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.
I think there's more behind Chen Yi not becoming a regular police officer than just him holding back to support…
The drama definitely does show us some clear examples of Chen Yi not wanting to be like his father (e.g., when Chen Yi refused to sleep in his father's room while Miao Jing was living at home after he came home drunk from work - because that would make him too much like the worst version of his father and he couldn't be like that while Miao Jing was there).
But I think the bigger influence that Chen Yi's father had on Chen Yi was his constant neglect, mistreatment, verbal abuse, and physical abuse of Chen Yi that made Chen Yi feel deeply inferior and unloveable / unworthy of love. It seems like that was a huge contributing factor to Chen Yi's lack of self worth and difficulty with loving and prioritizing himself.
When it comes to Chen Yi's dream of becoming a police officer, it feels like Chen Yi managing to finally go through the police academy and become a normal police officer would have been the best way to both break away from his father's influence and control and prove that he was not like his father (who prevented Chen Yi from taking the police academy exam because he wanted Chen Yi to take a job at the same place that he worked - the power bureau). So I feel like Chen Yi not going down that path (i.e., not becoming a regular police officer) isn't so much about Chen Yi trying to not be like his father as it is about the things I covered in my first comment (i.e., his severe PTSD preventing him from pursuing a career as a regular police officer and/or his need to stay in his role as a police informant until the investigation is complete).
Chen Yi’s mindset won’t change that easily. He used to see a future for himself and dream of becoming a police…
I think there's more behind Chen Yi not becoming a regular police officer than just him holding back to support his friends / trying not to be like his father.
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TL;DR - Chen Yi became a police informant in the criminal underworld (likely for reasons related to the death of Captain Liu Shan Bai’s wife), which led to Chen Yi developing very severe PTSD. As his severe PTSD is currently not under control and the police are well aware of that (and trying to help him with it through police-provided therapy), he probably is not permitted to pursue a career as a regular police officer until his PTSD gets better / more manageable.
It's also possible that he cannot become a regular police officer yet because the investigation is ongoing and he needs to maintain his role as a police informant until the investigation is complete.
-
Between the day when Chen Yi was not able to take the police academy exam and the time that Miao Jing left Teng City to attend university, Chen Yi was swamped with a huge number of reasons that he needed to make a large sum of money very quickly.
(1) Covering the bills for his father’s medical care, funeral, and burial.
(2) Paying off the mortgage that Miao Jing’s mother fraudulently took out (while Chen Yi’s father was in the ICU) against the home that Chen Yi’s mother left to him before she died (and also where Chen Yi and Miao Jing made so many memories together), to avoid losing that property to the bank.
(3) In addition to continuing to be responsible for covering his own food expenses, suddenly also being responsible for covering all expenses related to his home (e.g., utilities, insurance, etc.).
(4) Paying for Miao Jing’s tuition, food, and other living expenses (including higher utility costs for a second person) while she was in high school and living with him.
(5) Paying for Miao Jing’s medical expenses related to her corpus luteum rupture (the surgery, hospital stay, and previous treatment when it was misdiagnosed as gastritis).
(6) Saving up money to give to Miao Jing to cover a significant portion of her university / living expenses after she left Teng City.
Making money from winning snooker games and through traditional work (like construction jobs) wasn't enough to cover it all fast enough. So Chen Yi took a dangerous job at District Seven to make as much money as he could as fast as he could. It worked, but somehow there was a connection between that job / the people he worked with there and the death of Captain Liu Shan Bai’s wife.
It seems like, after her death, Chen Yi chose to use his position as someone who already had an established reputation in that shady circle to become a police informant to aide an investigation that led him into an even more dangerous and violent world.
Before going down that path, he pushed Miao Jing away to keep her safe and far away from that dark and dirty world (and perhaps also because he knew that he himself was not going to be staying in Teng City).
Idk if Chen Yi ended up coming back to Teng City because the investigation was unsuccessful, if something happened to him that forced him to return before the investigation was completed (a trauma-induced mental breakdown perhaps?), or if the investigation continued and simply led him back to Teng City. Hopefully the drama will clarify soon.
But it seemed like, whatever happened, Chen Yi came back with some severe trauma and unresolved PTSD (which the police were aware of and actively treating, and which probably precludes him from pursuing a career as a regular police officer until it is in a much more manageable state) and a deep sense that he cannot be with Miao Jing romantically / as more than just her devoted brother / guardian / life-long bodyguard because he believes that he and his world are dirty and dangerous and she has to stay safe and forever untouched by any stains... even though he never stopped loving her and only her.
You Are My Glory? And maybe also Love Beyond the Grave? In both cases Dilraba's FL character is generally surface-level…
Lol, no sad music for the SML in YAMG either. He fully deserved the polite verbal slap he got and more.
For LBtG… I haven’t rewatched it, but from what I remember, she was pretty clear that she would never love him and they were never going to be a couple, but I do think he deserved a much harsher punishment much sooner for all of the treasonous plots he pulled and it was annoying that he got to keep his position for so long.
