Erudite

This story did not occur in ancient China, and their world is not earth.

We can gain some interesting insights to different characters' (world) views of love and desire (eros) in this drama if we watch and listen closely:

Middle-age generation:
General Xia Hou and his beloved (prologue) and his later confession
Jian Da Jia's Red Sleeves sisters:
1) One who was the beloved of the (never directly shown) Vice-Master (initially NQ reminded JDJ of him)
2) One who become a Queen and her relationship with the King

Younger generation:
1) NQ and the leading girls
2) Princess Lu Chen Jia and Prince Long Qing
3) Hua Shan Yue and Princess Li Yu

Older generation:
Master Yan Se who despite his outward appearance and visiting the Bordello on occasion, maintained his vow of chastity.

@Lullina03: Both the drama and the book actually stated SS's age indirectly. In the drama SS is 15 in EP1 (see prologue EP). In the book she is 13.

It's quite gratifying to find so many members here and elsewhere on the net enjoying this drama series.
When I created the 'Ever Night' entry on kisskh in January 2018, it was very much a dark horse production. Most of the younger cast were unknown and there's less than normal coverage and discussion of the series across the boards.
At that time majority of Chinese book fans expressed doubt or misgivings on thought of a drama adaptation...

Regrettably I'm unable to join in the discussion here presently because I have just transited from completing a hectic year-end work project to a planned family vacation.
So a few goodies I have about current Ever Night and the next season I've to save as Xmas presents, unless someone else posted them here before I do :)

Before I leave, here's just a few things perhaps of significance I wanted to say:
1. Scenes of season 2 are being shot, but like Fight Break Sphere before, until you have a public ceremony with main cast members, it's not "official"
2. Some people put the blame on ML or conversely the producer/director team for him not able to reprise his role in Season 2. I'm not sure why they think so:
Let's consider this: From the time Season 1 wrapped up shooting in Feb until end of August 2018, the only group of people not working in another filming project
are (a) the ML, (b) the director and her team. However, in September ML took up the lead role in LoA which is funded by Tencent which also became the biggest stakeholder for Ever Night Season 2.
(For more insight on how funds were raised for Ever Night Season 1, refer to my discussion 5 months ago with Jordan, many hundreds of comments below).
We only have to wait until the new ML is revealed, if he is indeed a Tencent protégé to draw the proper conclusion...

Erudite (no taking any questions except the most relevantly important until coming back on Dec 19)

You forget that Gong Zi is trying to kill Chang An and his legs might not fully healed...

A3. It appears that drama would take this path.
A4. No, at this point he really believe he is a candidate for the Son of Light (savior of the world etc). Xiling is a Theocratic Monarchy. He could be its head one day if so, but it would just icing on the cake.

I have wrote down the story ending in an earlier comment marked SUPER SPOILER not far below. Check it if you want ;)

@Lullina and Lenje:
Correct about the climbing part - the students' challenges are in their minds. 2nd Brother was just surprised that Sang Sang find it physically easily to climb the mountain, but she is used to physical activities doing chores.

The object in EP23 is most likely the Bell of Cymbidium, a (Buddhist) artifact that appeared in Vol 3 of the novel.
To avoid being labeled as having elements of religious discrimination the drama has changed some of the faction settings.
The bell is making an earlier appearance - in the drama it's serving the same function (with the incense) as the novel, to test NQ.

Note that that the Nameless Priest no longer said NQ is the Son of Hell King just before he died when he saw that the incense has burnt out.

My relative is making good recovery and I can afford to take weekends off again after heroic and exhausting extra office hours of catching up. Thanks for asking and sharing your thoughts in light of the future change in ML.

@Lullina03:
Where do you hear all the strange rumors from? That's not how I get useful information ;)

1. Adam Cheng, - due to delay in shooting Ever Night S2 he decided to take up an leading role (sound familiar?) in July for a prequel of https://kisskh.at/28344-psycho-detective. Fortunately, that series already finished shooting on Nov 22nd, so there is no conflict of schedule.

