@AH @blabla100
Reading the novel brought me back to a similar prolonged state of grief that I had experienced before 12 years ago with the very first Tong Hua work I was introduced to - 步步惊心 Scarlet Heart and its brilliant 2011 adaptation. That is the beauty of Tong Hua's works, giving us exquisite pain that sears the soul, even as we rail against the fate of characters that we have come to love and root desperately for. In that regard, the wonderful YaoLiu fanfic I found helped to soothe the pain, and allowed me a peek into the what-ifs that we were never given.
As such, I approached the drama, already knowing that Xiang Liu would die and that Xiao Yao will never know the extent of all he did for her. It did not make it any easier or less painful seeing every familiar scene brought to life, and loving and hurting for him all over again thanks to Tan Jianci's masterful performance. That is why YaoJing shippers are by far the most fortunate, their happy ending already etched in stone unless the adaptation decides to go wildly off course, which we already know it won't based on the leaked scripts and BTSes.
What pains me is not that Xiang Liu will die, and that Xiao Yao will never know. Rather, I am afraid that after a strong adaptation in S1, his sacrifices which made his fate that much more bearable, would be relegated to less than nothing, just because the script wanted to introduce a different narrative to differentiate it from the novel. I am fine with changes, but not changes that make no sense and makes his sacrifice meaningless. That would rob me of the closure I need.