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Congratulations Evie! How exciting!! 🎉

I feel the ending is implying a reunion for them one day (especially given what I know of the novel ending, the original script and certain clips Youku released after the drama aired) I understand this isn't going to be enough for everyone though. So that's fair enough!

I would at least go and look up their love scene in episode 39 though. You can't miss out on that! 🤭

The Ancient Devil God cast the all-in-distress way. He was formed from the sins and suffering of man. He feeds on this and that’s where he gets his power. Dimian was a demonic lord himself but he was a greedy SOB and wanted the power of The Devil God. So he absorbed the Evil Bone, only he didn't just absorb TDG's power, he absorbed the devil god himself. The evil bone has part of The ancient devil god's essence inside it and this is what allows him to resurrect. So Dimian essentially got possessed and controlled by the TDG, and that’s why/how he opened the all-in-distress way, to continue his plan to return the world into primordial chaos.

I think Li Susu was always destined to be the one to go back in time to kill him, because he was married to a version of her in the past. (That’s why in the first episode Devil God 2.0 in the future recognised Li Susu when he saw her) The original Ye Xiwu was a part of Li Susu's immortal soul and was cast off into the mortal world. So there was always a connection between them. And then when you factor in her parentage as the daughter of Chu Huang, she is destined to be the first True God in 10,000 years and the only one strong enough to stop him.

The clamshell was Ming Ye’s heart-guarding scale. When Li Susu fatally wounded him he would have died, but there would have been a chance for the TDG to resurrect again. So he crushes the evil bone completely with the belief that he and TDG can never return. But the heart-guarding scaled preserved a part of his essence. Meaning TTJ may come back, as usually happens in Xianxia. In the novel his soul is saved by the tiger demon, where he heals and cultivates for 1,000 years and is reincarnated. The tiger demon doesn’t really play a part in the drama so they swapped that for the heart guarding scale. I guess it makes more sense given Tantai Jin’s connection to Ming Ye and the HGS. So an open ending that can be taken however you want I guess. (but definitely not satisfying for everyone 😅)

The heartless path is a cultivation/meditation technique to reach godhood but it’s not the only way. LSS's clan has a propensity for this particular technique so it was likely to be her best bet. Taoist practices are about achieving balance, and that is how the heartless way was described. It’s about finding perfect balance in all things and only then can the body, mind and heart be unified. It’s not about removing love, but eliminating earthly desires (like romantic desire) which are the kinds of emotions that tend to leave you unbalanced. It’s actually more about love for the world as a whole. Tantai Jin knew that the only way for her to reach it was for her to abandon her love for him. Once you achieve your balance and ascend I don’t think you are then unable to have love or desire. I think it’s simply a technique to achieve it. Chu Huang was married and it is clear that Li Susu is grief-stricken, hurt and still very much in love with TTJ at the end. So I’m taking it to mean it’s a path to enlightenment, but not something that removes the emotion once there.

I do think that the editing in the last arc was poor, due to cuts and so some things are vague or only implied and this is one of the reasons I can’t give it a 10 either, despite it being one of my favourite dramas. Glad to hear you enjoyed it despite the issues you had. It’s a great drama, though definitely not a perfect one! 😅

There is still a second part coming out. So it's literally still unfinished between them 😅

There are two other pairings between secondary characters

but there isn't a love triangle or other pairings with the main leads.

She does go back and forth with her emotions because this is very much a love/hate relationship all throughout. (though less on the hate in the last arc) It may seem irrational but its caused by her own trauma and fear of him.

Any action he takes that seems remotely questionable to her she sees as proof. And I think there is a part of her that uses it as an excuse to pull away from him emotionally. She falls in love with him for real, but she is in denial of it. (There are scenes that basically confirm this to me during the Jing arc) She also knows she has to kill him. The fate of the entire world rests on that decision. She can’t give that up for love, not for anyone. So she is constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. And maybe there is a part of her that WANTS the other shoe to drop. Much easier to kill him and be resolute about it if she keeps telling herself that there is definitely no hope for him.

He doesn’t always communicate with her either. She jumps to conclusions based on fear and prejudice, he picks up on it and then plays into that very perception of him. She says things to hurt him, he responds by saying things to hurt her. Like her telling him that her serving him and being with him means as much to him as if it was anybody else.

She hates him, but she also pities him. There is a part of her that wants better for him despite it. The snowball fight was not born from any ulterior motive but just a desire for him to experience a simple joy. Then he kidnaps her back to Jing, holds her captive and threatens to kill her. 😂 (obviously, we completely understand his motives for this and empathize, but it’s difficult for her not to see it differently) Even after all of that, she still vehemently denies Sang Jiu's words about him being evil and deserving of his fate and the curse of the world-alluring jade. She is always conflicted over it and this never really goes away.

