its_emm

Yes, that's EXACTLY how the drama explained it. It would normally surge/get rid your inner power, but since MQY had none, it got rid of his poison instead, thus saving him. It still feels like a copout to me but okayyyyyy drama, we'll go with that explanation for now. *side eyes drama in disbelief*

Although super randomly thrown in, Shangguan Haonan did have 2 ladies by his side at You Guanyue's wedding so assuming those are his 2 wives. 😂 (And novel wise, he actually had 3 wives and they all ran away, lol. Xiaolan did also have his baby but none of that was even explored in drama at all, so I wish they had just left out the wives and him & Xiaolan since that came in wayyyy too last min and felt really out of place/disjointed.)

Culturally, even during ancient times in China, it's was actually normal for men have worn flowers in their hair.

I think this hasn't happened as often in cdramas, but I've seen it show up more in recent dramas, especially for festive events like weddings like they did here.

In addition, I think this director embraces the whole men with flowers in hair look, I remember Wang Xingyue had flowers in his hair too briefly in this same director's drama, The Double. (It's been a while so I don't remember exactly, but I think FL gave ML a flower and he wore it in his hair too.)

Regardless of all the lows, the highs were so good that I still throughly enjoyed the ride that this drama took me on- the tension filled moments, the yearning from ML, their journey through jianghu, and the osts. It's in no way perfect, in fact, I found many flaws within the show but even then, as CZ says to MQY: Knowing how it ends, I'd still choose to do all over again!!

I shall never forgot how much I loved our madman of a demon leader, MQY, his beauty, his voice, his intense gazes and his utter obsession and devotion! Up until maybe the last episode or so, I appreciated how manipulative and morally gray his character remained as no true person changes at their true core instantly in my opinion so that was so real for him to be able to lean into his cunning and dark side. The ending suffered quite a bit as it took many liberties at the expense of ML (yet did nothing at the same time to elevate FL), but at the end of the day, I'm so happy MQY and CZ got their happy ending!

Zhou Yiran embodied MQY beautifully and I really saw a new side to his acting, as well as how gorgeous he can be in hanfu and styling! He brought everything to this role!

And this was filmed in 2024...so he was 18 😂

That scene was the epitome of the meme: "Do you feel Bonita?" lol lol lol

Same! I just said what the hell is happening here in those scenes too.

Lol I love your comment 😂

Yeah it got damn bloody! They used up enough blood in the last couple episodes to outlast at least 10 Cheng Yi dramas at this rate. If you know, you know, lol 😂

I didn't like the switch up of MQY's final move at the end of the drama-- in the novel, if I recall, MQY actually used his father's Qi breathing technique to boost himself & errode at Qi Yunke's use of Ziwei Method to distract him enough for him/CZ get some stabs at Qi Yunke, not Disintegration.

Novel noted Mu Zhengming's Qi breathing technique was actually on par or had the ability to actually beat Ziwei Method (and obviously less lethal than Disintegration that was bound to break meridians and kill), so I'm not sure why they switched it up to reveal MQY using Disintegration last minute except to make it more dramatic and add a "plot twist" 🙄?!!? I think with the whole 'he was still poisoned' situation, writers could have still easily used his Qi breathing technique to explain away: 1) safer alternative to beat the Ziwei Method, 2) clear up his poison, and 3) pay homage back to his Father who was so important to him.
Like the novel already gave them a PERFECT and logical tool for all their issues, yet they took a less effective method and one that made less sense to achieve the same end goal? Ughhhh 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️
But then again, that's just my wishful thinking to fix a wonky storyline here.

Yep, totally agree with everything you said too (although the singing didn't bother me as much 😂).

That last quarter of drama was frustrating with how weak MQY got, dude was fainting every other step 🙄. Thank goodness he's a pretty fainter and looks beautiful sickly, but still, TOO MUCH time was spent on fainting.

The writing and directing editing left much to be desired. The drama disappointingly didn't really improve much on the source material in anyway when it had so much potential to do BETTER! It stayed pretty true to the overall framework, yet never expanded nor tried to fix any issues most readers already had with CZ's weak characterization/wishy washiness towards MQY. Then it decided to add a whole new spin and extend the poisoning/weakened ML storyline longer than necessary, rushed all the final chapters into like an episode, and gave us a whole different ending altogether last minute (him giving up his sect and marrying into CZ's family). It's like the writers woke up and decided "how do we make this story worst than it is just for dramatic flair?!"🤦🏻‍♀️.) I really think the story could have been better with a different screenwriter/director who would have appreciated and leaned into the original IP and it's many broad themes and characters.

But at the end of the day, we got what we got and I'm still glad I stuck it out and would do so again. The drama definitely had its highs and lows and when I enjoyed it I enjoyed it sooooo immensely! And its given me a such a whole new appreciation for Zhou Yiran! Can't wait for his new works!

