luckz

The FL is the one who got the whole Yuli Spring search going since she adopted the ML as her privileged house pet and then told the entire world population to go search for a magical thing that instantly boosts demon cultivation.

Her 3 close friends, of which one was more of an enemy, did not die then. They were locked up, think cryo-sleep.

Bing Zhu is definitely not the ML, but the part where Hong Ye doesn't appear for a long time is a substantial waste of screen time, yes.
Once you get through that, the show is a lot better.

She gets a bit better, but while there's some sweet scenes the chemistry doesn't start chemistrying.

BE or OE depending on how delulu you watch it
https://www.reddit.com/r/cdramasfans/comments/1q9tyde/comment/nyzu89k/

there's a tacked on happy ending in writing though
https://x.com/tansongyun26/status/2012114014621352018/photo/2
but only read that after watching to the end

I watched the show in a very different light.
For me, X3 changes shit left and right (which makes the time travel problems much more obvious).

My version:

10000–I:
(I know nothing about the original timeline.)

10000–II:
X3 is in X1's body, and immediately changes the timeline by randomly blasting the sea, spawning H1 onto the beach. Then she changes the timeline by being hell-bent to adopt a human, which makes her people stage murder games that H1 has to brave. She changes the timeline by telling the whole demon world about the Yuli Spring and that getting it greatly boosts demon cultivation. Ripple effects of this are AoHen and LongZhi killing X1's people & family, as well as thousands of years of demons and humans alike being obsessed with the hitherto unknown Yuli Spring.
X3's precognition is why she specifically founds demon valley in the place it is in X3's timeline and makes HY wake up there (and even tasks poor Long Yu to be his guardian and first demon king). Why would X1 do it like that?


100–I:
X2 is in X2's body, and she kills herself after H2's death, which XiaoM witnesses.

100–II:
X3 is in X2's body, and she flies off with the tear essence after H2's death, but I guess XiaoM still sees it as her killing herself (??).
While X3 is in X2's body, she behaves in ways that only make sense because she already knows H3 and knows that H3 and H2 are the same person, meaning it's okay for her to date her own boyfriend in the past and she presumably knows the X2 body will die anyway. She still approaches him in ways that would make no sense for the actual X2 to do, and while out in town with H2, she has a skillset/knowledge that would be 99.9% impossible for the real X2 to have. H2 constantly catches this and calls her out over it ("are you really a sheltered princess who has never left the palace?" style).



Because of this, for me there is a chicken and egg problem of what the actual X1 and X2 did.
Also, X3 effectively overwrites and 'kills' X1 and X2, since neither seem to survive being inhabited by X3, with X1 more or less flying off into the sun to disappear and X2 (historically) dying with her husband.



P.S.: What do you mean with the final scene dialogue affirming that H3 has memories of all lifetimes? In my subtitles the only really new thing he says is "These are all negotiable.".
When she enters in EP40, he has more of a lingering gaze instead of immediately talking like in EP02, but that alone doesn't mean anything since she also enters the room in a very different way?


EDIT:
=> conversation continues here: https://kisskh.at/761021-xiao-yao#comment-24910192

You can read the tacked on ending here in the Twitter pix https://x.com/tansongyun26/status/2012114014621352018/photo/2

It's less offensive than in the drama.

The plot logic has so many issues that thinking too deeply isn't a good idea here.

This show even somewhat strays into the Rugal level, with things just happening because they happen.

e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/cdramasfans/comments/1q9tyde/comment/nyzu89k/

BE depending on how you feel about the little explanation given.

Since HY, HY and HY are all the same individual, that would be pretty problematic.

The FL has a bit of a harem, but she's not interested in anyone else.

to be fair that logic never made sense (it just could, maybe, have made sense with explanation/justification)

From my limited exposure* I don't think she's capable of romantic chemistry as an actress.
(*: That being all of TUS, the romance arc of Go Ahead, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9M27a9rRTM )

I thought the azure dragon was solid, the 100 years ago part was best, and the EP11-19 thing to be a huge waste of screentime.

The cherry blossom actually makes sense: he places it on the body of Ning'an, but even if Xiao Yao is "inside" that body at that time, it won't be on her body in her next life 100 years later.

Thought the whole Dreamshard thing ended up being a huge waste of time.

Plot issues you're missing:
- it's not explained with even a single word how human+Yuli equals demon
- the time travel / past-changing stuff has huge chicken and egg issues, like you know very little about what the "actual" original timeline is before FL's two trips to the past where she kept altering things (unlike in Till The End Of The Moon for example where the past is experienced more like the characters watching a movie), and in the 10k-years-ago that we watch it is the FL who plants the seeds for all the issues that come later


Additionally, the blind girl and the grass bracelet are completely forgotten, while DaLi also does not reappear.

Guess you could endure until 20 or 26, picks up around there.

We're also normally Esther-voice-haters but managed to watch S&L. Maybe just got used to it over time. (To some degree it's "the point" that she acts cutsey exclusively in front of the ML.)
I would say it's in the top 20% of drama chemistry.

Spoilers: it was Mu Jiu level sacrifice. Sort of.

You didn't even get to the point where the villain died.

If you aren't into the action heavy nonsense of Speed And Love, the part once they leave Thailand is 90% a romance show.