Moonstruck

I can understand, I went thru that period too. :)
However, although it pains me to admit it (feel like I'm betraying LLTG haha), on personal ranking, LBFaD is now ahead of LLTG for me. I think Dong Fang QingCang is one of the few villains/ 'will burn the world for you' anti-hero done right.
But anyhow, my heart is big enough to fit them all Ling Buyi and the others 😂

Yes ofcourse, I knew she was forced, just saying that it was the intention for Chidi spirit :)

So if get the events correctly now.....
Jieli planted Chidi's spirit in the bracelet to help it recover quickly, but the side effect is it will absorb Orchid's life and she will eventually die if it continues.
DFQC found out about this, good news they have Chidi's spirit they can use to unseal the 100k soldiers, but bad news they could not take out the Chidi spirit because the bracelet is locked into Orchid because of her love for DFQC.
To release the bracelet, DFQC pretended to imprison her and told Orchid they would sacrifice her, hoping this will make her lose her love for him. This did not work so he has to verbally hurt her and told her he only used and never loved her.

So DFQC is still hoping the bracelet will be released and they could get Chidi spirit. But he made a back up plan to deal with the devil and use Evil spirits to lift the seal without having to use the Chidi spirit.
Orchid, after Xunfeng's hints, agreed to kill herself but this was interrupted by RongHao. So now DFQC started to use the evil spirits, which was again interrupted when he sensed Orchid is in danger.

What I don't understand though is why RongHao interrupted Orchid when she's about to kill herself the first time?
I mean eventually when she did manage to kill herself, Chidi's spirit was anyhow released safely.

Next that I want to clarify is that if Orchid did not have the Chidi spirit in her bracelet and killed herself with the Chenying sword, this will only break the Heart Curse but not unseal the 100k soldiers, right?

Thanks for this.. Yes, that was the part that bothered me, also on the dialogue where DFQC told Xunfeng to watch Orchid closely and that nothing must go wrong with the plan.

I would do a full review when this is done. But just want to drop this here that out of all Xianxia series that I've watched (and I already have my fair share), this has the most immaculate wardrobe collection! It's so good, especially the Moon Tribe wardrobe, even the secondary characters have such great details in their wardrobe.
And DFQC's collection, it's absolute perfection! the designer should be proud of his/her work. The layering, the color, the patterns, the texture, the silhouette, and the accessories all go so well together. It looks really luxurious without being tacky.

I'm having withdrawal symptoms from this but Love Between Fairy and Devil cured it.
If you guys finished this and looking for something else to watch, head over to Love Between Fairy and Devil, it's very good too. And now I want Wu Lei in a xianxia too!

GUYS, HELP ME UNDERSTAND PLS.
I'm kinda confused before and during the war what DFQC's plan was. During the war when Xunfeng brought XLH to Xuanu Realm (on top of the giant sword thingy) and gave her the Chenying sword to kill herself, WAS HE ACTING ON HIS OWN OR WAS THAT DFQC's ORDER?
Did DFQC really intend to sacrifice her?
I understand he told her hurtful words to stop her loving him so the orchid bone bracelet can be removed, he said that's the only way to save her life. But why then does it seems he did plan with his brother to truly sacrifice/kill her?
anyone who read the novel or know the story enlighten me pls?

omg, I just commented the same thing. he really is, as if those two combined their genes!

His face is the exact mix of GongJun and Cheng Yi, it's so uncanny!

You remind me of my wishful thinking 10yrs ago, the only difference is I didn't believe enough in myself to translate my imagination into words. I'll check your works also, I had a point in my life where authors are my rockstars!✨

Your comments made me curious about this drama. We have the same taste with authors, they are the classics. 💕 Nowadays, it's hard to find books with the same vibes, I find a lot of romance novel now relied so much and just saturated with graphic sex rather than investing on the plot and emotion. It felt like everything is the same and formulaic.
I suggest also looking into asian light novel, there are some that are translated online, it's a refreshing change from the usual reads.

will Liu Yu Ning be a sad boy here? haha
I love Gong Jun but hope they don't hurt LYN much here

Yeah, this is what I kept mentioning on my comments for Part 2 (though some could not accept the criticism lol). The editing was off and not delivering the same quality as Part 1. Part 1 was so perfect and I had such high expectation they would be consistent with the quality. You can tell everything was acted very well, it's only the editing that's disrupting the story flow. I hope what you say is true, that we get a reedited version. Maybe cut some of the long cringey dialogues and add more scenes that will ease the audience into the plot.

Just finished, my honest opinion :

1) Part 1 was perfect and set the bar too high for me and Part 2 didn't live up to expectation. Still good but not on par with Part 1.

