its_emm

The drama isn't super clear yet on the official status of her Mom's relationship w/his Dad, but in the book, her Mom was just the Dad's lover/mistress. She hadn't married the Dad or anything. So they're not legally step-siblings. He's pretty much estranged from his Dad too.

Yes, she planned to use him to get back at her mother. Not sure if the drama will change her motivations, but when she discovered her Mom was dating his Dad:
Her initial plan was to date him for a bit to annoy her Mom and get her Mom to give her money for her Grandma's treatment/surgery and upcoming liver transplant cause her Mom wouldn't help financially. Her Grandma was really sick w/liver disease, she did side jobs but really had no way to pay for meds/surgery, she was really desperate to save her Grandma who was her last remaining loving relative 😢.

At first, she was just threatening her Mom to expose her relationship w/LXX to LXX's family/Dad (her Mom's rich lover) cause it would be like an almost brother/sister kind of dating scandal and might cause her Mom to get dumped by LXX's Dad. So her Mom paid her some money to shut up (more like gave her money her Dad left her anyways).

Later, she found her Mom secretly talked her Grandma out of going through with the transplant so her Grandma ended up dying. Her Mom had done the same with talking her Dad out of treatment when he had been sick with lung cancer that could have extended his life too and he also died before his time. Her Grandma's death propelled her to up her game and she went straight to the top of the food chain: LXX's Grandpa (family head/patriarch and who LXX was most close with (he's estranged from his Dad)). She offered to leave LXX forever only if he made LXX 's Dad dump her Mom. His Grandpa agreed to make it happen cause his grandson/his family's standing was more important than the gold digging lover of his son anyways. So she upheld her end of the bargain when she knew her Mom got dumped. She went through with her breakup even though she had fallen in love with LXX by then.

The novel did a good job showing how guilty she felt with her plans all along as she fell in love with LXX, how she tried to brighten his life for the brief moment she planned to stay and how she prepared him for her departure. I never blamed her for her initial plans. She was a victim of her circumstances, and then she was so distraught that her Mom practically killed her Grandma (and Dad) and abandoned them all that she had to get revenge against her Mom. And she knew she would have to sacrifice LXX for it, but she'd figured she was just another fling he'd get over quickly and move onto his bigger and better life after her. She never realized how much hurt she caused him and how much he loved her.

Btw, halfway into their dating era, he figured she was hiding a big secret from him (she was a poor liar 😂). He said he had ways to find out but he was too scared to go looking. When he finally did find out the truth, he still pretended he didn't know cause he just wanted to be with her, and knew she would leave him if she found out he knew the truth about why she approached him in the first place (revenge).

I'm still cautiously optimistic about the drama and can see where much was changed, and feel a bit let down so far as compared to the novel. The drama and LXX's intro is just so much lighter than I expected. I also liked the nonchalantly-ness in which he "dated" before Zhou Wan, given he never did much but let girls chase and hang around a couple times with him and his friends til he shoo'd her away anyways. It really emphasized how much he loved and focused on Zhou Wan when he put his heart and soul into a real relationship (plus it made for a couple funny moments later when Zhou Wan would comment on his past dating history and how his good looks kept attracting girls everywhere they went, and he told her she could cover his handsome face up with her hands when they were out so no other girls could see his face 😂).

I'm also not loving the back and forth-ness between the past/present time lines. Something about the way it's presented out of the blue every couple episodes just takes the angst/the *bam* hit you in the face 'first time reunion' scene that I always anticipated away since they've technically already re-met again with the dog scene in the present time 😭. And since LXX isn't styled much differently (looks, hair... etc) in the past vs present, it almost feels like he's just moving between today/tomorrow when it's supposed to have been years.

I don't mind the initial start in the present and flashback, but I wish they kept it in chronological order vs the flipping back and forth with the time lines which I found somewhat jarring and taking me out of the story.

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! 🙄.