2. Crystal Yuan (MSS) - I'm not aware of anything unusual here except that she is in the unusual position of competing against herself in rival dramas which I already mentioned last month. Perhaps some fans of her other drama is trying to pull down ratings of Ever Night by starting rumors of her no longer involved in later seasons.
If that's really the case, her situation would be akin to the plot where Ning Que got caught for cheating against himself at his own shop :D lol

@PamelaHannaEikleberry:
Yes, (Unambigious Novel Ending)
As a bonus I have translated the last line of dialogue in the book for you:
Sang Sang: Nie Qing, are you hungry? Let me made some noodles for you.

Warning: SUPER SPOILER ahead - my hidden comment below will give away the ending

In August I did post about the new schedule of shooting in November for S2 here. I also gave it a English title by translation:
Ever Night 2: War of the Radiant Splendor

@linger: Will your thesis be along the lines of "Taoism during Tang Dynasty in the World of Hao Tian"? :D

@saggikunn: Yu Lian has one of the best kept secret in the novel. Her early reaction to NQ will be clear once this is revealed in a subsequent Season - that is if you still remember the comment you made today and circumstances of the characters knowledge of each other at this point in time ;)

@merveillentumba: Don't believe everything what ninan said.
We don't know whether the adaptation will change things in future but as far as the novel goes, it is not all innocent love, especially as the characters grow older.
Hint to the people who haven't finished reading the novel - don't mislead other people.

@Lullina03: I actually made a post before your current comment :D
I think you missed it because you used the 'reply comment' feature which will not show the posts above the the comment you're reply to.

@linger: Agree with you about the importance of education - BTW how's progress on your thesis? I remember reading your post on it few weeks back.
Greetings from a former veteran student who worked on two Master's Thesis but only finished one :p

Sorry I was away for more than half a month and did not manage to catch up on the hundred of posts here during that time but I figured with the shock announcement of change of ML for Season 2 I should made a quick post here.

A brief explanation of my absence :p
As it happened a few weeks ago a close relative of mine had an acute and profound serious health incident and had to be hospitalized for more than a week.
Also I am behind schedule on my project at work which must be finalized before I leave for vacation before the middle of December.

Back to topic - did I have advanced knowledge that ML is going to be changed before hand?
Yes, but I actually only saw reliable confirmation on that only 2 weeks ago (talk about bad timing).
However, when I created the entry on https://kisskh.at/30926-legend-of-awakening in September I knew something is up with ML role because it would conflict with filming of Season 2 of Ever Night.

As to the reason for the change I do believe that both the producers and actor himself had originally planned in good faith for Arthur Chen to star in Ever Night S2 as well.
If you look back on one of the earliest comments here in this forum posted by me more than 9 months ago, I wrote that Season 2 was originally scheduled to shoot in May 2018.
Had it gone according to plan, Season 2 would have finished shooting by now.

Why the delay? I think one possibility is the producers failed to raise enough funds for making Season 2 in early 2018.
Another possibility is the investors promised, but didn't deliver the first installments in time and keep the producing company waiting (for a mega series like Ever Night S2 the funds would be released in 3 to 6 installments).

I think Arthur Chen took the other series because Ever Night S2 has a 6 months shooting period - he knew he's unable to stay on until mid-2019 as S2 lead but don't want to stay idle during the time before returning to school.

Director Yu Rong Guang said recently in the 2018 Asian-American Television and Film Festival Golden Oak Award event that he hopes to begin filming Season 2 before the end of 2018 or in 2019.

As Lullina said, the fan pointed to a location which I highlighted how it's done
in this photo: https://kisskh.at/photos/4wRw6
The drama screenplay is many times the size of the original novella, although the original author did write several spin-off chapters after end of drama which I have summarized below.
Most English discussion boards for BR drama probably won't have the details we have here. As for discussions in China, one of the most active person is a friend of mine who has received acknowledgment from one of BR's screenwriter and a nod from the original novel author. I've also read a few pages of the actual shooting script. So I can answered quite a few things about this drama :)