JJJ

I won't be surprised if it is both. Both to get people talking and to push his own artists. It is so common now in C-entertainment. You got all these investors/producers/directors with their own people in these dramas and everyone trying to make sure their own people get more or stand out just a bit more.

Definitely! CXX's acting in GMP was amazing and people have been hoping he did get another good drama but unfortunately those dramas usually aren't up to par with the cinematography of GMP so even if the plot/acting is decent, people would keep on comparing him to his role in GMP. Even when TSL first started, people were making comments about his voice and how he looked. I am glad his acting came through and it is a good script overall. Same with LLD. I need more of these artists who actually trained in acting to get more of these main character gigs.

🙏 But then these streaming platforms love drumming up controversies for clicks so they might not even care as long as people keep talking about the drama in some ways and get it to trending. At least all the actresses/actors in this drama got some extra boost in terms of attention = potential access to better and better scripts/opportunities.

I don't mind the 2nd CP at all and understand they are important part of the story with YT and QK being twin sisters/twins flowers. However, it is definitely a low blow if the producer is trying to cut more obvious romantic scenes from the main CP to push his own artists. Because at the end of the day, these CPs are done by the time the drama is done, most of the hype don't transfer to the actual actors/actresses themselves long-term so there really is no point in doing things like this when all it does is make viewers upset and hurt the watching experience. And we know these moments are being cut because we have seen these clips already so it is not like they can even say they never filmed those scenes to begin with. People are complaining already on Weibo and Bilibili so let's see if this stops.

Some interesting analysis from bilibili user about the 3 shards:
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1yN411F7nJ/

La Mu: His shard was protected in the tree and represented the child/fear/innocence that Youqin "cut" off when he was younger. This means in a way, Yetan already met and "saved" La Mu when she was the one who said it was okay to be scared even before the shards went to human realm. Another hint was when the "small Youqin" first appeared, it didn't want to hurt Youqin and Yetan, same as La Mu who didn't want to hurt others. His baseline kindness came from Youqin but part of his strength came from Yetan who "saved" him back in the heaven realm. In a way, this makes La Mu extra special because he was the shard that existed for hundreds of years already even before Yetan arrived but he was also the shard that Yetan saved back in the heaven realm and again in the human realm.

Mei You Qing: His first scene showed him picking up a coin from poop water. Is it just because he is that greedy for money? Remember the scene where Youqin basically traded her food for all those treasures, Yetan accidentally spit on him with rice on the same location where MYQ wiped the poop water on lol. How is this related? Youqin is someone who is sensitive to people touching him/likes being clean, but at that moment, he didn't yell at Yetan and that gave birth to the feeling of "Fine, this is fine, Yetan spit out rice on me but that's fine". This adds to MYQ being someone who doesn't mind being "dirty" due that single interaction with Yetan. Another moment that also added to MYQ's existence was the scene where Youqin didn't have money to buy the bone flute Yetan wanted in their first meeting. Basically the thought of "I need to have money to buy the things my partner wants".

Wenren: The original thought is that he is the Youqin who got influenced by that fruit and just copied whatever Yetan said to Youqin at the time ("You have a nice face" and "I can't wait"). However! The main point was that Yetan said those words to Youqin BEFORE Youqin got affected by the fruit. He was clear-headed at the time so he was already feeling things with thoughts like "Oh she thinks I look nice" which he then "cut" off. So in a way, Wenren is the shard that clear-headed Youqin birthed because he was already feeling something then for Yetan and the things she was saying to him.

I love the main CP so if it is true that the producer is again pulling strings to push his own artists, I hope he stops. I hate when producers/directors/script writers get involved like this to push their own agenda. There was another drama I watched where the 2nd ML is an artist under the producer's company and the script writer really liked the actor so they kept on adding in scenes for him and ended up cutting scenes from the main CP which affected the flow of the drama. C-ent in general pushes CP shipping so if the reason is to somehow make the 2nd CP more popular, it is just going to turn people more off from them. Netizens are also not stupid so they see what is happening. There has been side CPs like Hao Du x Li Leyan (The Long Ballad) that got REALLY popular but their CP scenes didn't take away from the main CP scenes. Main CP and second CP can co-exist but people behind the scene need to stop getting involved when it leads to scene deletion and narrative changes just to push whoever they want to push.