its_emm

You can find it in the photo section.

https://kisskh.at/photos/mOnZ6m_3

I think there's 2 versions floating around. The official wetv one and matching their release schedule is about 30 min (including the ending/open theme), released to Epi 11. I read below there's a version from viu that's either cut down to 10 or 20 min per episode and that's why you have "more" episodes, but it's still all the same amount of drama.

So it depends on how long the version your watching is? (btw, I'm watching the official on wetv so no confusion here). Epi 12 is out tonight for me, can't waittttttttt!

If you've followed Avenuex long enough, she definitely has biases for and against certain actors/actresses and Huang Ri Ying (who plays Concubine Yan) is one of the ones she actually loves! That's why she said what she said. She's always given the impression (since "Ancient Detective" drama) that she thinks Huang Ri Ying is BEAUTIFUL (like how you might describe someone as being drop dead gorgeous even) and has a ton of potential (personally, I think that yes, she's quite pretty/cute but acting/interpretation-wise, she's always played her characters as a huge ditz in almost every drama so I'm not in love with her dumbing down her characters (ie. Psychic Princess, Cry Me A River of Stars, Wulin Heroes, Blooming, and I May Love You).

I tend to just ignore Avenuex's drama reviews/lives and comments when it comes to her biases cause she's always been a bit overly judgemental in general toward certain actors & genres (ie. hot/trending dramas/idol dramas/xianxia). Sometimes they can do no wrong, and other times she never even tries to give other actors/actresses/genres a chance before she rants 🤦🏻‍♀️. But I do still enjoy her weekly drama news updates and sporadic cultural/musical/crafting videos so that's the only reason I still follow her currently.

Thank you for pointing out the veneers/teeth. They are sooooo distracting for me too! Like he's in the middle of the desert with no dentists in sight (for probably years now) and yet his teeth are blinding bright white/clean! Plus I think they're kinda too big for him and oddly out of place for a historical drama. It always takes me out of the story every time he smiles or grins. 🙄

But I figure if I have to pretend that the FL can run around looking gorgeous with perfect makeup/pristine clothing and dangly jewelry all over the hot desertland, I can try to pretend SML's blinding white teeth doesn't bother me either... at least for now anyways since my expectations are still set pretty low.

Does anyone have any info/insight or guesses on who the SML's real identity might be?

Between the flower scar/tattoo on SML's back, and there's a wedding scene in the trailer of the FL marrying the SML, and with him telling the SFL "I'm not gonna spend my whole life being a bandit, I got other stuff to go do..." I'm assuming he's got a secret identity somewhere up his sleeve too? Plus earlier, he and his bandits all said they're forced to be bandits cause their parents/families are dead so maybe his parents were killed off when he was young and he's somebody... I have a feeling he's tied to FL's real identity somehow...?

I guess we shall find out eventually... 😂

In the earlier episodes (Epi 4), when ML still suspected FL was involved with the illegal salt trade/working with the bad dude who got captured at Zhennv Hall, ML specifically instructed the pawnshop that if FL comes for anything from the shop, to keep the item for ML. So the amulet was turned over to ML's sidekick who gave it to ML instead of allowing FL's maid to reclaim it. That's how he ended up with her amulet from the pawnshop.

https://kisskh.at/photos/E53qgm_3

Yeah I think it's more so about fearing his power/spies and not wanting to go up against him and less about ML or FL's reputation. I doubt within the context of the drama that ML's known for having clean/monk like reputation. Remember during the hair tying ceremony, he joked that an actress he had booked canceled on him and came to the ceremony instead, so he just followed her there.

And if we've watched enough costumes dramas, we know actresses/musicians pretty much side hustle as courtesans/companions (that exchange sexual favors). Obviously as the ML, dramas always play those out as truly platonic friendships or maybe that girl just spies for him or other reason(s). But to the general public, they don't know any better and any associations with actresses/musicians usually imply sexual relations may/likely happens, so again whether he has or hasn't- his reputation shows he's not totally without female relationships. And FL already has an awful reputation to start with (both her real XFF self being framed by her husband/in-laws) and her JL persona (due to all the matricide/fraticide rumours) and her stepmother could care less if she ruined her own reputation anymore with or without ML, so I don't think anyone's worried about ML/FL reputations. They're just biding their time, not wanting to get in ML's crosshairs in my opinion.

Yep, the concept of time traveling is similar since the modern time traveler (FL here, ML in Ancient Love Song) always gets transported to an earlier point in the other lead's timeline whenever they go back in time.

