Aya

I'm curious what the ending was like in the novel. Maybe it made more sense.

In the final episodes, the Heavenly Emperor finally shows his true colours and we find out the reason why he truly wanted to kill the Phoenix. We also find out what actually happened to Yan Yue's mother. So, basically the Heavenly Emperor has always been power hungry and having attained the most powerful position, he wanted true immortality. In the universe of this drama, the so called Gods and Immortals aren't really immortal. They live an extremely long life, but eventually their bodies decay and they die. The only creature in their world that is truly immortal is the Phoenix, because of her ability to be reborn. This ability is given to her by Hua Rong, which basically contains the immortal part of her spirit. The heavenly Emperor wanted to take Hua Rong for himself and instigated the original Phoenix to lose control and harm the world. Afterwards, he framed her as being an ominous creature that would destroy the world and had her hunted down. Yan Yue's mother was given this task, but she was against killing the Phoenix. Instead, she wanted to "purify" her and I'm guessing she was sent to reincarnate instead. The Heavenly Emperor's insistence to kill the Phoenix finally makes Yan Yue's mother realise that something is not right and she figures out what actually happened and he sort of confesses the rest. To keep her silent, he kill her and uses her immortal spirit to repair the barrier between the demon world and the heavenly realm that the Phoenix had broken. He frames the Phoenix for her death.

Towards the end of the drama, Yan Yue and Wei Zhi get married and decide to live in seclusion. The body of the Heavenly Emperor by this time has fully decayed and he's dying. He calls Yan Yue to have the "final" conversation. He asks him if he will kill the Phoenix or not (several times), to which Yan Yue replies that he will not. The Emperor then proceeds to take over Yan Yue's body. While in Yan Yue's body, he incapacitates Yan Yue's primordial spirit and takes over. He will end up doing so many bad things and eventually there's once again a battle between the Heavenly Realm, led by the Emperor and the Demon Realm, led by Wei Zhi.

This is where it starts getting a bit confusing and why I said that I thought they had two endings in mind.

The Heavenly Empress uses her abilities to find out what happened and during the battle between the Emperor and Wei Zhi, the Empress goes back into his past and started subtly changing things, which affects the Emperor in the present. At this point, Wei Zhi takes the opportunity and sends Hua Rong into Yan Yue's body. The reason she ends up doing that, is because Elder Mu told her that Hua Rong is the purest and the kindest thing in the world and will be able to purify even the most evil of spirits. Hua Rong does indeed end up destroying the Emperor primordial spirit and Yan Yue is freed. The problem is that taking out Hua Rong from her own body will result in Wei Zhi's death. Yan Yue then proceeds to use Hua Rong to change the past. He sends Hua Rong with everything that they have experienced in the lifetimes back to the moment of his very first betrayal. This ensures that Chan Yan makes a different choice, choosing not to betray Wang Yue. Then they also show that in the present, six months after the final battle, their egg hatches and a new Phoenix is born.

What I think is, that they were going for one ending where the Heavenly Empress changes the past and that destroys the Emperor, in which case Wei Zhi won't really have to take out Hua Rong and she can be together with Yan Yue to see their egg hatch.

Another ending would have been, Wei Zhi having to use Hua Rong on the Emperor, without any real interference from the Empress. Afterwards, they use Hua Rong to change the past and create an alternate timeline, in which Chen Yan never betrayed Wang Yue and they got to be together.

With the two mixed together, there are too many timelines and possibilities to call it a straightforward ending.

At least that's what I took away from it.

Agreed, logic sort of goes out the window sometimes. Especially in dramas with a limited budget. It's sad and a bit of a waste in this case, but it is what it is.

Slightly confusing to be honest. Not sad, but definitely confusing.

The reason I'm saying it's confusing, is because I felt like they had two endings in mind and filmed both, but couldn't choose one, so they sort of edited the two together.

I don't want to spoil the details, unless you really want to know.

You're welcome. Glad I could help

That's a lovely cast.

