u10146071

The sad thing is that I actually have a friend who experienced something like this - her mom remarried when she was like 17 or 18 and just totally made a "new family" with the guy and has no interest in my friend. Even the grandparents!! The mom's parents just dote on the new grandkid with the new husband. It's like.... she never existed to any of them. Edited out of their story. It's so screwed up but actually this stuff can happen in rl. Like in FF, my friend's mom was never personally abusive at all - not verbal or physically. And so probably considers herself a good person who "just wants to start over". But it's chilling, how they just replace their child who doesn't fit into their new lifestyle.

I do feel that the novel has a certain tone to it, though. It's just almost impossible to replicate. The FL in the novel has this dry perspective, where she brushes everything off because she's Been Thru It so nothing else phases her. Paired with a ML whose default manner is abrasive & near rude (to everyone! lmao) it was more amusing half the time than depressing. No matter how outrageous and arrogant he would be, she just accepted it as nbd. It wasn't a comedy and laugh out loud funny. But it wasn't melancholy most of the time. Hard to describe. tldr; the drama is quite faithful to the novel but imo the drama is emotionally harder to consume.

Some guys really do get hung up on a past love - for more than 5 or 7 years. Especially if you never really got together. I've seen it. But it generally doesn't have a romantic drama style ending.

She has a bad history with men so it makes conplete sense to me to take things a bit slow on physical intimacy.

At that time she was young and GOING THRU IT and she just couldn't handle managing a friends to lovers transition at the moment. She just pushed him away. And then when she's stabilized, she assumed there was no going back - felt too guilty about "failing" him to presume he would accept her reaching out. So she decided not to trouble him. Thinking that he would have moved on and not even think about her anymore. It's so real imo. if all that was happening to teenage me I'd check out of my cute teen romance too. She was messed up and panic-hit the eject button. Not fair to teenage Sang Yan but none of this was fair to her either.

Just google for the name and english translation. It's been fully translated :) Start at creativenovels[dot]com

yifan is not really that personality type at all, especially in the novel. she doesn't get pressed about stuff like that. She's like, if ur not one of my abusers then we're cool. (but if you're linked up with those sh*theads, then gtfo. let's consider each other dead 🤣)

In the novel he has a young love sweetheart from school, an "everyone expects us to get married after graduation" type situation but then she pursued career etc instead. So he's definitely not without baggage and never interested in another woman. But it's not super fraught either. He's not still in love with an ex.

It's an adaption of a novel. The novel really gets into tcm and yes it really does list all these herbs all the time lol. The live action is just adapting that aspect faithfully.

In the novel, all of this was handled really well. it wasn't OTT and both FL and ML never disappointed me in how they responded to the situation. as long as it follows the novel, I wouldn't stress about it. One thing I very much appreciated about the novel is that it allows that yes the FL experiences realistic abuse and harassment situations that occur to real young women. But it's not overblown angst & drama or drama's sake and it is something that FL is able to overcome and not allow it to define her. Nor is the ML gonna let this define her or change how he views her. And nothing causes him to blame her or break up with her or anything like that.

I think it's in character for her, as in the novel we see a lot of her mentally separating things in "mildly aggravating but not a threat" and "threat" and she generally takes a deep breath and mentally moves on from anything that's not a true threat. This comes from having experienced deep trauma and thus anything Not That she tells herself, 'eh, whatever. I've handled worse". The intern is NEVER someone who she feels is a real burden or source of fear. So her modis operandi would be to process the frustration/impatience and move on.

tbh the webnovel novel has even MORE tcm lmao. the vibe wasn't "propaganda", it's instead like when you read a web novel or fanfic and it's super clear what the writer's special interest is. the author was obviously very into tcm and wanted to use all their knowledge for the story. their passion for the subject was pouring off the pages. I don't know much about the subject but I tend to find that a bit endearing when I encounter writers online who are just hyped about something and want to share. So it didn't bother me.

hyped for this because I read the novel and it was just chill and good vibes between good people, and sometimes that's all I want after a tough day at work 😊

there isn't at all. he's not even an option that registers for her. she doesn't even notice his crush until after the fact in the novel lmao. poor kid.

I saw it loaded as 1 "full" drama on YouTube. I think someone posted a YT link in the MDL comments here. If that link doesn't work, keep searching through YT and Daily Motion. Someone who is a fan of vertical dramas will load it :) It's worth the search imo. If no other reason than to see the 2 actors prove they can also deliver a role that has nothing to do with looks, sensual makeouts, or rich people dramatics.

Truly! Dai Gao Zheng blew my mind here. I honestly had no idea he could deliver a nuanced, subtle performance like this. Not wooden or melodramatic at all... the acting felt fluid and natural.

A very rare perfect 10 drama for me. I had no idea this ML actor was capable of a performance at this level. Authentically very good!!

Yeah I feel like there are a certain set of tropes that come with a genre. Melodramatic romances have certain tropes, family conflict dramas have certain tropes, rom come have certain tropes, and police/military do too. Glorifying the main characters as big heroes who defend justice and protect the country, their sacrifices remembered... this comes with the genre. Sometimes the tropes can be overblown and exaggerated. Everyone has different tolerance levels for a set of tropes.

I'd say if a person is comfortable with and enjoys American TV shows about cops, soldiers, or humanitarian workers then they would be fine with this series. Same level and type of propaganda. If you are turned off by it in USA programming, you likely won't like it in CN programming. If you are used to it in USA TV and have learned to "tune it out" then it won't bother you. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

at ep 16 and I started thinking about how they're using a lot of real sets instead of just CGI. It's less seamless, sometimes looks a bit cheap if you inspect closely, but it also feels more real in a way and I think it will make the drama age well. And I'm just appreciative of set designers MAKING THINGS that the actors are surrounded by and can touch.