IMO, the way his character reacts to being kissed in this drama makes perfect sense for the character’s circumstances.
The ML was sucked into the historical novel world when he was only 14 or 15, and then for the next ~16 years he was surrounded entirely by fictional characters, the vast majority of whom constantly harmed him, usually on behalf of the Dowager Empress.
We can infer that, after the ML was old enough to have consorts and concubines (all fictional characters who would’ve been chosen by + working for the Dowager Empress), he refused to sleep with them. We can infer that because the Dowager Empress then resorted to having him drugged and raped in order to produce a legitimate heir that she could control.
After that, one of the ML’s concubines (the holy maiden from the rival kingdom) attempted to assassinate the ML when she was in his bedchamber.
Because of those horrific experiences, the ML spent as little time as possible with his consorts and concubines, especially alone in his chambers. As his eunuch said, he normally found fault with them and sent them away almost the moment they arrived in his chambers.
So, until the FL came along, the ML had not had anything close to romantic experience with anyone who was remotely trustworthy or likeable or *real* in ~16 years, and he was so young when he was pulled out of the real world that he probably had very little (or zero) romantic experience before that. And, on top of that, he had been raped by a fictional female character while he was drugged and unable to move + separately nearly assassinated in his bed chamber by a fictional female character that was 'supposed' to be someone who would 'serve' him in bed from time to time. IMO, it would make complete sense for any or all of those factors to contribute to the ML freezing up when he was kissed.
Plus, when the FL came along, the ML lied about his circumstances (hiding the true horrors of his experience + the fact that he had a terminal diagnosis and was not expecting to live much longer from her) and pretended to be a person (like her) who had only just transmigrated from the real world into the historical story world because he didn’t want to burden her or scare her off. The fact that the ML was being very careful about how he behaved around the FL might also have contributed towards him being extra cautious / hesitant when the FL kissed him.
Even after the ML revealed the truth to the FL and he became more comfortable and experienced with their romance, his personality + his feelings towards the FL were never going to result in possessive-warlord style kisses. If the actor had taken that approach with the kisses in this drama, it would have been completely out of place and out of character for this ML.
Ok like I love that they made up really quickly after that ep24 incident, but are we ignoring the fact that he…
The ML did not actually have those guards killed. They appear again (e.g., escorting the FL’s carriage in episode 26 / not wearing their masks while camping with the FL in episode 27). It was a bluff that the ML made for a few reasons, including because he chose to push the FL away from himself / sever ties between them in order to protect the FL. Some of the reasons behind that choice won't be revealed until a bit later in the drama (mostly in ep 29).
Did you mean Xiahou Bo (XHB) / Prince Duan, rather than Xiahou Dan (XHD)?If you meant XHD, we know that the ML…
The transmigration novel was published sometime before the ML received the notification on his phone about that novel. We don't know how much earlier the novel was published, but I think it's pretty safe to assume it was probably published pretty shortly before the ML received the notification, since a notification would most likely be sent to promote a recently published novel. The ML was a kid in the equivalent of 9th grade in the real world just before he transmigrated into the historical story world. Then he lived (alone, surrounded only by fictional characters) in the historical story world for 15+ years until the FL finally arrived.
In 2025 (years after the ML transmigrated into the historical story world from the real world), the FL's company (in the real world) acquired the rights to adapt the transmigration novel (which had been published years earlier) into a drama. In episode 1, the FL and other employees at her company sat in a meeting where brief descriptions of the IP acquired by her company (e.g., rights to existing web novels) were covered and then those projects were assigned to individual employees to begin the adaptation process.
The FL was tasked with reading the transmigration novel and preparing a full presentation / pitch for the adaptation of that novel into a drama - and that pitch was to be presented to her colleagues the next day (which happened to be her birthday), so she had to skim the transmigration novel very quickly in the evening hours before her birthday. Seconds after the clock struck midnight that night in the real world (so seconds into the FL's birthday in the real world), the FL transmigrated into the historical story world.
So I'm curious about one thing, since both leads are 'real human' modern transmigrators and the original FL of…
Did you mean Xiahou Bo (XHB) / Prince Duan, rather than Xiahou Dan (XHD)?
If you meant XHD, we know that the ML (i.e., the transmigrator who took over the character of Xiahou Dan) is from the real world (and is not from the fictional version of the modern world that the transmigrator who took over the character of Xie Yong Er came from) because:
(1) While the transmigrator who took over the character of Xie Yong Er read the historical novel (“A Thousand Trees Blossoming at Night in the East”) before she transmigrated into it, she had no knowledge of the existence of the transmigration novel (“Transmigrated: The Devil’s Beloved Consort”) because she only existed as a fictional character inside the transmigration novel, as that novel’s protagonist who changed the fate of the character Xie Yong Er. Whereas the ML received a notification about the transmigration novel on his phone in the real world before he was sucked into the historical story world and, thanks to that notification, he knew the title of the transmigration novel (“Transmigrated: The Devil’s Beloved Consort”).
