Just finished watching ep 14. I'm so heartbroken now. I'm currently in Chapter 188 of the novel, so I should have expected this, but this is just too much AHHHHHH. Probably one of the best novel adaptations ever.
Do you know the actual story or the Donghua follows the novel closely...???
Of course it can't fully follow the novel. But the fans anticipated for this. If they are going to change the majority of the story, then why bother saying that this is an adaptation. This is a disrespect not only for the author but to the fans who have chipped in just to fund the production for a drama adaptation.
A lot of low-budget dramas were able to create satisfactory adaptations that became very successful in China (like 'Sword Snow Stride' and 'Reset'). Changing up so many things upset fans and leads to no good and mostly lead for a drama to flop domestically. There is literally zero incentive in doing that except for the director feed up his own ego thinking that he can do better to interpret the story.
If you are not fan of the novel, then sure you can watch this without the frustrations and you can even think highly of the storyline. But everyone should understand where the novel fans are coming from.
Alright I'm out. For those novel fans, they changed 99% of the story. Chinese novel fans are fuming in weibo rn. They only retained the title name, the names of the character and places, and the 10% of the background story of the ml. And the cgi is bad, idk why xu kai accepted this ...
5 minutes in and they added some controversial real-life politics to appease the conservative Korean audience loool. And they even picked the worst document to claim sovereignty over Takeshima island.
Can't believe I watched all eps. Writing is dumb. Everything is so mediocore. Yet, i kinda liked it. I mean i finish this in one day with minimal skipping. Go watch it while waiting for ongoing dramas, this might be for you.
Finished reading The golden hairpin with my very basic chinese. From what I can see, they will not follow the entire novel but will instead just adapt the mysteries solved by the fl while disguising as a eunuch. Pretty decent novel imo. Although the mysteries can be a bit confusing if you don't know the cultural premise behind them.
I just finished reading the novel with my broken Korean. It definitely was a ride. There was a lot that was changed from the source material, but the general flow is kept here.
What's going on in Douban? Rating: 5.0and mostly negative comments ranting about bad quality fighting scenes compared…
Ratings there are always so low. Even the most popular Cdramas get 2.0 sometimes, it's about fandoms hating each other. 5.0 is already high for a Kdrama.
K-Drama 
A lot of low-budget dramas were able to create satisfactory adaptations that became very successful in China (like 'Sword Snow Stride' and 'Reset'). Changing up so many things upset fans and leads to no good and mostly lead for a drama to flop domestically. There is literally zero incentive in doing that except for the director feed up his own ego thinking that he can do better to interpret the story.
If you are not fan of the novel, then sure you can watch this without the frustrations and you can even think highly of the storyline. But everyone should understand where the novel fans are coming from.
EDIT: Found it using Thai vpn