Enemies to lovers is fun. Lovers while enemies is also very interesting. But it's completely fair enough if, for whatever reason, this dynamic doesn't appeal to you.

I respect your opinion and understand not everyone will see it this way. Hopefully you continue to enjoy the drama anyway. If not - well... that's okay too. 😅

The leaked script has 40 episodes. But they're pretty dense scripts and so there was obviously a lot of material for it to end up longer. The two distribution licenses they received in early
2023 was for 34 episodes in part 1 and 16 episodes in part 2. 50 episodes in total.

There was a production permit in early 2021 that was for 60 episodes but that was under a placeholder name. This was long before they started filming, probably before the script was even finalized. They likely didn't know how long it would end up being at the time.

So I'd still say 50 episodes is the most likely amount before the regulations came in.

true! Scary how quickly time has passed. It's been nearly a year since it aired! I'm sure we'll make it up to 130k when the 1 year anniversary rewatch takes place though.

Feels like yesterday we were celebrating reaching 80,000 😄

That's true. 🤣

Yu Zheng (lulu's boss) did call bs on the idea that any breakup was forced between them. Saying none of those rumours even made sense. Not that I usually put much weight into what comes out of that mans mouth. 🤣 it's not like he would admit it if he did. (Or maybe he would... this is Yu Zheng afterall)
But if they did break up its just as likely it was for the same reasons lots of people break up. Timing, busy schedules, personal issues and stuff.

That's if they were ever even together to begin with.

*bombastic side eye* indeed. 😂

LOL this list is kind of bananas. hmmmm, questionable.

Bai Lu is definitely a douyin queen!

She and ARP do seem really funny together in the reuters too. They definitely got the bickering energy going on. He ran out on the bill for their cast hotpot dinner the other day apparently. She came out waving the bill at him.

I love that they referenced Wuthering Heights because I got a Wuthering Heights vibe too. That scene where Tantai Jin goes to Ye Xiwu's ice tomb and holds her body, and begs her to speak to him and keep trying to kill him, while also calling her hateful. That level of anger and grief felt like the scene where Heathcliff goes to Cathy's body after her death. I always called it his Heathcliff moment.

“You said I killed you-haunt me, then! [...] Be with me always-take any form-drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

and there is the classic "And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living"

Feels very JinSu to me. haha

Thanks for sharing this review!

It's very emotional, so yes I would prepare yourself. 😅

However, like Micha said, it's not necessarily completely miserable either. It does hint at the novel's epilogue, (the original script was also a HE) I think they changed it and made it OE to set it apart from the similar (or identical) endings of other Xianxia's Personally, I think the implications are the same. But people tend to look at the ending in different ways.

You'd still need to get permission from the CCP and an approved distribution license to sell it to an international service (Unless you want to get blacklisted by the government) and at the moment I don't know how likely it is that the government would even allow that.

I doubt they filmed any kissing scenes. It was a censored drama from the get go, unfortunately. They know quite well that explicit BL would never have been accepted by censorship. So the script already would have been a censored version like any other Chinese drama based on BL content (Like The Untamed) Leaning towards "bromance" or the "Master/Disciple" relationship (even though we'd all be able to read the subtext there obviously). Tencent wouldn't have put that colossal amount of money into a drama they knew would never be allowed to air, even before the stricter rules came in. They did not know at the time that the government would enforce even stricter rules regarding even censored BL content.

Whether we get it through selling it to another company. I doubt it, unfortunately. IQiyi is still a Chinese company and Tencent's rival isn't it? and I feel like it would be too damaging to the production company and the actors on the mainland to go around an enforced government ban without permission. They would not take the risk of blacklisting themselves. As far as I'm aware you still have to get permission from the CCP and go through the censorship process to sell distribution rights to an international service. There's still hope that the government loosens their current stance though....there were rumours.

The new regulations say 40 episodes. However dramas can run longer than that, it just has to be split into two parts if it's over 40 episodes. For example, Lost You Forever will have 60 episodes in total once part 2 airs. (it had 39 episodes in part 1)

With Follow You Heart I suspect it will end up being somewhere between 35 and 40 episodes.

I can't say I thought that the boy had anything to do with Yu Shisan being reincarnated. Maybe I'm wrong about that....

The boy said his name was Ning Shisan and it was implied that he was named after Yu Shisan, but that his parents were Ning Yuanzhou and Ren Ruyi. After finding out his family name is Ning, Chu Yue even asks him if his mother's last name is Ren. His sister was named Ren Lu. (After Yuan Lu) This is where the ambiguous part of the ending comes in. People may interpret that the leads faked their deaths with that scenario. But the other option that most people believe is that this is an illusion of some kind, where perhaps Chu Yue is joining them in the afterlife. Being taken "home".