(2) While the transmigrator who took over the character of Xie Yong Er was present in two versions of the events that took place in the historical story world (the second version, which was depicted in the transmigration novel, and the third version, which we see in the drama), the ML (like the FL who is also from the real world) was only present in the third version (the version we see in the drama).
Maybe I missed something cause I didn’t understand, why did the female lead in the novel and the protagonist…
The transmigrator who took over the character of Xie Yong Er is a fictional / 2D character. Unlike the ML and FL, she did not transmigrate into the historical story world from the real world.
The transmigrator who took over the character of Xie Yong Er is the fictional protagonist of the transmigration novel "Transmigrated: The Devil's Beloved Consort". In that novel, she first lived in a fictional version of the modern world (where "City A" was the capital of the fictional country where she lived, and Beijing / China did not exist). In that fictional modern world, she read the historical novel "A Thousand Trees Blossoming at Night in the East" from cover to cover.
In the original version of events in the historical novel, Xie Yong Er was just a minor cannon-fodder character who quickly died in the crossfire of the main character's conflicts. After reading the historical novel from beginning to end, the protagonist of the transmigration novel transmigrated from her original world (a *fictional* version of the modern world) into the world of the historical novel. She arrived near the beginning of the story's events and took over the character of Xie Yong Er. She used her knowledge of how events originally played out in the historical novel to change events so that Xie Yong Er became the main character. These were the events of the transmigration novel that the FL read when she skimmed it in episode 1. The transmigration novel only had one transmigrator.
When the ML and FL transmigrated from the real world into the historical story world, they (along with the protagonist of the transmigration novel) changed the events of that world again. This time, the events were changed so that Xie Yong Er was not a minor cannon-fodder character and was ALSO not the main character. Instead, she became the secondary female character.
So there were THREE versions of events in the historical story world.
> The first version (the events depicted in the historical novel when it was read by the protagonist of the transmigration novel) had ZERO transmigrators and Xie Yong Er was just a minor cannon-fodder character.
> The second version (the events depicted in the transmigration novel, which was skimmed by the FL) only had ONE transmigrator (who was fictional and transmigrated from one fictional world to another and took over the character of Xie Yong Er), and Xie Yong Er became the main female character.
> The third version (the events we see in the drama) had THREE transmigrators (one who was fictional and transmigrated from one fictional world to another and two who were real and transmigrated from the real world to the fictional world of the historical story) and Xie Yong Er became the secondary female character.
It has some funny moments but I'd classify it more as a lighthearted drama instead of a comedy.
If you describe this drama as “lighthearted” to someone who hasn’t watched it yet and then they watch it expecting an actually "lighthearted" drama, in most cases they will be unpleasantly shocked when they get to the part where they find out that the ML was drugged in order to render him immobile and then raped - all on the orders of the Dowager Empress in order to produce a legitimate heir that the Dowager Empress could use as a back-up puppet, as a source of blackmail against the ML, and to render the ML more disposable.
They will be unpleasantly shocked when they learn about how the ML was pulled into the fictional story world when he was still just a child, and then he was regularly emotionally abused and poisoned in that world for 15+ years.
They will be unpleasantly shocked when they realize that the ML spent 15+ years surrounded only by fictional characters whose role in the fictional story were such that they were almost all designed to harm him. And they’ll be unpleasantly shocked when they find out that, after so many years of suffering, the ML eventually began to question his own sanity and his memories of the real world where he’d had friends and parents who loved him.
They will be unpleasantly shocked when they find out about the ML choosing to embark on a suicide plan to take down the Empress Dowager and Prince Duan since he had a terminal diagnosis and didn’t have much hope that he’d live much longer anyway.
They will be shocked when multiple innocent / good / likeable characters like Scholar Du Shan, Xie Yong Er, and Bei Shi are straight-up murdered or when a child (Hua Hua) chooses to poison herself to death and succeeds.
For most viewers, if you gave them that description ("lighthearted"), you’d be setting them up for the same bad experience many people have already mentioned in this comment section, where they expected this to be a drama that was only a light comedy and ended up being unprepared for, and unpleasantly blindsided by, the darker / heavier parts.
So I would not describe this drama to a new potential viewer as “lighthearted” (even if it happens to not be as heavy as the darkest dramas out there that some viewers might gravitate towards) and would instead describe it as a mixed drama with both light / comedic parts and dark / heavy / emotional parts in order to give them the best chance of having a good experience where the drama doesn’t end up being very different from what they were expecting when they started it.