Welp I binged the first 17 episodes in one sitting and what a bombshell of an episode to end that binge with. Already watched my favourite parts again.
Also one thing I noticed is how is FL's mother's name and FL's surnames are entirely different. I feel like she…
Women in China typically do not change their family name when they get married. Children typically take their father's family name, and therefore have a different family name than their mothers.
Q: I don’t really understand the original novel setup, regarding who the actual main characters were supposed…
There’s a lot going on and some of the biggest plot details are explained through info that is scattered across multiple episodes or are only explained indirectly, so it’s very easy to miss some of the key details or to not put all the provided info together in just the right way to make it possible to figure out the things that aren’t ever explained directly.
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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.
But I think the bigger influence that Chen Yi's father had on Chen Yi was his constant neglect, mistreatment, verbal abuse, and physical abuse of Chen Yi that made Chen Yi feel deeply inferior and unloveable / unworthy of love. It seems like that was a huge contributing factor to Chen Yi's lack of self worth and difficulty with loving and prioritizing himself.
When it comes to Chen Yi's dream of becoming a police officer, it feels like Chen Yi managing to finally go through the police academy and become a normal police officer would have been the best way to both break away from his father's influence and control and prove that he was not like his father (who prevented Chen Yi from taking the police academy exam because he wanted Chen Yi to take a job at the same place that he worked - the power bureau). So I feel like Chen Yi not going down that path (i.e., not becoming a regular police officer) isn't so much about Chen Yi trying to not be like his father as it is about the things I covered in my first comment (i.e., his severe PTSD preventing him from pursuing a career as a regular police officer and/or his need to stay in his role as a police informant until the investigation is complete).
-
TL;DR - Chen Yi became a police informant in the criminal underworld (likely for reasons related to the death of Captain Liu Shan Bai’s wife), which led to Chen Yi developing very severe PTSD. As his severe PTSD is currently not under control and the police are well aware of that (and trying to help him with it through police-provided therapy), he probably is not permitted to pursue a career as a regular police officer until his PTSD gets better / more manageable.
It's also possible that he cannot become a regular police officer yet because the investigation is ongoing and he needs to maintain his role as a police informant until the investigation is complete.
-
Between the day when Chen Yi was not able to take the police academy exam and the time that Miao Jing left Teng City to attend university, Chen Yi was swamped with a huge number of reasons that he needed to make a large sum of money very quickly.
(1) Covering the bills for his father’s medical care, funeral, and burial.
(2) Paying off the mortgage that Miao Jing’s mother fraudulently took out (while Chen Yi’s father was in the ICU) against the home that Chen Yi’s mother left to him before she died (and also where Chen Yi and Miao Jing made so many memories together), to avoid losing that property to the bank.
(3) In addition to continuing to be responsible for covering his own food expenses, suddenly also being responsible for covering all expenses related to his home (e.g., utilities, insurance, etc.).
(4) Paying for Miao Jing’s tuition, food, and other living expenses (including higher utility costs for a second person) while she was in high school and living with him.
(5) Paying for Miao Jing’s medical expenses related to her corpus luteum rupture (the surgery, hospital stay, and previous treatment when it was misdiagnosed as gastritis).
(6) Saving up money to give to Miao Jing to cover a significant portion of her university / living expenses after she left Teng City.
Making money from winning snooker games and through traditional work (like construction jobs) wasn't enough to cover it all fast enough. So Chen Yi took a dangerous job at District Seven to make as much money as he could as fast as he could. It worked, but somehow there was a connection between that job / the people he worked with there and the death of Captain Liu Shan Bai’s wife.
It seems like, after her death, Chen Yi chose to use his position as someone who already had an established reputation in that shady circle to become a police informant to aide an investigation that led him into an even more dangerous and violent world.
Before going down that path, he pushed Miao Jing away to keep her safe and far away from that dark and dirty world (and perhaps also because he knew that he himself was not going to be staying in Teng City).
Idk if Chen Yi ended up coming back to Teng City because the investigation was unsuccessful, if something happened to him that forced him to return before the investigation was completed (a trauma-induced mental breakdown perhaps?), or if the investigation continued and simply led him back to Teng City. Hopefully the drama will clarify soon.
But it seemed like, whatever happened, Chen Yi came back with some severe trauma and unresolved PTSD (which the police were aware of and actively treating, and which probably precludes him from pursuing a career as a regular police officer until it is in a much more manageable state) and a deep sense that he cannot be with Miao Jing romantically / as more than just her devoted brother / guardian / life-long bodyguard because he believes that he and his world are dirty and dangerous and she has to stay safe and forever untouched by any stains... even though he never stopped loving her and only her.
For LBtG… I haven’t rewatched it, but from what I remember, she was pretty clear that she would never love him and they were never going to be a couple, but I do think he deserved a much harsher punishment much sooner for all of the treasonous plots he pulled and it was annoying that he got to keep his position for so long.
In both cases Dilraba's FL character is generally surface-level "polite" and dignified about it, but not ambiguous.