SoundOfSilence

Not sure why iQiyi dont feel confident about this drama that it just went under the radar and only have auto machine subs. It doesnt seem to be a super low budget drama either, judging by the amount of extras and also guest artistes for each case, not to mention the hinting of S2. Whatever the case, iQiyi really dropped the ball on this one by not promoting it, this is actually pretty good

No angst, no misunderstanding, not draggy, no stupid love triangle, great team of leads and supporting characters, the occasional natural romance so that it doesnt take away the investigative mystery genre of the drama

1 thing I didnt like about the ending, they didnt show the big fall of the Zhou family
While the 2nd bro was alright, the younger sis was a piece of shit as well, no different from her father and Nameless. Throughout the whole show, she keep on harping on the death of her bro, blaming the ML, and even tried to murder the FL just because shes associated with the ML, yet after the big reveal at the end, we didnt get to see her reaction and downfall

The part when Magistrate Wei/Xiaobao lay dying in ML's arm, and reminiscing about the crispy pastry was just so poignant, a reminder of what could have been

No chemistry, there is zilch romance here
Leng Gui'er despite being the "FL", barely have any screentime

ML lacked screen presence, stiff acting, and his character is really inconsistently written, sometimes smart sometimes naive. Would have wanted to see him, his 2 friends and Gui'er being more involved in the investigation of the cases. For no reason near the end, we dont see his friends and Guier investigating anymore, they dont even have screentime, just feel weird cause before that, they were investigating quite abit

Lu Zhi is really disgustingly evil, hes only probably 12/13 when he committed the crimes.
He actually had a really good life as compared to other people during that era, yet he got overly greedy and even slaughter other innocent people and children so that he can inherit all the properties. He was even willing to kill his best friend if he had seen him at the scene of the fire

Didnt like that he committed suicide, thats far too lenient of a death for him

The other senior actors really acted very well here, like judge song/magistrate wei

Shes not from Peony company, shes just the liaison between her 82 coy and Peony.

yea, thats one of my biggest peeve....in fact all of them get off just with a resignation, other than Mr Wan

Combined full subbed version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyKtW4cI3Dw

Combined full subbed version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyKtW4cI3Dw

The actress who play zhen zhen is 杨舒亦, Yang Shu Yi
She doesnt have a MDL profile page, think that is why she is not listed

This looks like it should be a 24-episode drama, but got edited and chopped down to 20 episodes
Many of the episodes had random scene jumps and edits, alot of time, the scenes dont flow naturally. The story is kinda just all over the place

Felt they focused too much on the GaoShen shenanigans especially in the 2nd half of the show
The leads were barely together in the 2nd half, the first half was much nicer as the couple had more time together and really felt more like a romcom

The ending was really bad imo, 3ML sacrificed himself, FL and 2ML went back to the future... Their partners were all left hanging alone in the present world.
And if that wasnt bad enough, the last scene in the ballroom, with ML mingling with his business associates, suddenly he just randomly started walking to god-knows-where, arriving at some random hut, with 2FL also randomly just started following him, she reached the hut and then just left? Like I dont even know whats going on
So the ML sees a backview of the FL in the hut for like 2secs and the show just ends....super WTF

MDL needa redo the cast list as well, Ran Ran played by Cao Xi Yue and Lu Fei Yan played by Deng Kai, this couple is literally the 2nd leads, but are listed as guest roles while they listed Zhou guy so high up in the list when he barely appear in the show

Anyway, the 3 FLs are real eye-candies here, FL is really cute especially during the first half with her shy skinship with ML. 2FL Ran Ran is really pretty with her dresses and also directness in chasing 2ML.
3FL Gu Si Yu totally slayed those formal clothes, she looks so good in them

Agreed with your points

Felt really sad for Gao Shen/Ding Liu... they didnt even show at least a proper reunion especially since they haven been separated for at least 9 months, and Gao Shen was imprisoned in the pool slowly mutating into a snake-human hybrid, all we got was few secs of illustration of 2D Gao Shen driving a truck with Ding Liu by his side

They didnt even show Long Zhi in prison, they just show her still in her princess clothes and with a 1 liner exposition saying shes been imprisoned, wtf man