It has some funny moments but I'd classify it more as a lighthearted drama instead of a comedy.
I wouldn’t classify it as a lighthearted drama, because it has some very dark, heavy, and emotional parts, including some intense trauma and lots of deaths.
It’s a mixed drama with (IMO) a good balance of comedic / light parts and dark / heavy / emotional parts.
Did the rating drop again? It surely deserves more than 8.4.
Agreed. It's still my #1 favourite drama of 2026.
Based on recent comments, it seems like quite a few people started watching this drama thinking they were in for a light comedy all the way through and were put off when they ran into the darker, heavier, and more emotional parts of the drama. IMO, some of the best parts of this drama were among the darker and more emotional parts, but I can understand how someone could be put off by them if that was totally different than what they wanted / what they thought they would be getting.
It's too bad that MDL doesn't allow adding more than four genre tags to a particular title, because this one really should be tagged as historical, comedy, romance, fantasy, *and* drama. Between the genre tags and the poster, I can understand how someone would get the wrong impression and think this drama would just be a light comedy.
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The ML was sucked into the historical novel world when he was only 14 or 15, and then for the next ~16 years he was surrounded entirely by fictional characters, the vast majority of whom constantly harmed him, usually on behalf of the Dowager Empress.
We can infer that, after the ML was old enough to have consorts and concubines (all fictional characters who would’ve been chosen by + working for the Dowager Empress), he refused to sleep with them. We can infer that because the Dowager Empress then resorted to having him drugged and raped in order to produce a legitimate heir that she could control.
After that, one of the ML’s concubines (the holy maiden from the rival kingdom) attempted to assassinate the ML when she was in his bedchamber.
Because of those horrific experiences, the ML spent as little time as possible with his consorts and concubines, especially alone in his chambers. As his eunuch said, he normally found fault with them and sent them away almost the moment they arrived in his chambers.
So, until the FL came along, the ML had not had anything close to romantic experience with anyone who was remotely trustworthy or likeable or *real* in ~16 years, and he was so young when he was pulled out of the real world that he probably had very little (or zero) romantic experience before that. And, on top of that, he had been raped by a fictional female character while he was drugged and unable to move + separately nearly assassinated in his bed chamber by a fictional female character that was 'supposed' to be someone who would 'serve' him in bed from time to time. IMO, it would make complete sense for any or all of those factors to contribute to the ML freezing up when he was kissed.
Plus, when the FL came along, the ML lied about his circumstances (hiding the true horrors of his experience + the fact that he had a terminal diagnosis and was not expecting to live much longer from her) and pretended to be a person (like her) who had only just transmigrated from the real world into the historical story world because he didn’t want to burden her or scare her off. The fact that the ML was being very careful about how he behaved around the FL might also have contributed towards him being extra cautious / hesitant when the FL kissed him.
Even after the ML revealed the truth to the FL and he became more comfortable and experienced with their romance, his personality + his feelings towards the FL were never going to result in possessive-warlord style kisses. If the actor had taken that approach with the kisses in this drama, it would have been completely out of place and out of character for this ML.
In 2025 (years after the ML transmigrated into the historical story world from the real world), the FL's company (in the real world) acquired the rights to adapt the transmigration novel (which had been published years earlier) into a drama. In episode 1, the FL and other employees at her company sat in a meeting where brief descriptions of the IP acquired by her company (e.g., rights to existing web novels) were covered and then those projects were assigned to individual employees to begin the adaptation process.
The FL was tasked with reading the transmigration novel and preparing a full presentation / pitch for the adaptation of that novel into a drama - and that pitch was to be presented to her colleagues the next day (which happened to be her birthday), so she had to skim the transmigration novel very quickly in the evening hours before her birthday. Seconds after the clock struck midnight that night in the real world (so seconds into the FL's birthday in the real world), the FL transmigrated into the historical story world.
If you meant XHD, we know that the ML (i.e., the transmigrator who took over the character of Xiahou Dan) is from the real world (and is not from the fictional version of the modern world that the transmigrator who took over the character of Xie Yong Er came from) because:
(1) While the transmigrator who took over the character of Xie Yong Er read the historical novel (“A Thousand Trees Blossoming at Night in the East”) before she transmigrated into it, she had no knowledge of the existence of the transmigration novel (“Transmigrated: The Devil’s Beloved Consort”) because she only existed as a fictional character inside the transmigration novel, as that novel’s protagonist who changed the fate of the character Xie Yong Er. Whereas the ML received a notification about the transmigration novel on his phone in the real world before he was sucked into the historical story world and, thanks to that notification, he knew the title of the transmigration novel (“Transmigrated: The Devil’s Beloved Consort”).
