Editorials 
This first episode is mostly exposition and the real story doesn't get going just yet. We start with a glimpse in a future time and then immediately go back to much prior times for the world-building exposition before the back story starts. Caution: The ML during these early episodes is very irritating and not yet likable as he's basically the equivalent of an orphaned rich kid who is a bit of a lazy brat who is avoiding responsibilities like they are hot potatoes. This is not entirely his fault but is not obvious why unless you know the backstory of his parents from Ancient Love Poetry. At any rate, be prepared to find him irritating.
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And it's all due to the absurdly bad editing / direction with no sense of pace or storytelling. The episode opens with again, just dragging out forever something that could have been conveyed in a fraction of the time. They dragged out the Jiu-sacrifices-himself-by-pushing-through-the-forcefield for a ridiculous 12 or so minutes of the last episode and then they open with another 8 minutes of Zhou being broken up over his death. I don't want to belittle the importance of Jiu's character's sacrifice. But dragging it out this long tends to make them comical. Too over-the-top. At some point I just get impatient for the story to move along and lose empathy for the plight of the characters. And meanwhile, Wen Xiao has been getting rag-dolled all over the place by her demonized father to the point that shouldn't she be a bag of broken bones by now? How is she still alive? As I said, it starts to get too comical and the intended drama of the story is lost. And all the standing around and long slow ponderous lack-of-action by the characters is just so at odds with the urgency that they should be exhibiting as people all over Tiandu are suffering from the fall-out of Wen Zong Yu's scheme.
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given the massive confrontation between ZYZ & ZYC against Wen Zong Yu finally resolves .... but it was an exercise in patiently enduring one long, long, drawn out scene after another. This episode took all the problems of pace in this show so far and just magnified them tenfold! My god, the scene of Bai Jiu pushing through the forcefield took well over 10 minutes of screen time! SO much time spent with characters doing nothing and flashbacks happening. So much over reliance on 'dramatic moments' that nothing feels dramatic. Bai Jiu might be dead through a key sacrifice at the end of this episode and all I could feel was, "Jeeze that took forever!" The editing / directing has been just such a disappointing waste of great cast and production talent.
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This episode opens up with Wen Xiao taking a beating from her demonized father. The scene encapsulates the whole frustration that viewers have voiced throughout this drama with just how weak and incapable Wen Xiao has been made to be in this show.. And similarly Pei Si Jing also promptly gets beat down by a demonized Zhen Mei. I guess the point of these scenes is to show how helplessly weak the humans are? So the show beats up the women? And now we see why the show insisted on granting the undeserved mercy to Li Lun in prior episode ... so the writers could bring their favorite character back to save the day! Yay! He is fully redeemed for all the horrible awful evil crap he did! Right? Right? The moral lesson here is obviously that the most important thing in life is how handsome the actor is that plays your character. And how about an actual explanation for why Fei is not dead? Oh - he's a fake? Then why is Qing Geng so broken up over him? My goodness. Then SHE dies? And then they the throw this bizarre sentimental flashback of Zhen Mei giving Jiu candy after treating his wounds? This show has just become a massive mess. The epic battle against Wen Zong Yu was so weirdly dragged with so many long pauses as characters held in-battle conversations and long stares at each other. or otherwise standing around doing nothing The awful editing / pacing of this whole show was on full display in this episode.
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The best part of this show has easily been the growing bromance between Zhao Yuanzhou and Zhou Yichen. And the level of closeness of these two was on full display in this episode when they both immediately realize that their best way of dealing with the fire-based powers of Wen Zongyu was to transport the fight to the frigid cold of Mt Kunlun. They act in that scene in perfect sync without having to say a word. Way cool.
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Li Lun is nearly dead and only saved his life by hiding a tiny fraction of himself inside Jiu. And talks repeatedly about how diminished he is because everytime he possessed someone, his power was cut in half. And he's dying because of poison. And way back when both were healthy, he was supposedly no match for a healthy ZYZ. Yet in a prior episode he held his own against a ZYZ loaded up with Malicious Energy. And in this episode he basically rag-dolls the rest of the team fighting him together - including a now demonic-form ZYC (armed with the reforged Cloud Light Sword) ... ultimately leading to the death of Ying Lei. This makes no sense other than the writer falling in love with him as a villain. Despite his terrible, stupid dialog. And because the writer is in love with this character ... he once again gets another get-out-of-jail-free card because instead of finally killing him, they instead allow him to take refuge in the pagoda tree root. Are you kidding me? He has killed SO many innocent people - including their good loyal friend - yet they are granting him mercy? The chance to come back after a 100 years? And the show turns all maudlin as we are supposed to empathize through ZYZ's memories of LL as his 'friend' way back when? Give me a break. This is just absurd, whitewashing. And of course, let's now throw in the "hero is de=powered' plot trope as ZYZ has lost all his demonic power. Oh, and this episode manages to chew up perhaps 20 minutes or so with various flashback scenes for both LL and Ying Lei. Overall, not my favorite episode.
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His character gets WAY too much screen time as the show resorts to the cliche' drama trope of trying to build sympathy for this disgusting, vile character. We get the usual sad-sack back story bits trying to make us feel sorry for him. But ultimately, the episode ends with giving him yet another get-out-of-jail-free card, escaping death once again just to stick around and annoy us more with is awful stupid villain dialog. On the good side of things, the 'bromance' between ZYZ and ZYC continues to grow, even as the latter obviously hurts a little every time he sees the love between ZYZ and Wen Xiao.
