mukkanna

If it follows the novel, there should be no serious love triangles. Han Ye and Di Ziyuan both have their admirers, but there's no real contest from anyone.

2 volumes

I suspect the number of reservations is related to when Youku is projecting it will broadcast. I think a lot of people won't make a reservation unless they see the broadcast is relatively soon. Especially in C drama where dramas might never actually air...why get your hopes up when actor A or actress B might get randomly canceled?

A quote that illustrates the main problem in their relationship, if you don't mind spoilers:

____


"Ziyuan, have you ever thought that I am the Han family’s crown prince, and if you want to seize the Han’s world, you must step on my bones? If I am not dead, you cannot be the emperor." He approached Di Ziyuan step by step and leaned over. His eyes were deep, his pupils seemingly blood-red, and he slowly said, "Ziyuan, let's not speak of the enmity between Di and Han, or the people of the world, let alone the ten years of separation. Ziyuan, you…want me to die?"

Other than the revenge theme, I don't think there are many similarities at all if the script follows the novel (no guarantees of that, of course, but I personally think the novel is good enough that they don't need to embellish much to maintain an audience). If you don't mind some spoilers, there's a comparison of Li Changge vs Di Ziyuan in the discussions section.

But in brief, you can sort of think of Di Ziyuan as a stronger, smarter, and more experienced Li Changge. Han Ye could also be a smarter and more experienced Ashile Sun, except that instead of being an enemy general, he's the heir to the throne. Add in the fact that Di Ziyuan's goals include revenge on the entire Han family, and you can imagine how the plot veers from TLB.

The ratings were quite low before the Croton Youtube subtitles came out, after which the rating average has gone up. Many of the comments before the official subtitles were available had to do with how people couldn't understand the plot, etc. Personally, I think it's a bit unfair to be rating something low because one didn't understand it due to watching it without proper subtitles... Sadly, I think many people who watched it before the subtitles came out won't come back to adjust their ratings.

I'm not distressed or upset, and I completely agree with your stance on this topic! If I seemed irritated, it's because it really makes no sense to me that they need references that someone's NOT in something to remove a rumored project. Once MDL said they knew it's a rumor but they're not making any changes anyway, I decided to just let it go. Why waste my time trying to make their product more accurate, for free?

As far as GJ's upcoming projects, Rising with the Wind completed filming already and is in post-production now. It seems quite likely that he will begin filming Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Yue Hong with Yang Mi around the end of June. Si Ming, Destined Wink, and the North of Space are unconfirmed rumors. Hope that helps :)

This is annoying to me, as well. Unfortunately, kisskh requires references to be able to remove inaccurate information or rumors. So, until there's some references to show that Gong Jun definitively will not be in something, they won't remove anything or even try to investigate the accuracy of the rumors on their own. I suppose I could randomly get someone to tweet that Gong Jun won't be in it and then use that as a reference, but I find that to be hypocritical and ridiculous, so I'm not doing it. Here's their response to my attempt 4 months ago to remove information that was based on a melon tweet as a "reference"; however, I had no reference or reason other than saying that it was just a rumor and was not verified:

MusicalVeggies 4 months ago
Thanks for the message. The user who added those cast had a source to evidence the cast additions, even if they were rumours. If you felt that the cast was inappropriate, you should have at least explained your reasons for deleting them instead of just submitting deletions without any source or explanation. If we were to just approve everything without sources or explanations, this database would end up in a mess. So, in future, please provide sources or at least explain your rationale for doing what you are doing. Thanks.

Edit: Also, the information that had been added based on rumors remained up until just recently, so they made no effort to investigate or verify the accuracy of the rumor even after I messaged. It was only removed after additional melons came out and edits were made (I assume) based on those.

To my knowledge, there's no full translation of the novel in English. You can find a partial translation to chapter 16 here, however note there have been no updates since January:

https://mihotranslations.blogspot.com/p/the-book-of-emperors.html

If you're willing to put up with bad grammar, you can run the raw text through Google translate or DeepL. If there are parts that don't make sense in English, you might need to snip a smaller chunk of text (Chinese writing allows for what in English would be a massive run-on sentence, and the machine translators have difficulty figuring out what goes where). Here's a website with the complete raw novel (book 2 has 104 chapters and 2 "epilogue" type chapters):

https://www.51shucheng.net/yanqing/dihuangshu

I find the DeepL version is more readable in general, but the free version has a character limit and you'd have to snip some of the longer chapters in 2-3 parts.

If anyone knows anyone who understands/reads Chinese, speaks enough English to communicate with me, and has an interest in working on a translation, I'm happy to collaborate with them until the drama comes out. With a machine translation as the base, it's really just (1) making sure we have the correct overall meaning, (2) polishing grammar/ rearranging sentence structure to make more sense, and (3) selecting the English words with the most accurate and illustrative connotations. I can probably do (2) and (3) without much difficulty if someone could help with (1).