Like what many people commented, the last few episodes and ending was really weak

Agreed, they did a nice leadup with FL revealing her huge hidden weapon caches, it leads the viewers to a higher expectation of a battle coming up

In the end, we just got a timejump of 9 months with no battle action shown during the 9 months... And we saw them rolling up to BSC, with the Golden Snake helping them, and then we got no battle again, it was straight to the negotiation table 😑

This is really good, recommend to watch it

The romance isn't an add-on, like what many commenters have said, its very natural and doesnt just happen out of the blue. It makes sense along with the story, because both their characters are complementary, both are constantly in danger and exploring unknown lands, the constant looking out and taking care of each other naturally progress to a more intimate stage in the later part of the drama

Honestly the tags are just a guideline, like roughly what different kind of genres we should expect in the story. For the author, romance may have been the intended focus, but for drama, thats clearly not the case, adventure is listed as main.

Once you delve into the drama, you will quickly realise romance takes a backseat and other genres becomes the main-focus. This drama do have more romance than Candle series, but as it is, they still somewhat retain the same overall vibes.

Not to mention, the first season of Candle drama series, takes place in a desert as well, and the 2ML Fatty Tang here, is also the 2ML Fatty Wang there, so understandably theres gonna be some comparing going on

This drama definitely have way more, there is skinship and some hot kisses. There are 3 couples as well

Not to mention the FL is really direct, chill and shameless, she confessed first.

Nobody will get mad or pissy at someone for asking if theres romance

What people are getting mad at, is the shallowness of complaining about a non-romance focused drama, based solely on the romance it has, disregarding 90% of the rest of the show

both are in the same genre actually, exploratory action-adventure and both have the same vibes, both are non-romance dramas. Replace the tomb with another world, and you get this drama

The big difference is ML takes charge in Candle in the Tomb series, while FL takes charge here. Secondly, they have different teams who gets repeatedly killed off in different seasons of Candle series while here the team is also the main supporting cast, so they lived all the way to the end

Reading the comments before I started this drama, I thought its gonna be a 'light-hearted' romcom blighted by tons of angst from antagonist, jealous childhood friend, toxic ex-bf etc....

Now that I had finished, I can safely say, PEOPLE CAN WATCH THIS WITHOUT WORRIES
The antagonist, his spy, the jealous childhood bitch, scumbag ex-bf all have very little screentime actually. Not to mention both Peony and 82 doesnt have any toxic backstabbing colleagues(other than the spy) which leads to more stress-free watching as well

And the leads are very matured, understanding and trusting, no breakups, and the ML's mum loves the FL so much!!! 😍

Some things I felt could be improved:
Zhen Zhen, she was obviously extremely guilt-ridden after her 'betrayal'. I just dont like how they wrote her off the last few episodes, then she suddenly came back in the last episode to rejoin the 82 team. It would have been better to show her, working hard with 82 to resolve the crisis she created in the 82 team, its will be a better redemption arc for her

Xie Yi and Zhu Li, they hardly had any interactions and in the same screen, then in ep21, they tried to pair them both up together, it just feels weird, cause that scene came out of nowhere...then after that, we dont see them together again

Ke Wei and Cheng Shu, their relationship just keeps going round and round, and you get bored of them eventually, even the director got bored himself, that he broke them off early in ep21 lol

Only the Mr Wan got caught at the end, which we wont really care anyway, because we hardly see him and his shenanigans and his story come and go in 15mins in last episode. Total wtf

Yet the Su Qi and his spy got no repercussion other than just losing their job.
Li Li An also happily just packed up her bags and fly to other country to find her new bf and new job even after the constant putting down of FL and cyberbullying her.
Toxic ex-bf got no consequences for his actions because hes living a 'miserable' life now, so lame

Its crazy how this show got 8.2 when alot of other crappy shows get much higher

I will always disregard those romance complaints in non-romcom shows. Its like rating a romcom show down because it doesnt have action-adventure, ridiculous aint it?

dont worry, theres no jump scare, or sudden loud music, those horror cliche stuffs etc.