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"I'm willing too. But I'm not strong enough. I'm always not strong enough. I hate myself for that. My master. My best friend. ... My beloved." -- Wow. That really felt like a punch in the gut as those last two words came out. Chen Duling's delivery here was so powerful, expressing her character's , despair, frustration and helplessness. (And, of course, echoing the frustration so many viewers have with how weak and ineffective the writers have made her character.). The reveal about the ancient demons, Bingyi and Ying Long, and their relationship, was pretty cool. And very emotional as well. But .... how on earth did the director let ZYC utter "five" as the count of their 'family'? It should be six!!! Overall, this episode is a real roller-coaster ride. From extreme lows to extreme highs. Nice moment when after first getting a long tight hug from Wen Xiao, out of sheer relief that her best friend is not dead ... Zhou Yichen watches as she first play-fights and then embraces even more tightly her 'beloved', Zhao Yuanzhou. And he actually smiles. No jealousy. It's obvious that ZYC loves her, but he's happy that she is happy. That is so cool. Overall this was maybe my favorite episode so far.
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The unfinished star formation was a loose end that was just hanging around unresolved for the longest time! Credit to the show for addressing that. I have to feel that maybe the return of Bai Jiu's mom will come into play in saving him, maybe? This episode had less 'action', but in a way it moved better than recent episodes, with fewer long drawn out pauses. The bond between the two male leads, ZYZ & ZYC, is pretty cool to watch grow. That 'bromance' is almost the main relationship of this drama so far, even more so than the romance between ZYZ & Wen Xiao. And now they will be stuck together forever! LOL!
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This episode's storyline is a very powerful chapter in Zhou Yichang's continued character growth arc as he has to endure much of the feelings of shame and helpless despair that Zhao Yuanshou has had to experience. While this episode features some bad things happening, as a consequence, the bond between these two grows. Overall, this episode features a great story ... but again, so many awful long pauses when nothing is happening are just killing the pace of this show. So many 'dramatic pauses' have no weight because they are so commonplace. And as one criticism of the story, it seemed incredibly stupid of the heroes to bring Zhou Yicheng out of prison with them on their investigations, especially into a crowded place such as the nightclub. That was just so dumb. I get it that the writers wanted to have an event showing how the citizens have so easily turned on ZYC. But it just seemed too stupid to have brought him along at this point. Oh, and man, I'm really sick of the stupid dialog that the Li Lun character keeps spewing. He just sounds so over-the-top I can't take him seriously. But we only have to endure a little bit of him in this episode so that was good.
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My god. The editing / pacing of this show is just so painfully dragged out and slow. The cast, costumes & production are top-notch. And the overall story is very good. But my god, so much wasted time with the camera staring at nothing happening or panning slowly across nothing happening or of people staring at each other and doing nothing .... The events of this episode could have been played out in about 20 minutes without feeling rushed.
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So much happens and all the characters play significant roles - especially, finally, Wen Xiao who finally starts to live up to her role as the Baizhi Goddess. I'm guessing that since she became the Goddess she must no longer age or she could not have endured the 300 years in the Time Valley. What did she eat & drink? The fight scenes in this episode are a lot of fun, and mostly good,, though it's getting tiring just how OP the show has made Ao Yin. She's ridiculously impossible for anyone to catch or score a hit on. Would like to see our supposedly elite archer Pei finally tag her with a shot! Also, given that (a) Li Lun used the very last dregs of his former power just to leave his soul fragment behind in Jiu, and didn't have enough power to even possess Jiu if the latter were awake AND claimed to have put half his soul's power into forging the soul-trapping needle ... just why was he so powerful still in his fight with ZYC? The latter was just shown to be at least able to hold his own against a super-malicious-energy-charged Zhu Yan! But now we have a fragment of Li Lun's former power able to break the Cloud Light Sword with a punch and just rag-doll ZYC? That doesn't really make sense except for the show wanting to have ZYC & LL in a big fight scene. The other quibble with this episode is that, as has often been the case in this show, the director has the characters just stopping, pausing and dragging out so many 'dramatic moments' constantly that it's gotten silly. This is fine once in a while for dramatic emphasis, but becomes a bit of a joke when it keeps happening multiple times within the same overall battle episode. It makes it hard to take the urgency seriously when the characters do not have any urgency. And it drags the pacing of the show way down. So many moments are just stretched way out, way too long.
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This episode ramps up the intrigue. Is Zhou Yicheng possessed by the remains of Li Lun? Or did Ao Yin pretend to be Jiu to trick him into using the needle?
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with the deep emotion of his love for Wen Xiao becomes his most powerful defense. The scenes with Wen Xiao and Pei Si Jing in the prison were touching with some sisterly bonding. Unfortunately, the scenes of Zhou, Ying Lei and Bai Jiu tracking down Ao Yin were, constant, constant cringe as the three 'heroes' constantly act stupid and incompetent. Just for laughs, I guess. This show gets real stupid real fast when it tries to force humor. It's just not done well. And the constant, weird vying for Bai Jiu's affection by Ying Lei is old and tired.
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Other than the occasional rare bit of truthful fact, 99% of what comes out of his mouth is childish, cartoon-villain drivel. Why do the heroes sit there listening to his BS for the longest stretch of the middle this episode as if he's some sort of sage nostradomous? At some point you'd think they would have simply recognized that he's a nutcase and stopped listening to anything he says. But for some reason they sit there enraptured while he slowly burns up, giving his stupid villain monologue before he dies.
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