it's not airing yet might be due to reservations..?? that's just a wild guess. if there's no demand for it, they…
There is demand, but there’s zero hype. Reservations come from hype, not demand. Anyone with an account can click the reservation — it’s free and non-committal. Hype is visible before release, demand only shows up after. Platforms push dramas based on what they can see — trending signals, not real demand. Before release, hype and the actors pull viewers in. After release, only the drama’s quality keeps them watching.
Making the materials (trailers, edits, posters, short clips) is cheap and easy now. Getting enough of the right people to actually see them is the expensive, hard part. It can cost millions of RMB.
If the platform and production side don’t release materials, the hype basically can’t start. So even though “just release it and let fans share” is a low-cost move, they may be afraid of weak response. That's probably why they prefer controlled strategy tied to paid promotion, but they have to spend money.
There must be more important factors than hype when platforms decide a release date.
I think they can fit all three dramas by Sep 30 if they air 2 eps/day; if not, then they have to move LIRD to Oct to avoid overlap with golden week. PS iQIYi+Youku (30 eps.): Aug 19 – Sep 1 SOTB iQIYi+Youku (30 eps.): Sep 2 – Sep 15 LIRD iQIYi (34 eps.): Sep 16 – Sep 30
xukai already promoted sotb on hi6, so the chance to see them together there is quite low (coz i never see a drama…
Was his recent Hi6 appearance to promote Great Escape season 8? Xu Kai seems to be promoting his drama by himself wherever he goes. I don't' think there have been any dedicated promo for SOTB, has there?
To add, the second drama is not a major drama, so its schedule will not affect Spring of the Blade. Major, non-major,…
What you said makes sense. Since PS and SOTB are both dual dramas on iQIYI and Youku, it’s logical that SOTB would air right after PS ends on Sep 1. I’m wondering whether that means a Sep 2 launch, or if they wait for the non‑express viewers to finish. I think it’s more likely they’ll release it as soon as the express package is done.
How will iQIYI handle an exclusive drama and a dual-platform drama that are both ready to release at the same time? iQIYI has full scheduling control over LIRD, but SOTB’s release must be coordinated with Youku, which limits flexibility. I’m wondering whether iQIYI will overlap the Sep airings for LIRD and SOTB by one or two weeks, or whether they’ll stagger them — for example, dropping SOTB first week Sep and releasing LIRD in the last week of Sep (or vice versa). The last week of Sep slot is actually strong: if the drama builds heat, viewers will binge it during Golden Week in the first week of Oct. However, for a drama like SOTB with low promo, it’s better to avoid such a competitive window — early/mid-Sep or after Golden Week would be safer.
These two dramas share several similarities: LIRD wrapped in mid-Aug 2025, about a month after SOTB. Both began pre-broadcast investment in mid-Jul 2026. The ML/FL come from Huanyu and Hesong, respectively. Both are rumored to be airing soon.
However, LIRD has a Hi6 scheduled for Aug 29, while SOTB does not. I assume iQIYI always gives its exclusive titles much stronger promo, and even without overlapping, a dual-platform drama still gets less promo.
how the heck does fl's dad have a gun? they didnt exist at that time right..?
Gunpowder was invented only once in human history, and it happened in China. China created gunpowder in the 9th century CE during the Tang dynasty, and we know this because Chinese books from that time describe the formulas and warn about the explosive mixtures.
China had a real writing system by about 1200 BCE — roughly 2,000 years before gunpowder — and from then on they recorded almost everything: history, taxes, laws, astronomy, inventions, daily life. The writing was already advanced, so earlier writing probably existed, but anything written on bamboo or wood mostly rotted away.