DG in all his elegance is always fun to watch

I'm skipping Bing Chang in all incarnations. I don't have the patience to watch her twice

I think it's that familiar feeling that was making me smile. Sort of like nostalgia. Even though it wasn't that long ago.

So I caved and I'm now rewatching TTEOTM.

For some reason I just smiled all throughout the first episode.

That was really beautiful.

So Dongfang Qing Cang is their son then? Don't mind me, that video of their faces being combined to make Wang He Di's face will be forever ingrained in my brain.

Not as bad as I expected based on some comments, but definitely not as good as it could have been.

The story is indeed a bit messy, but thankfully it's pretty simple, so you can still follow along. It could have benefited from a more focused plot though.

One of the things that I didn't like were the multitude of extremely annoying characters. I would have minded that less if these characters weren't also boring and unnecessary with storylines that didn't have much of an impact to the overall story at all.

Another is the repetitive plot in addition to some unnecessary arcs, which contributed to the messiness.

There were also some things that I did like. This drama is visually beautiful and it had its moments. Those moments were the cuter, playful parts of the drama and these were the times when the main couple shined. Both seemed to fit those moments better than the emotional and serious ones. The story itself is interesting, but as I said, could have been told better.

The main leads didn't do a bad job, but they weren't consistently good either and I can't help feeling that I would have felt more for the main couple if they were played by actors with more intense chemistry. Not to say that they didn't share any chemistry, but somehow it didn't feel like enough. At least not for this type of story.

All in all, it was good enough for a one time watch.

In the first lifetime (shown later on in the story as a flashback), the two met while she was in her mortal form as Wang Yue and he was undergoing a love tribulation in the mortal world as Chen Yan. Wang Yue is the daughter of a general and goes off to war to fight alongside her father in her brother's stead. They meet in the army, which he joins as a new soldier. What she doesn't know is that he is a spy. They end up falling in love and right before their wedding, the person who saved his life and sent him to the army as a spy gives up his life to force Chen Yan to continue his mission and kill her father. On the wedding day, he drugs her while the enemy army sneaks in and he kills her father with his own hands. She ends up seeing this with her own eyes and her Phoenix bloodline is awakened. Because the Phoenix has awakened, the Heavenly Emperor calls him back and restores his identity as the God of the Red Sun Yan Yue, whose mission it is to kill the Phoenix. Wang Yue comes to meet Yan Yue to ask for an explanation and to ask if he ever truly loved her. He says that he didn't and they start fighting. In the end the both stab each other. Her wound is the more fatal one and part of her spirit turns into the flower Hua Rong. Mu Nan, who has been by Wang Yue's side and has loved her is turned into the Demon Lord and finds and protects Hua Rong until the Phoenix is reborn. The actual story starts with Wei Zhi, who is the reborn Phoenix.

I hope this helps.

I indeed noticed that gap in the story as well. They didn't really explain that fully. It seemed like she was the original Ginseng fairy whose heart was buried in the tomb, but they never really explained what actually happened. Instead of all those scenes with the obsessed Emperor, it would have been better if they have told that story instead.

Also, throughout the whole drama I kept wondering why she's the only fairy in that world. Why are there no other beings like her? I would have liked to know more about that as well.

Oh well, too many missed opportunities. That's why the repetitive nature of this drama was one of the things that bothered me the most. They definitely had the time to make a better drama, but instead wasted it.

I'm only on episode 2, but I'm getting the feeling that Ma Yue got a similar character to the one she already played in Song of the Moon.

It was a nice and interesting short drama. The editing is not the best, but you can still follow the story.

This was a lot of fun to watch. It's very cute and funny.

https://youtube.com/shorts/qCtFUUERpFs?feature=share

Youtube recommending cute things

The Starry Love

Personally, I never found him annoying. Not even when he was supposedly obstructing the main couple.

I really like his character. He was outwardly very silly and upbeat, but had a lot of pain, sadness and loneliness hidden just below the surface. All of his actions make sense for him and he clearly isn't malicious.