2) The story pacing in Part2 is not very well done. The flow was not natural. I know they could not show all scenes happening, but I feel a lot of times surprised with events happening out of the blue and consequently the emotional flow in between events is awkward.

3) Most of the time LBY's revenge arc is going over my head because of audience lack of connection to the Gu City/Huo Clan. Leo is such a good actor but sometimes it's hard to empathise on what he's fighting for because we were never really introduced to his family (apart from the stories relayed by the Empresses and the Emperor). After finishing the story, I finally realised it's tricky for the Director, he cannot give us a lot of scenes on LBY's backstory without spoiling the whole plot.

4) Some of the lines are way too long and cringey. It gives this theatrical play feel, when 2 characters are giving out their lines and the rest of the characters are just standing quietly in the background.

5) The ending is kinda cliche and cheesy. The villains are cartoonish, and how the solve things are too convenient for the plot it's almost embarrassing. LBY always arriving and saving the day at the most critical moments makes me giggle. It's truly cliche, but hey I'll take it.

6) If you watch the full trailer, there are a lot of 'cinematic epic scenes', however, in reality most of these were downplayed within the drama. Again I blame the editing for not building up thse scenes properly and instead they relied more on long dialogues.

I know these things sound critical but I wanted to be honest with those who will start it, I would say despite all of this it is worth your time, and if only the things I mentioned above are making you feel bored or lose interest, I still suggest to carry on and continue because in it's entirety the show is still very good.

The positives :
1) PART1 - absolutely perfect!
2) The acting is on point, Leo really does only pick good shows. And LuSi, I've always admired her from the Long Ballad, such a versatile actress.
3) The cinematography is great. The comedic aspect is also excellent, it funny in a strange subtle way. And on scenes where it makes you cry, it really does can make you cry!
4) All supporting characters are great, the Cheng Family, and the people at the palace, LBY's two sidekick.
5) it is refreshing to see such harmony in the palace with good nature and well intended royals. It's not perfect, but it is far from the miserable politically driven plots they have on other period dramas.
6) I like how they added scenes on how brutal LBY can be and how love DOESN'T IMMEDIATELY conquer all.
7) that 5 year silent montage is beautiful

After P1 I expected this to be above the Long Ballad, but because of some setbacks I mentioned in P2, I would say this is on same level as Long Ballad.
Both shows are great!! It's rare for me now to find dramas which I do not drop and this is really something that I enjoyed watching.

My BigMouse candidates : Room Leader, Jerry and the Mayor.
The writer is very bold in playing with our theories on each episodes.
If writer could pull this off, this will be one of the best written mystery drama out there (along with Flower of Evil).
However, I am worried that they are making it way too complex and when we get the big reveal, it will just be meh and full of plot holes and inconsistencies.

This show deserves a higher rating. The synopsis is there, and if you can't take fictional work with this premise, why even bother watching it and rating it unfairly just on that context? Story, tone, production, acting wise, it deserves higher rating.
I was expecting a cringe fest (as how I normally feel with majority of Jdrama), but surprisingly, I did not find this cringey at all. UNCOMFORTABLE is the more proper word, I did not cringe, but I felt uncomfortable for most of the time that I had to pause and look away for a bit.
What made me continue watching is that this drama did not pretend to be anything else other than what it is. Right off the bat, you know they are not selling an anti-hero or yandere love story, Aida was really shown as deranged. You do not continue watching because you are rooting for a love story and happy ending or hoping he will change, but you continue because the twist and twist and after twist and the stretch on how disturbing the plot can go keeps you interested.
I think it was perfectly executed, it is not too unhinged that you stop watching in disgust, but at the same time you will feel creeped out for most time. The contrast of the reality of the story combined with the soft glow camera effect + romantic instrumental OST, makes it even weirder.
I gotta be honest though, the major factor why this worked is because of Yuki Yamada. Given the whole plot, this would have been a no-go if the actor was not attractive, the whole thing would have been like clips from a crime documentary series.
But again I am not saying that it is now being romanticized because it's Yuki. As I have repeatedly mentioned, luckily the script did not push that. I only say it works with Yuki because he's a great actor and he knew how to keep the balance between Aida's normal and disturbing side.

So yes, I would be rating this higher. This is what amazes me with Asian production, when they choose to go this direction, the stretch in the imagination to delivery something 'different' is commendable. They are able to make you feel a certain way, creep you out, make your skin crawl, feel uncomfortable without relying much on gore, sex scenes and jump scares like how they normally do on western films.
For this level of 'wholesome fckery', it deserves a higher rating.

EDIT : Okay, so I got curious with the manga and checked it. And I can officially say, I am so glad (no matter how many people were disgusted by this drama) that the Director chose to adapt it this way. The manga crossed the line for me and I will not continue reading it.

