Aya

You can find a lot on youtube

Just wanted to say that this is the most interactive comment section I have ever come across.

Well, seeing as I'm still here and not exactly over it, I can't say for sure what will help, but what I did was watch lots of BTS videos, chat with people here and I also watched Love Is Sweet.

After having watched some other dramas, I'm back rewatching TTEOTM.

Unfortunately, I'm not that patient. I will just make this a yearly rewatch 😋

You're welcome

I feel like I just started rewatching. How am I already on episode 14?

They grew up together. Seems like he was orphaned and she took him in. He is considered an adopted son of the family, but it's not official as he's not on their family registry and doesn't share their name. Later on while serving in the army together, she tells him that she considers him her little brother and will ask her father to add him to the family officially so he can have the same last name. Although he says it's not necessary, he starts calling her sister from then on.

I was confused at first too. I thought they were blood related, but they're not.

One of the worst Heavenly Emperors I have seen and that's saying something.

a question for those who have rewatched recently. Which episodes were re-edited exactly?

I'm curious what the ending was like in the novel. Maybe it made more sense.

In the final episodes, the Heavenly Emperor finally shows his true colours and we find out the reason why he truly wanted to kill the Phoenix. We also find out what actually happened to Yan Yue's mother. So, basically the Heavenly Emperor has always been power hungry and having attained the most powerful position, he wanted true immortality. In the universe of this drama, the so called Gods and Immortals aren't really immortal. They live an extremely long life, but eventually their bodies decay and they die. The only creature in their world that is truly immortal is the Phoenix, because of her ability to be reborn. This ability is given to her by Hua Rong, which basically contains the immortal part of her spirit. The heavenly Emperor wanted to take Hua Rong for himself and instigated the original Phoenix to lose control and harm the world. Afterwards, he framed her as being an ominous creature that would destroy the world and had her hunted down. Yan Yue's mother was given this task, but she was against killing the Phoenix. Instead, she wanted to "purify" her and I'm guessing she was sent to reincarnate instead. The Heavenly Emperor's insistence to kill the Phoenix finally makes Yan Yue's mother realise that something is not right and she figures out what actually happened and he sort of confesses the rest. To keep her silent, he kill her and uses her immortal spirit to repair the barrier between the demon world and the heavenly realm that the Phoenix had broken. He frames the Phoenix for her death.

Towards the end of the drama, Yan Yue and Wei Zhi get married and decide to live in seclusion. The body of the Heavenly Emperor by this time has fully decayed and he's dying. He calls Yan Yue to have the "final" conversation. He asks him if he will kill the Phoenix or not (several times), to which Yan Yue replies that he will not. The Emperor then proceeds to take over Yan Yue's body. While in Yan Yue's body, he incapacitates Yan Yue's primordial spirit and takes over. He will end up doing so many bad things and eventually there's once again a battle between the Heavenly Realm, led by the Emperor and the Demon Realm, led by Wei Zhi.

This is where it starts getting a bit confusing and why I said that I thought they had two endings in mind.

The Heavenly Empress uses her abilities to find out what happened and during the battle between the Emperor and Wei Zhi, the Empress goes back into his past and started subtly changing things, which affects the Emperor in the present. At this point, Wei Zhi takes the opportunity and sends Hua Rong into Yan Yue's body. The reason she ends up doing that, is because Elder Mu told her that Hua Rong is the purest and the kindest thing in the world and will be able to purify even the most evil of spirits. Hua Rong does indeed end up destroying the Emperor primordial spirit and Yan Yue is freed. The problem is that taking out Hua Rong from her own body will result in Wei Zhi's death. Yan Yue then proceeds to use Hua Rong to change the past. He sends Hua Rong with everything that they have experienced in the lifetimes back to the moment of his very first betrayal. This ensures that Chan Yan makes a different choice, choosing not to betray Wang Yue. Then they also show that in the present, six months after the final battle, their egg hatches and a new Phoenix is born.

What I think is, that they were going for one ending where the Heavenly Empress changes the past and that destroys the Emperor, in which case Wei Zhi won't really have to take out Hua Rong and she can be together with Yan Yue to see their egg hatch.

Another ending would have been, Wei Zhi having to use Hua Rong on the Emperor, without any real interference from the Empress. Afterwards, they use Hua Rong to change the past and create an alternate timeline, in which Chen Yan never betrayed Wang Yue and they got to be together.

With the two mixed together, there are too many timelines and possibilities to call it a straightforward ending.

At least that's what I took away from it.

Agreed, logic sort of goes out the window sometimes. Especially in dramas with a limited budget. It's sad and a bit of a waste in this case, but it is what it is.

Slightly confusing to be honest. Not sad, but definitely confusing.

The reason I'm saying it's confusing, is because I felt like they had two endings in mind and filmed both, but couldn't choose one, so they sort of edited the two together.

I don't want to spoil the details, unless you really want to know.

You're welcome. Glad I could help

That's a lovely cast.

DG in all his elegance is always fun to watch

I'm skipping Bing Chang in all incarnations. I don't have the patience to watch her twice

I think it's that familiar feeling that was making me smile. Sort of like nostalgia. Even though it wasn't that long ago.

So I caved and I'm now rewatching TTEOTM.

For some reason I just smiled all throughout the first episode.

That was really beautiful.

So Dongfang Qing Cang is their son then? Don't mind me, that video of their faces being combined to make Wang He Di's face will be forever ingrained in my brain.