Gunpowder wasn’t an obvious discovery because the conditions needed to find it were extremely rare. Daoist alchemists spent hundreds of years heating minerals, mixing odd ingredients, and chasing immortality elixirs. They were performing a very specific kind of experimental chemistry — heating sulfur, saltpeter, and carbon inside sealed vessels while searching for immortality elixirs. No other civilization had that combination of materials, goals, and methods. Over those long centuries, they slowly learned that certain mixtures burned, then flared, and eventually exploded. Saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal don’t naturally come together, and everyday cooking or metalwork never produces anything explosive.
No other civilization was anywhere close to an explosive formula before China, so without that long alchemical tradition, who knows when gunpowder would have been discovered if at all. Modern black powder is still based on China’s original invention today, still uses the same three ingredients — but heavily refined over the centuries, and no longer used in modern guns but used in fireworks. China’s ancient fireworks were shockingly advanced — they could create patterns, symbols, and coordinated sky effects long before Europe even understood gunpowder.
If China had never found gunpowder, guns wouldn’t exist until a much later scientific revolution created a different explosive, assuming anyone ever thought to invent one at all. Smokeless powder was invented in the 1880s outside China, and even though it uses completely different chemicals, it’s still based on the idea that a chemical mixture can produce controlled explosive gas. Black powder was the first time humans learned that mixing certain materials could make an explosion. Before that, people only saw explosions in nature, but nature never shows how to make one. Once black powder gave humans that idea, modern chemistry later made smokeless powder possible. Even in modern chemistry, a chemist doesn’t think about making an explosion. And if something blows up by accident, it doesn’t make anyone discover propulsion.
Gunpowder spread out of China in the 1200s CE, during the late Song dynasty and the rise of the Mongol Empire. The Mongols were the main engine that carried it across Eurasia. Other regions adopted it and gradually improved the formulas and the weapons. It took Europe about 200–300 years after receiving gunpowder to make their first major improvement. By the 1500s, European powder and certain cannon designs were stronger in some areas, so the Ming imported and adapted Portuguese cannons, matchlocks, and powder methods. China kept innovating at the same time with its own firearms and other weapons.
Because China invented gunpowder, it also developed the world’s first guns long before gunpowder spread abroad. By the late 1200s, Chinese armies were already using simple hand‑cannons fired by touching a flame to a vent. Trigger‑operated matchlocks only reached China in the mid‑1500s with the Portuguese, and the Ming (1368 to 1644 CE) quickly copied, standardized, and mass‑produced them.
Gunpowder changed human history by making wars deadlier and armies much more powerful. It basically changed military history, changed political history, changed global history, and changed technological history.
China also made the first rockets in the 1100s–1200s (Song dynasty) by putting gunpowder in tubes so the gas pushed them forward.
Opium first came to China through Portuguese traders in the 1500s, but only in small quantities for medicinal use. In the late 1700s, British merchants began flooding China with opium grown and processed in India under British colonial control, causing mass addiction and destabilizing the Qing state. American traders joined the trade in the early 1800s, deepening the crisis that triggered China’s decline.
The Early Spring (modern workplace romance) and Spring of the Blade (historical revenge) are completely different genre, so I could see Youku airing them the same time. TES could premier on Aug 26 and SOTB could still premier Sep 5.
youku is tanking now. If it didn't have the alibaba backing, it would have gone bust last year. So they dont open…
with Spring of the Blade coming in Sep, I guess I'm okay if this comes in late Dec or first week in Jan, as long as they don't shelve it, all that hard work.
2 
1 
Making the materials (trailers, edits, posters, short clips) is cheap and easy now. Getting enough of the right people to actually see them is the expensive, hard part. It can cost millions of RMB.
If the platform and production side don’t release materials, the hype basically can’t start. So even though “just release it and let fans share” is a low-cost move, they may be afraid of weak response. That's probably why they prefer controlled strategy tied to paid promotion, but they have to spend money.
There must be more important factors than hype when platforms decide a release date.
