Acrobit12

Although in fairness Tencent isn't great either, they had a funny glitch today.

No, they are extraordinary bad for this one. I ended up switching to Tencent.

Deng Kai is almost unrecognizable as Qi Min, it took me forever to realize that it's him.

Yes

Beautiful review!

I just realized that the stupid autocorrect messed my earlier comment up. I meant to say "they defanged the ML at the very end".

No worries :). It was not 100%, clear in the drama but it certainly looked liked he married into Luoyang valley as a matrilocal husband and handed his sect over to his deputies to manage. But then the whole ending was a bit of a mess. But at least it was a happy ending :).

What a great review!

I am sorry, I don't understand, did I say it was? In the drama, it clearly isn't and it was one of the things I did not like about the drama. Out of the blue, they def need the ML in the very end. It sort of makes narrative sense in the drama, but I don't have to like it. I much prefer the novel, where the characters stay true to themselves.

Yes, exactly. It's so annoying when perfectly good source material is adapted in a nonsensical way. And they could have spent two minutes at the end showing us the future/their kid. Oh well, I will take what I can get, there were still many, many things about this drama that I liked and the cast did a great job!

Seriously, I hated that. It was not like that in the novel. In the novel it is very clear that this is really the moment when she realizes that she can't be without him. By then, they all know that the master is evil and must be destroyed. And the master's last words are actually along the lines of "he is a good man, marry him".

Well, I am glad they at least stuck with the happy ending! The leads' chemistry was fantastic (even though Zhou Yi Ran was responsible for most of it) and for that I am willing to overlook a lot of the flaws. I just wish they stuck more with the novel ending and both the heartbreak and the humor of it, and not the sappy artsy stuff they did in the end (I mean, everybody singing, wtf even was that???). And as much as Mu Quingyan wanted peace, marrying into Luoyang valley and abdicating his responsibilities would be very out of character for him (although granted it makes more sense in the way the drama story was set up). But still, I enjoyed this very much.

I really recommend the novel, although this doesn't happen until the very, very end.

It doesn't make narrative sense yet, he is still married and she has other things on her mind

He had three in the novel...but they all left him, two of them with each other. :) in the end he and Yang Xaolian ended up together but it took place years later, in an extra chapter.

Couple of pretty important things - he didn't actually get caught to manipulate her, it was not in his plan at all. In the novel he rushed back to tell her his father was not the skin-painted demon and got caught. Also, in the novel she doesn't confess to him until much later. Also, the ML's poison is resolved much earlier. There are some other events that occur differently but that is understandable because they have to compress for length. And generally the ML, while as manipulative, comes across as less toxic

As much as I love the leads' chemistry and like the production, I think I am going to have to wait until the end. I don't trust these writers. They made enough changes to the novel that it is starting to look that they might serve up a BE. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

It's clearly Yu in the novel. Here so far they make it look like it's actually Nie.

It's Qi Yunke, the master

Well, iqiyi gave us "bride and broom bow to each other" 😜