So I understand that you feel that deepfakes don't exist, and that anyone who believes in the existence of deepfakes is a shipper and/or delusional. I also understand that you feel there's no such things as conspiracies. That's quite a black-and-white take on things, and there are unfortunately many examples of conspiracies in history, but you're of course entitled to your opinion.

I agree that ZZH has sometimes had less than ideal interactions online. This Instagram business could just be another example of his poor judgment when it comes to public image and online interactions. But a person doesn't have to be delusional or easily manipulated to admit that people who they don't agree with may have some valid points. Deepfakes do exist, and many of them are better than the one used to deepfake Zelensky. Photoshop, special effects, and even holograms exist. Is it completely outside the realm of possibility that everything can be fake? I don't think it is, not when Princess Leia continued to appear in movies after her actress died.

I don't agree that people can't "stay quiet" when given proper incentives. We're talking about a country where even famous people can get disappeared by the government, and the vast majority of people will just shrug it off like nothing happened. One credible threat against their families might be all it takes, and this is a place where entire families can get vanished overnight.

I can see you feel very strongly about the rumors and slander that GJ has gone through, and I'm sure many people on this page feel the same. I've never seen or read of GJ saying anything bad about anyone (except the lady who makes his meals!). I think this is one of the reasons he has such a good reputation in the industry and why the media likes him so much. I think we can all stand to take a page from his book. In fact, I hope that we all can reflect on the words we're using; like the post I was responding to in the first place, many of the words you use could also incite a fan war. I can tell that you would never wish any harm to GJ's reputation or to unintentionally divide his support.

Gong Jun and his studio have been very professional and always provide evidence when they refute rumors. Here's what I think Gong Jun would want people to say about his fans:
"Gong Jun's fans are mature, unproblematic, even-tempered, and polite, and even when other people's fans misbehave, Gong Jun's fans just courteously refute with logic and evidence. Truly, what an example to all other fans during Operation QingLang."

Best regards :)

I can see you're very passionate about this issue. I would still take care not to lump everyone together.

I'm not a "shipper" . Nor do I think it's good practice to "ship" actors instead of their characters. If anything, I think the WOH BTS clips and interviews would support that, at least on GJ's part, there were no romantic feelings or intentions. ZZH...could just be a physically demonstrative person, or he's flirting, or he's promoting the CP for the drama. I haven't watched any of the BTS clips or interviews from his other works to have an opinion on which it might be. But GJ, at least, does not behave or react in ways that are supportive of a real-life romantic relationship, even in the "candies" videos that are everywhere on YouTube.

Even though I'm not a shipper, I can see how people can believe the Instagram account is fake. And if a person believes the Instagram account is fake, then it follows that they would not believe ZZH is behind the accusations against the "former coworker" believed to be GJ. Normally, I think people would believe it's ZZH once the Instagram account is "verified"; however, given the circumstances of ZZH's cancellation and the reach of the powers that be in China, it's also reasonable to believe someone or something else could have possibly taken over control of ZZH's Instagram.

I also feel that solo fans of ZZH may want to believe the Instagram is fake, because (in my opinion) the postings damage his ability to return to acting and also make ZZH look like a petty, hypocritical, self-centered person who engages in (or at least silently endorses) blatant plagiarism for the sake of money. Not a great image for any public figure, much less one who is already in disgrace.

Again, these are all just my personal opinions. No offense is intended. I don't like to form opinions until I have a reasonable amount of information, and I like to consider all reasonable options. I'm happy to explain my observations and reasoning so you can decide for yourselves whether my opinion on any of the above could be valid (or not).

Best regards!

Firstly...out of curiosity, I popped over to ZZH's page. This person posts almost exclusively about ZZH and I don't see much, if anything, about Gong Jun at all. Why do you think she's a Gong Jun fan, other than that she doesn't agree with you? Reading her posts, she seems to be a ZZH fan who believes that the Instagram account is fake. There seem to be some compelling arguments on both sides of that dispute, so I don't see anything wrong with letting her express her opinion.

Secondly...I'm not sure why policing other people, purported Gong Jun fan or not, is the responsibility of anyone on this page. Gong Jun fans, like Zhang Zhehan fans or any other group of people, are not a monolith. There's no credentialing to become someone's fan; all you need to do is say you are, and magically you are. A completely unhinged person can become a fan of Gong Jun, or ZZH, or anyone else. Why should any of Gong Jun's other fans need to go "take her away," assuming she's even unhinged to begin with?

Thirdly, I'm not a hardcore fan of either of these two actors. As an observer who had moderately positive impressions about ZZH before 813, I felt he was unfairly canceled over a minor issue and hoped he could return. Sadly, if this Instagram account is run by ZZH, then those positive feelings have now become just neutral. His acting is good, but there are so many other petty, unprofessional, and hypocritical actors; I don't see anything special about him, other than that he's been unfairly canceled. I still wish him well because even if he's a hypocrite, he's still a human being. And yes, I do recognize that this is likely an unpopular opinion about ZZH on this page; a lot of Gong Jun fans are also ZZH fans, if you haven't noticed.