PS iQIYi+Youku (30 eps.): Aug 19 – Sep 1
SOTB iQIYi+Youku (30 eps.): Sep 2 – Sep 15
LIRD iQIYi (34 eps.): Sep 16 – Sep 30
These two dramas share several similarities:
LIRD wrapped in mid-Aug 2025, about a month after SOTB.
Both began pre-broadcast investment in mid-Jul 2026.
The ML/FL come from Huanyu and Hesong, respectively.
Both are rumored to be airing soon.
However, LIRD has a Hi6 scheduled for Aug 29, while SOTB does not. I assume iQIYI always gives its exclusive titles much stronger promo, and even without overlapping, a dual-platform drama still gets less promo.
China had a real writing system by about 1200 BCE — roughly 2,000 years before gunpowder — and from then on they recorded almost everything: history, taxes, laws, astronomy, inventions, daily life. The writing was already advanced, so earlier writing probably existed, but anything written on bamboo or wood mostly rotted away.
Gunpowder wasn’t an obvious discovery because the conditions needed to find it were extremely rare. Daoist alchemists spent hundreds of years heating minerals, mixing odd ingredients, and chasing immortality elixirs. They were performing a very specific kind of experimental chemistry — heating sulfur, saltpeter, and carbon inside sealed vessels while searching for immortality elixirs. No other civilization had that combination of materials, goals, and methods. Over those long centuries, they slowly learned that certain mixtures burned, then flared, and eventually exploded. Saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal don’t naturally come together, and everyday cooking or metalwork never produces anything explosive.
No other civilization was anywhere close to an explosive formula before China, so without that long alchemical tradition, who knows when gunpowder would have been discovered if at all. Modern black powder is still based on China’s original invention today, still uses the same three ingredients — but heavily refined over the centuries, and no longer used in modern guns but used in fireworks. China’s ancient fireworks were shockingly advanced — they could create patterns, symbols, and coordinated sky effects long before Europe even understood gunpowder.
If China had never found gunpowder, guns wouldn’t exist until a much later scientific revolution created a different explosive, assuming anyone ever thought to invent one at all. Smokeless powder was invented in the 1880s outside China, and even though it uses completely different chemicals, it’s still based on the idea that a chemical mixture can produce controlled explosive gas. Black powder was the first time humans learned that mixing certain materials could make an explosion. Before that, people only saw explosions in nature, but nature never shows how to make one. Once black powder gave humans that idea, modern chemistry later made smokeless powder possible. Even in modern chemistry, a chemist doesn’t think about making an explosion. And if something blows up by accident, it doesn’t make anyone discover propulsion.
Gunpowder spread out of China in the 1200s CE, during the late Song dynasty and the rise of the Mongol Empire. The Mongols were the main engine that carried it across Eurasia. Other regions adopted it and gradually improved the formulas and the weapons. It took Europe about 200–300 years after receiving gunpowder to make their first major improvement. By the 1500s, European powder and certain cannon designs were stronger in some areas, so the Ming imported and adapted Portuguese cannons, matchlocks, and powder methods. China kept innovating at the same time with its own firearms and other weapons.
Because China invented gunpowder, it also developed the world’s first guns long before gunpowder spread abroad. By the late 1200s, Chinese armies were already using simple hand‑cannons fired by touching a flame to a vent. Trigger‑operated matchlocks only reached China in the mid‑1500s with the Portuguese, and the Ming (1368 to 1644 CE) quickly copied, standardized, and mass‑produced them.
Gunpowder changed human history by making wars deadlier and armies much more powerful. It basically changed military history, changed political history, changed global history, and changed technological history.
China also made the first rockets in the 1100s–1200s (Song dynasty) by putting gunpowder in tubes so the gas pushed them forward.
Opium first came to China through Portuguese traders in the 1500s, but only in small quantities for medicinal use. In the late 1700s, British merchants began flooding China with opium grown and processed in India under British colonial control, causing mass addiction and destabilizing the Qing state. American traders joined the trade in the early 1800s, deepening the crisis that triggered China’s decline.