Fumisho

Here are my thoughts on this drama so far.
As a massive heroine-stan, this show has been an absolute blast to watch! Even though it’s not labeled as a typical "female-centric" drama, the female lead’s actions, words, and choices give off major boss-lady energy. It completely breaks away from those tired old Xianxia tropes. She is incredibly realistic, completely immune to guilt-trips and gaslighting, and has rock-solid morals. She knows how to show gratitude but also stands firmly for justice. Honestly, it’s been ages since we’ve had a Xianxia female lead with this level of clarity and sanity. I don't mean to shade other Xianxia heroines, but Jiang Lifei is just built different. She doesn't just instantly forgive the male lead just because he "had his reasons" or played the pity card. A betrayal is a betrayal, a lie is a lie, and trust isn't something you just hand back easily. This is literally how a normal person would react! Like, sure, she gets that he wants to save his older brother, but since when does that give him the right to sacrifice an innocent person’s (Riyan's) life in a "one life for another" trade? Especially when Riyan actually saved their lives before. That's just fundamentally wrong.
Another thing I absolutely love about her is that she actually has a mouth and uses it! Seriously, in most dramas, the leads refuse to communicate, causing endless misunderstandings that make the audience lose their minds. But whenever Lifei has an issue, she confronts people directly to get things straight. She’s straightforward, doesn’t play mind games, and claps back on the spot. No internal conflict, no self-blame—if something is unfair, she will call it out right then and there. Her character writing is just top-tier. Every line out of her mouth is an absolute mic-drop quote:

"I know you want to save your family, your brother. And while I do sympathize with you, I am not going to help you. Everyone is busy; handle your own business yourself."

"Compensate me? If I had actually been killed by you, what were you going to do—cry at my grave?"

I am so obsessed with Jiang Lifei!!! Ju Jingyi completely brought this character to life. Honestly, she has so many more green flags, but I’ll talk about them as I keep watching. Haha! 😁

So, again.
I have finally finished the entire drama! Honestly, while I am actually a little bit satisfied with how the ending wrapped up, looking back at the whole show, my biggest disappointment and regret remains the way the female lead’s strength and high-light moments were completely nerfed by the adaptation.
Looking back, Lifei’s character design is a total game-changer, setting a whole new god-tier standard for Xianxia female leads:

1. Putting Herself First with Zero Self-Blame: She never blindly simps or chooses romance over friends. In her world, she is always her own top priority—loving herself always comes before loving others.

2. The Ultimate Reality Check: She is completely immune to emotional manipulation, guilt-trips, and moral kidnapping. When presented with tragic fate and the twisted logic of trading an innocent life for another, she shuts it down instantly with epic counter-gaslighting.

3. Rock-Solid Morals & No Free Passes: A betrayal is a betrayal—she doesn't just hand out easy forgiveness. The moment she notices someone using her, she cuts ties without looking back. Even when she’s mad at the male lead, she remains fair and righteous, clearing his name when needed. She is also deeply grateful, always confronting things face-to-face to repay any kindness she receives.

4. A Mouth She Actually Uses & Consistent High IQ: Whenever there's an issue, she confronts people directly to get things straight—no mind games, no dragging out misunderstandings. Most importantly, her IQ remains consistently high throughout the entire show, completely unlike other heroines who suffer massive intelligence drops in the later stages just to move the plot.

But honestly, as both a fan of the novel and the actress, I am so done with the screenwriters and directors! Is it really that hard to give the female lead her own ultimate, badass high-light moment?
In the drama, Lifei is either getting injured or on her way to getting injured; she’s either trapped or on her way to getting trapped. Almost every single time she is in danger, the plot forces the male lead to come to her rescue in a cliché "damsel in distress" setup.
This is a massive, frustrating downgrade from the original novel! In the book, when the female lead is imprisoned or faces danger, she relies on her own sheer competence and the awakening power of Jianmu to break out and crush the villains. She has absolute agency. Yet, the drama chose to nerf this incredibly powerful, badass heroine just to feed into the tired old "hero saves the beauty" trope. Of course I love it but the changes are so much . Sure, she still uses her wits to suppress antagonists and expose conspiracies during public trials in the drama, but these intellectual moments simply cannot make up for the fact that her combat power was stripped away.
She is literally the Fruit of Jianmu! Although I am somewhat satisfied with the ending because it wrapped up decently, the fact that the drama took a brilliant, clear-headed queen who should have been obliterating villains, and nerfed her into a weak, vulnerable plot-device being protected all the time, remains the absolute biggest failure of this adaptation

