TDevil

Why are C-dramas so obsessed with male leads who go “oh, she’ll be better off without me, so better make her hate me”? The ML is honestly such a horrible character. He’s incredibly manipulative, controlling, and totally inconsiderate to how much emotional trauma and physical pain he’s caused to Zhai Xing all because he’s obsessed with forcing her to do what HE thinks is best for her. He has no idea what it means to actually love someone

I wasn’t even a fan of Xiao Zhan going into this and I have to say that he’s literally the saving grace of this drama. His scenes are such a breath of fresh air. Meanwhile, any time Bo Wang gets screen time, you know you’re about to get an unnecessarily angsty episode where he makes countless nonsensical decisions for the sake of being a noble idiot.

I’m on episode 37 and it seems like this show is committed to this noble idiot trope to the end. I’m honestly hoping Bo Wang dies or something at the end because only one person deserves Zhai Xing, and it’s not him.

The ML is a horrible horrible person. One of the most manipulative, toxic, and inconsiderate characters I have ever watched in a C-drama. They honestly should've just made him a full blown villain.

Cdramas have a weird obsession with making their female leads sound 12. I'm not really a fan of it, but eh, guess I just gotta learn to live with it.

The student isn't running the clinic, the doctor is the girl's father. Which is why she takes the boy to see him in the end, after which we hear Qing Ci's voice address him. So we know Qing Ci is alive. It's not a satisfying ending because we don't explicitly see the main couple together happily ever after, but it is a happy ending by definition.

Main character survives, albeit unexplainably

The ending was pretty clear to me. The only problem was that the character arcs were too rushed at the end and consequently weren't fully fleshed out, with too many things being simply explained off screen. While the last 13 episodes of the drama were very mediocre and quite the downgrade in quality, I can say with confidence that the first 30 episodes were 30 of the best I've seen in ANY Chinese drama besides maybe Nirvana in Fire and Joy of Life. That's what makes it the best wuxia drama to have come out this year.

Yup, it was a very touching death and IMO the most emotional moment for me in this entire show. I know a lot of people hated it, but I thought it was a very nice wrap-up for the character arcs of two love-birds. Certainly more satisfying than what the other two couples got.

We hear Qing Ci's voice at the end address the little boy and his disciple refer to the girl's parents in an extremely familiar and affectionate way. Additionally, we know that the girl's father is a very talented healer. All these evidences are a lot stronger than whatever the emperor whispered to the general and all point to Qing Ci having survived the poison.

Yes, maybe you could say that it was all just a dream, but I highly doubt the director fast forwarded 5 years in the show just to tease the audience with an illusion. It'd serve no purpose. I don't see how any other conclusion other than the main couple having survived can be reached by the ending.

Yes, there's a happy ending.

Lol at people trying to sound all poetic and stuff about the ending.
Yeah, they're together in the end.

We'll never know. Ran out of time, ran out of money, ran out of motivation, whatever reason it was, they just decided not to show what happened to her in the end.

“Yes they ran out of money because the investors pulled their funding halfway through filming and they were forced to cut many scenes they filmed because they weren’t allowed to extend their episode numbers anymore. Wen Siyuan actually filmed a lot more fighting scenes, namely one at his own Sect and another in the showdown against the evil guards (which they showed as a tiny flashback with Shen Manqing just before the “5 years later”).

The film crew, production team, and the actors put a lot of effort into making this low-budget series and I give them credit for that, because right now it’s only the series that have famous lead actors that get the money.”

I found this gem somewhere. If true, it’s just super unfortunate because this had all the makings of one of the best wuxia dramas ever. And 10 bucks the plug got pulled around episode 30.

Literally my thoughts on the final episode when I first finished it. You're already so cramped for time on the final episode that you're forced to cut an entire story arc involving the second couple down to a grand minute, and now you have the nerve to end the episode with 5 minutes of flashbacks? Right before the ending song where we're treated to 2 more minutes of the same flashbacks?

And I still have no idea what was the purpose of Qing Ci's fatal poison if they're just going to magically cure him of it. Literally the entire script could've been written with Qing Ci just not knowing kung fu instead. It's so frustrating to realize at the end that just like everything they had been doing for the past 10 episodes, the poison had been nothing but a plot device for the sake of angst between Qing Ci and Yun Luo.

This drama could've been an all-time great drama, but they just ended up making too many boneheaded decisions with the script down the line. It's still a good show, just there's so much wasted potential it's flat out depressing.

Well, I did warn you lol. How did you feel about the ending to Wen Si Yuan and Shen Man Qing's arc?

No, the two main couples survive.

We hear his voice addressing the little boy at the end, so it's safe to assume he survived. How, I have no idea.

Eh, Joy of Life was a masterpiece on the levels of NIF that came out just last year. I'd argue that this drama was very well-made too. IMO, 2017-2020 has been a much stronger time for Chinese dramas than the early parts of the decade, a large part thanks to the influence of NIF.

Oh no, this drama is definitely an 8.5/10 for me. You could probably even convince me that it was a 9. It's just that a lot of scenes were either a complete hit or miss. Good thing is that it was much more of the former, which is why it's a 8.5 or 9 for me.

Do you mean Mu Lin's death? I thought his death was pretty understandable. Jin Xu was never going to allow the real Mu Lin to survive. Plus, his death was necessary to push Zhu Yan over the edge and become evil.

Yeah, it was Chang Ge's choice to follow her to his death. I personally loved their deaths. It was hearthwrenching, and probably the most fulfilling wrap-up to any of the main couples' arcs.