I preferred the more serious nature/higher stakes conspiracy/darker cinematography and stronger FL in An Ancient Love Song a lot more though. This one is like a cuter, more romantic comedy/watered down and less serious version of An Ancient Love Song. This was an ok binge but nothing too memorable overall.

I think you are referring to the "LV" part of his title? (Prince Lv)

It's not initials, and should not be pronounced as "l and v" nor stands for separate words. The "v" is actually a shortened/common spelling of the "ü" sound when writing in pinyin. So it's a spelling/pronunciation thing.

In mandarin, some words have a long vowel sound. The correct pinyin spelling is with the umlaut (ü, or a u with the 2 dots above it) but since not all keyboards/alphabets have it, it's often depicted as the letter "v" in writing. Other words drop the umlaut but still have a long sound depending on the first letter too (confusing, yes).

So his title is spelled as "Lü" or "Lv"
"Lü/Lv" is pronounced with a longer u sound that rounds up at the end (sorry hard to explain 😂) vs "Lu" (no umlaut) is pronounced with a shorter u sound.

In some rare cases, the vowel might be spelled as a double letter (i.e. Luu) or also with a y (Lyu), but those are less common than the v spelling (Lv).

Examples of similar words: Nv (nü) or also the goddess Nvwa (Nüwa) often has the umlaut/v spelling

Here's a couple quick blurbs about that vowel sound as well:
https://pinyin.info/news/2009/v-for-u/

https://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/type-v-pinyin-input/

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Note: I'm not a native speaker (took mandarin in school) so anyone feel free to correct me if I made any mistakes!

Yes, the evil coworker girl was in WRTW. She appears in the later half when Bai Feng Xi goes back to her kingdom. She was the other princess (Princess Hua Chun Ran) who initially fell for Hei Feng Xi but actually ended up marrying Prince Huang Chao (Lai Yi's character) cause they both wanted to take over the world together.

She's most well know for being Shao Xin (Bai Qian's snake servant girl) in TMOPB and as the FL in Let's Shake It 1 & 2.

2 different people.
The identity mixup from novel deals with: 2 uncles, 2 nieces.

Niece 1: Qin Le Zhi - new gf of Zheng Shu Yi's ex (that he cheated on her with). She gets into a fancy Rolls-Royce stating her uncle is picking her up.

So when Zheng Shu Yi sees Shi Yan in that same car (it has a VERY distinctive license plate #), she immediately assumes Shi Yan is her ex's new gf's uncle so she sets out to win him and thus lord it over her ex and his new gf for revenge as she'd then be their "aunt."

And all the while, Shi Yan does keep mentioning/running off to save his niece quite often so that plays right into Zheng Shu Yi's misunderstanding as it confirms he's got a niece that he's close with 😂.

*** SPOILER: Uncle 1 is Qin Le Zhi's uncle. This uncle is actually Shi Yan's driver which is why he had access to Shi Yan's car in the first place, lol. He's just an older average uncle with a driver job, otherwise not too important overall to the story.

Niece 2: Qin Shi Yue - a new intern at Zheng Shu Yi's company is keeping a very low profile. She becomes a pretty good work/hangout friend with Zheng Shu Yi and keeps referring to her handsome doting uncle all the time, whom she also keeps offering to set up with Zheng Shu Yi, but Zheng Shu Yi is not interested and never connects the dots on who her uncle is. She even spills a lot of her revenge plot/dating progress to this niece about the man she's pursuing, lol. But no names get used so the niece never connects the dots either!

*** SPOILER: Uncle 2 is Qin Shi Yue's uncle. This uncle IS Shi Yan, and he has no relationship to Niece 1 (as Zheng Shu Yi initially misunderstood), other than he's the boss of Uncle 1. 😂

Yes, her motive for approaching Shi Yan is revenge on her ex. Of course, mistaken identity ensues (he's an uncle, but not the uncle of who she thinks he is)... and she falls for him for real later

And spoiler (from the novel) ... Shi Yan's already got a secret crush on her for 2 years, so he just goes with the flow, mostly cause he's curious about her motives and also cause he really already likes her anyways 😂

He saw her 2 years before and already liked her, but as he was about to approach her, he saw her walk out with her boyfriend at the time. So slight disappointment on his end and he never acted on his feelings, which is why she's not aware of him at all. Since she doesn't remember him, he's just sticking with that story too I guess.