Honestly, watching this show, I find Jianmu to be the most tragic and pitiable existence. The Yaksha clan committed the sins and got cursed, yet they have to devour Jianmu just to survive. It honestly confuses me—was the curse meant for the Yaksha, or was it secretly targeting the innocent Jianmu?! On top of that, all those hypocritical sect cultivators are just as bad; every single one of them wants to seize and devour Jianmu's pure power. What did our Jianmu ever do wrong to deserve such a cruel and unfair destiny?!

Back in the ancient war, the Yaksha clan committed massive slaughters and disrupted the cosmic order, angering the ancient gods. As a result, they were slapped with a brutal bloodline curse: every generation of the Yaksha Demon Lord, despite owning terrifying powers, faces an inevitable backlash. They slowly turn feral, lose their minds, fall into a bloodthirsty madness, and eventually die of sheer physical exhaustion in extreme pain.
The only antidote in the universe to suppress this violent curse is the purest spiritual energy of the sacred Jianmu tree (our female lead, Jiang Lifei). In all their past lives, to save the dying and agonizing Demon Lord, the Jianmu tree—deeply in love with him—would willingly sacrifice and sacrifice herself. But this "one life for another" trick only treats the symptoms, not the cause. The Demon Lord left behind is always left living a life worse than death, while Jianmu goes into the next reincarnation, trapping them both in a toxic loop of "love, sacrifice, and painful survival."

Novel Canon: A Genuine Two-Way Street & Deep Mutual Understanding
This is exactly why the romance in the original novel is top-tier. It’s never about one person blindly taking while the other blindly self-sacrifices. It’s 100% a two-way street:
The Heroine’s Clear-Headed Fight: Jiang Lifei loves him with high self-esteem and self-love, knowing full well that "her life matters just as much." She refuses to do the cliché self-sacrifice thing because she deeply understands Xiu Yuan—she knows that if she trades her life for his, the fiercely loyal Xiu Yuan would live in absolute agony and guilt. She refuses to burden him with that kind of lifelong trauma.
The Male Lead’s Restraint & Protection: Xiu Yuan loves and understands Lifei just as deeply. Even when the Yaksha curse is tearing him apart in agonizing pain, he absolutely refuses to drain Lifei’s energy to prolong his own life. He’d rather suffer through the feral madness all by himself, and is fully prepared to die rather than hurt her or drag her down.

And I’m actually feeling so mad at the adaptation to be honest. They change all the sweet moments。 To be honest, the most unbearable thing about the drama is how the production team forced so many misunderstandings between Jiang Lifei and Lei Xiuyuan, even pitting them against each other.
In the novel, they knew each other since childhood as fellow foreign outcasts. Growing up, they were always each other’s rock and soul protectors. Once you’ve read the novel and immersed yourself in their pure, beautiful bond, it’s impossible to sit through the drama's endless, cliché "love-hate tug-of-war."

In the book's canon, their only real conflict is that the Yaksha clan naturally craves to devour the Fruit of Jianmu (which, if we are being real, was a tragedy caused entirely by human cultivators in the first place).
However, Lei Xiuyuan literally fought with his life to suppress this feral instinct. When they fled overseas, he broke his own horn just to protect Jiang Lifei. With that broken horn, the Yaksha curse was completely lifted from him. It might sound like a simple trope on paper, but under the book's setup, it is incredibly moving and emotional.

If it weren’t for Immortal Qingcheng’s "Senluo Magic" turning back time, and if Qingcheng hadn't taken Jiang Lifei away from overseas—which allowed the Fruit of Jianmu to build up its protective camouflage—Lifei would have been torn apart and killed in a struggle between Hu Jiaping and Lei Xiuyuan the very moment she matured.
It is all because of Qingcheng that they got a second chance at life. This second chance allowed them to develop human emotions and rationality, giving them the dignity to resist and refuse to yield to their feral beast instincts.