(2) While the transmigrator who took over the character of Xie Yong Er was present in two versions of the events that took place in the historical story world (the second version, which was depicted in the transmigration novel, and the third version, which we see in the drama), the ML (like the FL who is also from the real world) was only present in the third version (the version we see in the drama).
The transmigrator who took over the character of Xie Yong Er is the fictional protagonist of the transmigration novel "Transmigrated: The Devil's Beloved Consort". In that novel, she first lived in a fictional version of the modern world (where "City A" was the capital of the fictional country where she lived, and Beijing / China did not exist). In that fictional modern world, she read the historical novel "A Thousand Trees Blossoming at Night in the East" from cover to cover.
In the original version of events in the historical novel, Xie Yong Er was just a minor cannon-fodder character who quickly died in the crossfire of the main character's conflicts. After reading the historical novel from beginning to end, the protagonist of the transmigration novel transmigrated from her original world (a *fictional* version of the modern world) into the world of the historical novel. She arrived near the beginning of the story's events and took over the character of Xie Yong Er. She used her knowledge of how events originally played out in the historical novel to change events so that Xie Yong Er became the main character. These were the events of the transmigration novel that the FL read when she skimmed it in episode 1. The transmigration novel only had one transmigrator.
When the ML and FL transmigrated from the real world into the historical story world, they (along with the protagonist of the transmigration novel) changed the events of that world again. This time, the events were changed so that Xie Yong Er was not a minor cannon-fodder character and was ALSO not the main character. Instead, she became the secondary female character.
So there were THREE versions of events in the historical story world.
> The first version (the events depicted in the historical novel when it was read by the protagonist of the transmigration novel) had ZERO transmigrators and Xie Yong Er was just a minor cannon-fodder character.
> The second version (the events depicted in the transmigration novel, which was skimmed by the FL) only had ONE transmigrator (who was fictional and transmigrated from one fictional world to another and took over the character of Xie Yong Er), and Xie Yong Er became the main female character.
> The third version (the events we see in the drama) had THREE transmigrators (one who was fictional and transmigrated from one fictional world to another and two who were real and transmigrated from the real world to the fictional world of the historical story) and Xie Yong Er became the secondary female character.
A more detailed explanation is available here: https://kisskh.at/778182-this-is-ridiculous/discussions/148208-higher-level-lower-level-explained
They will be unpleasantly shocked when they learn about how the ML was pulled into the fictional story world when he was still just a child, and then he was regularly emotionally abused and poisoned in that world for 15+ years.
They will be unpleasantly shocked when they realize that the ML spent 15+ years surrounded only by fictional characters whose role in the fictional story were such that they were almost all designed to harm him. And they’ll be unpleasantly shocked when they find out that, after so many years of suffering, the ML eventually began to question his own sanity and his memories of the real world where he’d had friends and parents who loved him.
They will be unpleasantly shocked when they find out about the ML choosing to embark on a suicide plan to take down the Empress Dowager and Prince Duan since he had a terminal diagnosis and didn’t have much hope that he’d live much longer anyway.
They will be shocked when multiple innocent / good / likeable characters like Scholar Du Shan, Xie Yong Er, and Bei Shi are straight-up murdered or when a child (Hua Hua) chooses to poison herself to death and succeeds.
For most viewers, if you gave them that description ("lighthearted"), you’d be setting them up for the same bad experience many people have already mentioned in this comment section, where they expected this to be a drama that was only a light comedy and ended up being unprepared for, and unpleasantly blindsided by, the darker / heavier parts.
So I would not describe this drama to a new potential viewer as “lighthearted” (even if it happens to not be as heavy as the darkest dramas out there that some viewers might gravitate towards) and would instead describe it as a mixed drama with both light / comedic parts and dark / heavy / emotional parts in order to give them the best chance of having a good experience where the drama doesn’t end up being very different from what they were expecting when they started it.
It’s a mixed drama with (IMO) a good balance of comedic / light parts and dark / heavy / emotional parts.
Edit: Like using the 🎤 emoji for someone named Mike because mic is a homonym for Mike.
Based on recent comments, it seems like quite a few people started watching this drama thinking they were in for a light comedy all the way through and were put off when they ran into the darker, heavier, and more emotional parts of the drama. IMO, some of the best parts of this drama were among the darker and more emotional parts, but I can understand how someone could be put off by them if that was totally different than what they wanted / what they thought they would be getting.
It's too bad that MDL doesn't allow adding more than four genre tags to a particular title, because this one really should be tagged as historical, comedy, romance, fantasy, *and* drama. Between the genre tags and the poster, I can understand how someone would get the wrong impression and think this drama would just be a light comedy.