I know what you mean. I also love it when the plotholes I can think of are answered. :)
To answer your questions :
1) It has been established that the flow of time when they time travel is not parallel to their original timeline. It was mentioned in the earlier episodes that it is likened to a 'dream'. - you can dream a lifetime in one night. Take for example, the first time HYX time travelled, she only took a nap in the bus, while she lived as CYR for a couple of days atleast. The total of the times she spent as CYR would be months, I doubt she'd been sleeping that long in her apartment and no one looked for her.
Same case with LZW, he lived for years as WQS and it has nothing to do with the time his real body is unconscious. It's as long as he enter a dreamlike state, he could have also woken after a few minutes.
This also means that, LZW mental age when he returned to his original body is a lot older than his physical age (add up the time he lived as WQS from the drowning to the plane crash)..

2) This one I guess is partially due to translation. The phone is indeed still registered under WQS. It is the payment method (credit card) that was updated and changed to LZW. In the airport scene, 'young LZW' handed over his phone to 'older LZW' together with all the password. And that is how WQS's number stayed active.

I say the same thing about Ahn HyoSeop haha. I hate what he did in A Business Proposal, which is one of my favorite manhwas, I had to drop the drama because his acting is cringey. And yes, also can't wait for the movie! :)

It's been some time since I watched this, but I do remember giving that scene also some thought. That scene (MJJ holding a shard of glass) did in fact happen in one of the realities/loop/cycle. There is an episode where the older LZW explained that although they are in a loop (or more like a knot), things are happening differently. For example in the airport scene were the 'younger LZW' is contemplating whether to take that flight or not, 'older LZW' said that the conversation he had with 'this' young LZW is not the same as what he had experience 'as' his younger self.
It might seem that they are not changing anything, but they are indeed making alterations within the loop with the slight difference on the actions they take.
MJJ holding that shard of glass is one of those loops before it was altered (thru the combination of HYX going back and forth the past and present and also the different iteration of LZW currently existing on different timelines trying to take different course of action to change the major events). - It was not elaborated, but either he accidentally stabbed CYR, or he was trying to save her , maybe stupidly pulling out the shard of glass and been caught in that unfortunate scenario. I'm convinced it's one of the previous cycle, and we cannot just say 'they weren't able to change any events', because in this story we are only following 'our' HYX, we don't know the actions the previous iteration of HYXs did. And yes, that means the HYX that the older LZW met in highschool is not the same version as 'our' HYX. Because older LZW would relay to 'our' HYX what happens thru his memory, and then 'our' HYX will try to change it when she time travels.

I know it's a bit trippy, but basically, when I think about it, this means the loops had run several thousands or even an infinite amount of times already, with each of their version/iteration trying to do better than their predecessors. However, as fate would have it, none of their actions were able to change major events (CYR and MJJ's death). Because all their other previous iteration would not give up 'having met and falling in love' with each other, and they all think they could make a difference by some other way.
But ofcourse, the version/iteration that we are watching, have figured this out, only by severing their ties were they able to untie the knot/loop in the timeline.

If you watch the Netflix show "Dark" they have the same concept, because it is a knot in the timeline, there is no ending and beginning, as long as the anomalies in that timeline exist, it would continue in an endless cycle, as the reality exist because all cause and effect events have already happened and will happen. There will be variation in events with each cycle but the major events that holds that loop will stay the same.

In this show, the anomaly is LZW and HYZ meeting each other thru time travel, and as LZW mentioned in one episode, the fact that they are existing and talking about their predicament means the loop is still happening. Only when they chose to give up each other (and the endings and beginnings/ all cause and effect dependencies were erased) , their very reality was erased, did things end differently for CYR and MJJ.
I am again reminded how brilliantly written this show was. Hope the Kversion does it justice! <3

wow, this is interesting to know. The book sequence indeed makes more sense.
Because the 'two times' realization by CSS is giving her character some disservice. It made her seem like a fickle character.
Maybe that's why I was feeling a bit off how 'lovey dovey' they are now, because of the flippy floppy attitude I felt a disconnect on CSS's resolve.
It would have been cleaner if she continued to be consistent with her rejection, then comes to the realization, and then we get some transition scenes of them being awkward first then comfortable around each other.

Yes, your examples are correct. We get scenes that 'starts something' but we do not see how it concludes, then we randomly start again with another thing. It's kinda hard to explain haha. One thing I miss is I would have wanted more scenes between CSS and LBY after CSS realised she also like him. Like I want those awkward relationship phase. But the next time we saw them, they are already comfortable around each other, holding hands and kissing.
Another example, I doubt that either CSS or LBY will let go of what 5th Princess did. But we cut immediately to the Banquet, I guess they get their sweet revenge later on, then I have to remember which event it would refer back on. But I do get that they are preparing us for future event or plot.