From the novel, there's a couple guys in Zheng Shu Yi's life besides Shi Yan:

1. Yue Xing Zhou is her ex-boyfriend who dumped her to be a gold digger for Qin Le Zhi. (Spoiler: QLZ's not rich, he only thought she was and she didn't correct him, so he's gonna dump her and want Zheng Shu Yi back again later, even though she's already moved on with Shi Yan).
Zheng Shu Yi's interactions with him give Shi Yan INTENSE jealousy. 😂

2. Yu You is the son of her Mom's boss and someone she's known since childhood, so her Mom set them up on a blind date. They both agree early on they're not interested in each other, but they do become somewhat friendly running into each other a couple times due to common interests (he just came back from the US, but planning to go back again and Zheng Shu Yi is planning a trip to the US for work), plus they know their families expects them to go on at least a couple blind dates together.
Initially, her interactions with Yu You give Shi Yan moments of jealousy but Yu You's not really a threat (he actually ends up with Shi Yan's niece, Qin Shi Yue who crushes on him big time when she crashes one of Zheng Shu Yi/Yu You's dinner dates.).

Other:
3. I saw on a "relationship" chart for the drama linking Yi Yang with Zheng Shu Yi as "he likes her" so not sure if the drama will try to throw something in there with those 2, but he's a brand new character (not in the original novel if I recall).

Yes, he fell for her 2 years before the story actually starts. He saw her at a business/finance award show and she already made a strong impression on him, but she never saw or noticed him. So Zheng Shu Yi thinks they met with the Rolls Royce incident/her interview of him, but he already knew of her for years, it explains a lot of why he went along with all the "flirting/seduction" she did with him! :)

That's the problem. This is NOT her first FL role.

If this was her first/debut lead role, then yes I don't think she would get as much hate for her acting (it's actually pretty good here in my opinion although between FL/ML, he's definitely the stronger lead in terms of acting/microexpressions and experience).

However this is like her 7th or 8th main FL role, and she's headlined some pretty well known dramas already (Dance of the Phoenix, Heroes, Chongzi, Midsummer is Full of Love... etc), so she went from zero experience to FL role after role despite her acting skills. I'd say most people wouldn't have an issue if she had natural talent or if people felt she put in hard work (ie. start with smaller/supporting roles or smaller dramas and build up her skills and then move into FL roles) so that's why she gets so much hate. And with it being her 7th/8th FL role, most netizens expect her to be much better than she is currently or show more significant improvement than she has.
A lot of the hate (in my opinion) is also leftover hate from Chongzi cause that was expected to be a big drama and became a let down/flop overall 😢

Again, I like her in LY7T and she's so much better here than she was in Chongzi or Heroes, so I hope she continues to get better. I personally also feel there's a ton of reasons why a drama does good/bad so I don't think it's fair to place the blame on just one actor or actress in general.

But yeah, her super quick trajectory to FL roles is why she gets a lot of criticism.

It sounds like it's an iqiyi exclusive special/perk, starting with LY7T but could be for their other future dramas too. They said at intro that if a drama hits 1 million pre-streaming reservations, the leading actors and cast might go on a team building trip just like this so that's kinda exciting for all their future dramas!

BFTB was a youku drama so it never would have happened there 😢 but who knows, maybe youku might come up with something similar in future too (on top of the usual fan meets/livestreams and/or post drama concerts that most platforms give out with their breakout dramas), but I can empathize with you for wishing for more content for your favorite pairing(s). We've all been there!

For fellow novel readers - anyone else slightly disappointed that they changed up the reason why they're going through their tribulations together?

The drama is making them do it so he gets his primordial spirit restored (and added the whole amnesia background too). It sounds like that will also add more to the immortal arc later too after tribulations.

But in the novel, that was never an issue and they were punished to spend 7 lifetimes together cause they got into such a huge fight/brawl and caused soooo much headache for the emperor/Yue Lao by tangling up a ton of love threads during their fight.

And that fight was INTENSE - there was hair pulling, nose pinching, ear pulling, kicking, rolling around on the floor trying to beat up each other, at one point FL even accused ML of spanking her (lol).
That fight sounded hilarious and I really wanted to see how it would play out on screen. (I just imagined them rolling around in huge cloud of dust trying to one up each other across the floor.) I expected it might get toned down for the drama, but then to find out it never even got into the drama at all was slightly disappointing 😭
That fight really set up their animosity for each other, also showed us FL was a feisty girl who wasn't scared to push back at ML, and it was a huge motivating factor for why FL was so pissed at ML that she wanted to retain her memories in their first lifetime to get revenge on him and same for him wanting to keep his memories for the following Master vs disciple life. Plus I loved how with every lifetime, that initial hatred then lessened for them both as they fell in love. ❤️

I'm still intrigued by the changes and how that will play out later, and I get there will be differences between the novel vs drama version, but I'm still sad to see that didn't make the cut 😢

LMAO, you're the best! 😂😂😂😂😂