@ShaashaS
If I recall, he claimed he already healed himself of any remaining poison by the time he stopped being Chang Ning and showed up as MQY again by using his Father's Qi breathing technique over the long time he stayed at Qingque. It's a slow but effective method of regulating oneself, including ridding the body of toxins. In addition, MQY discovered he wasn't actually poisoned with the kind of poison he thought he had. He always thought he was suffering from Nie Zhe's Five Poison Palm. But in actuality, Nie Zhe just faked that he mastered that skill, he never actually did. MQY was just suffering from effects of Suzhi incense + Qianxun wood that his Mother and Nie Zhe used against him on the day he fought Nie Zhe and lost.
So not touching stuff his Mom gave him and being away from the scene + his Dad's breathing technique pretty much cleared up any side effects. (I assume his Dad died because MQY noted he'd toss stuff his Mom sent him as a child, but his Dad kept some of those items as momentos so he didn't know he had been poisoned until too late and why the Qi technique didn't work as well on his Dad.)

There was none of the poisoning and fainting he did the whole last half that took place in the drama. 🙄 He was never as weak as the drama turned him into 😭

Yes that was super out of character for him.

They got married and she joined his sect and went to live with him in the novel. He remained Sect Leader and he never gave up his sect. 😭 I don't know why the drama gave into the whole matrilocal marriage idea, it was wholly unnecessary after all the work he put in to reclaim his leadership, and the novel was clear her younger brother would grow up one day to take over Luoying Valley so there wasn't any need for him to join her sect either. But if I remember, the drama alludes to her brother wanting to join a monastery so I assume they will inherit Luoying Valley someday in the drama.

They got married and she joined his sect and went to live with him in the novel. He remained Sect Leader and he never gave up his sect. 😭 I don't know why the drama gave into the whole matrilocal marriage idea, it was wholly unnecessary after all the work he put in to reclaim his leadership, and the novel was clear her younger brother would grow up one day to take over Luoying Valley so there wasn't any need for him to join her sect either. But if I remember, the drama alludes to her brother wanting to join a monastery so I assume they will inherit Luoying Valley someday in the drama.

Yesssss! I had such a huge problem with that too, him busting out Disintegration last min in the drama only 🙄. The novel already gave them a perfectly good tool to use against Ziwei (his Fathers Qi technique), don't know why they had to flip that over to Disintegration instead. I have thoughts that I plan to post on that "twist" later! Ughhh, so frustrating! 😭

Is this question for me? I meant MQY gave/assigned both You Guanyue and Shangguan Hao Nan leadership. Those two or their descendants would likely fight amongst themselves someday for full control, that's just how nature works. I wouldn't want to set up a clan for that type of strife in the future. I wish if that was his end goal that he set up his successor better/picked 1. I didn't like the dual ownership is what I meant. Hope that helps!

Now that you mention this, I think they took all of CZ's bath scenes from the novel and gave them to MQY, lol 😂😂😂.
MQY was constantly getting a bath ready for CZ in the novel (and he always insisted on waiting outside her bathtub behind the screen to everyone's shock and horror. He managed to even get enchanted by a glimpse of her feet and ankles once, lol).

I even thought to myself sometimes... "Wow she's bathing again!?!" 😂

You can tell a costume is coming to a close when bodies be dropping dead left and right.

I counted at least 10 people taken out in the last 5 episodes alone! 🙄.

No he's cured by the end! He just got superrrrrr sick and almost barely made it for a good half of final episode 😂. The stresssssssss was getting to me so bad!

It felt so out of character when Mu Qingyan was "dying" in the last episode to have him tell Cai Zhao: "If someday you find someone else, I'll be happy for you." 😮😮😮

The MQY throughout novel and drama, even on his deathbed would have never said such words to CZ in my opinion. MQY would have remained insanely jealous over CZ to the end. In fact, he'd more likely threaten to die and come back and haunt her than imagine her with someone else, especially since he fears that someone else will be Song Yuzhi, lol.

I wish they had just left his line at the "bury me if I die at Luoying Valley so I'll always be with you when the wind or sand blows" as that line makes sense as he would always want to be with her, but not that random additional line about her moving on.

In terms of character development, maybe it's meant to show us that he managed to grow and think of CZ for once and it also allows CZ to finally show she reciprocated his feelings back and could no longer imagine her life without him. But I didn't like it for him as it's so out of character.

In my experience they will eventually drop express but it might be maybe end of day today or tomorrow (or a bit later). It feels like they drop live episodes within about 1-2 hours from show time, express usually 1-2 days after/slower.

Maybe it's so the legit platforms don't go after them more aggressively, given it is taking away from legitimate views/money from the platforms. That's my guess.