times, and you can get around it and still tell decent story at times, but it's very rough to do so, so I get why it's like this.

Bai Yufan's? I think that one was rumour to follow Faithful? but haven't seen specific dates yet.

Express have been announced on the chinese side, so I think there's high chance you'll see it on saturday :)

Being non historical/xianxia and no high traffic/young popular actors and actress is like this. This have more comments than a lot of modern and mystery dramas I watch lol, I think it's cos of the romance? (lot of people skip dramas that's low on romance)

Check if faithful is available for express for you? Cos that's been expressed and vip updates the ending next week.

that number is relative to other dramas on the weekly chart, it hasn't reached the yearly chart yet (it really should soon though), which is another sign of it doing so so.

oh yeah the humour is bit juvenile at times, I largely really like the setup, and lot of the cast, they are fairly unusual. Anyways, you have lot of dramas on your plate already!

oh yeah i get that, tencent's marketing have been pretty weak this year (esp compared to before). From production/tencent's pov, it's probably better to just do minimal promotion.

I am nobody's plot does unfold as it goes on, but its initial setup is somewhat similar to shounen anime, and it gives answers much faster. I'm so sad the drama wasn't engaging you sob, it's one of my favs.

As for parallel world, yeah I think it's better binged, but I do have fair amount of issues with pacing/directing for this series, it feels more sluggish than it should be. Last time I felt this was Young Blood s2's director?

it's so so in China, not just due to the airing schedule, I get the impression they didn't allocate much budget for marketing/promotion. (I have no real evidence but maybe they spent it all on doing multiple rounds of special effects. the sand people originally didn't have sand all over their face, they had proper zombie makeup. that psychedelic entrance sequence doesn't just look like a personal choice from production team but could be hastily produced effort?)

Tencent's S+ do generally air like this though, but I think it could learn from youku's scheduling, I am nobody/outcast was mostly doing 1 ep a day (with occasional 2 ep when the show calls for it), which would still drag out the schedule, the same way this is. There are a lot of book readers and fair bit of misinformation flung around douyin/xiaohongshu that's kinda annoying too. I think it enticed some of candle in the tomb audience over, but with first 10 ep gathering the team, and good amount of content is literally otp interaction, a lot of those think it's "drama adding in useless romance" when it's actually a) straight from the book (including the pacing, but the directing does make it worse) b) vital for latter plot development.

I watched her in To Ship Someone earlier this year, that was pretty cute and I really liked her in it. (the plot was my kinda story so I picked it up)

li yunrui appears in ep 9, lu yuxiao in 11, jin han and meng ziyi's proper appearance is around 23 i think.

tomb notes' fatty is from candle in the tomb series, as it started out as a fanfic of it. wei yu, the author of this show is a fan of candle in the tomb, thus this character, the actor have also previously played wang pang zi in candle in the tomb dramas.