Fourthly, you may want to consider moderating your communication style. Your choice of words may have offensive implications to others. For example, "comrades"--are you suggesting Gong Jun fans are extremists? And "overlord"--are you suggesting Gong Jun is controlling fans in an arrogant, overbearing, dictator-type relationship? If you're not here to incite a fan war, it's best to use more neutral words.

Best regards!

He ends up being one of the top martial artists.

An illustrative quote to curb your concerns, if you don't mind spoilers:

___

"Hey, Han Ye." Di Ziyuan said softly.

Han Ye looked up at her.

"Who do you think I am?" Without waiting for the young man to answer, the corner of Di Ziyuan's lips hooked, and her expression was full of willfulness, "I am Di Ziyuan, do you really think that I ran this thousand miles to come to Jun Xian City to die? Lian Lanqing wants to capture me, let's see his ability. He dares to strike at you..."

The ink color Di Ziyuan’s pupils little by little furled open, curled into a sharp vortex and slowly dispersed. Her eyebrows were vigorous, and she said word by word:

"He has to see whether this Marquis allows it or not."

If it follows the novel we should be okay. The screenwriters would have to change the characters and storyline quite a bit to make Han Ye save her all the time. I'm not sure it would even resemble the book anymore with that amount of change.

There are two sides (or more) to every story. Best strategy is to read articles and original sources from all sides. Let's remember that not every negative story about this co-star you cite is muted; there is indeed negative press about him even in China, since people are still publishing about the restaurant incident, even after things were supposedly clarified by both the production and the restaurant and there was a formal investigation. And let's also remember that this co-star was recently listed as one of the favorite artists of the media because of his personality and professionalism. If you as a journalist personally like someone, will you write and publish negative news about that person? No, right? That's probably the reason we don't see many negative articles.

Let's also recall that this co-star was recently doxxed, and all that came out of it was some photoshopped photos...no actual evidence of bad behavior. Only a few possibilities I can think of, then: (1) there is in fact no bad behavior; (2) after gaining access, they found out the CCP itself is behind everything, and are too afraid to post the evidence of bad behavior; or (3) this was an elaborate ruse by the co-star himself to throw people off the scent. If it's (1), then people are now cyberbullying the co-star, who is innocent. If it's (2), then ZZH will never come back, because...well, the CCP. No one will stand up and oppose the CCP if they're going to risk getting "disappeared" for it. If it's (3), the co-star is a genius level strategist who likely also has strong confidence if he's using such a risky strategem, and we have to wonder why it took him so many years to become a successful actor. I personally don't think this co-star is all that smart (no offense, fans of the co-star).

Original fan estimate back when this wrapped was Q3/Q4. Last official communication from Youku not long after wrap was Q2, which I found (and still find) unlikely, especially since we're now in May without any official news. Latest melon has release rumored in December 2022, which was more of the original expectation...I'd rather they not rush post-production, myself.

I hope for his sake that he's really not connected to EHzZ at this point. Either way, though, maybe we'll get some truly irrefutable confirmation soon.

Let me explain how one can have opinions whilst not following too closely.

It's like a train wreck. Even if you have no particular interest in any of the people in the wreck, you may morbidly want to know the reason for the wreck and the outcomes. I'm personally scientifically minded, and I like to weigh the evidence myself and decide whether to believe something or not. So even though I'm not a hardcore fan of either of these actors, I've been following some of the debates as sort of a social experiment. Ironically, the victim of cyberbullying due to baseless rumors now has fans that cyberbully others due to baseless rumors. I've not yet seen any credible evidence of either ZZH or GJ's supposed misconduct. This would probably be hilarious if it weren't so disheartening for the state of the human race.

Maybe you completely missed this, but GJ's studio stated unequivocally that he's single, even before the Instagram account that is allegedly ZZH's posted this video and letter refuting the existence of their romantic relationship. Is that the action of someone who wants to create these so-called "candies" to delude people into shipping him with ZZH? Logic says no.

Do you find it ironic that you call others deluded and yet can't see that your own behavior and statements are also based on skimpy evidence and flawed logic? When you get emotionally invested in something, it's easy view evidence in a biased light. Sometimes you have to take a step back to see the big picture.

Please be nice to people like Eyesonly and Chocovanillastrawberry. They likely don't have the best tools to succeed in life, and are probably struggling as a result. Please be considerate of this. If they had any intellect, empathy, or logical thinking skills, they wouldn't be posting the things that they're posting on a forum that's for Gong Jun's fans, of all places. They themselves believe everything they read, and they seem to truly think that people are going to buy this baseless, unproven drivel that completely lacks any credibility if they just keep repeating it. Some of them, like Eyesonly, are spending so much effort here trying to find someone to agree with them; I worry they don't have any friends in real life to talk to. It's hard to be a person who doesn't live in reality. Mental health is such a huge problem these days, isn't it? Let's all be kind!