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Where can I watch it, once it's available? the teasers looked so much fun. Like, the actors playing a reality show but at the same time, it's the characters from the drama in the modern world.

I wonder if we will ever know the truth about that crazy ending. But one thing's for sure: something went wrong, dreadfully wrong, with the people in charge of the drama (director, writer) to come up with that sh**** ending.

I don't know if somehow, they were angry with the main actor (although I never heard of him being a pain in the a**** on set) and they took their revenge on him this way? That would be so unprofessional.

But we all can say that nothing feels right, or normal about this ending. Like something happened behind the scenes. It just doesn't fit the type of drama, the healing feeling, the light rom-com that this drama was.

It looks like a fraud, yes. I mean, he signed a contract based on a scenario he liked. Sure, things can be changed along the way but the ending is the crucial part of a drama. It can make it or break it.

And apparently, the ending he signed for wasn't used in the drama. Instead another ending was used without his consent, or his agence/manager's consent? Ouah, that looks like some serious stuff going on.

We can see here that it litterally BROKE IT. Over here on MDL and in China.

He wasn't told the ending? Or he shot other scenes which were supposed to be the real ending but he wasn't informed that those scenes wouldn't be used and that the director would go the crappy ending???

Yeah, my favorite ending would be this. Like, all the characters had at some points been brought into the book and some have been present for longer than the FL and have mostly forgotten the real world.

Or... the book is in fact the story of a magic parallel world and the book is the entry door. Once they reach the ending, the characters are able to follow the FL to the real world.

It's been a few days and I'm still shocked by the ending. I keep hoping that some netizens are on MDL to tell us what's the reaction in China. Someone posted about the director/writers being in hiding, is it true?

Nobody tweeted, or posted, to defend THEIR ending? To tell us that there are bonus scenes somewhere and that they might air them sometimes?

In hiding, really? The backlash is that bad in China?

His sister looked like a sophisticated and wealthy woman with connections. The Chinese authorities knew that he was missing in a dangerous place and she was the one person to contact. I think she learned that he was presumed dead.

Let's face it, there are secret agents everywhere. It's not impossible that one agent learned from a contact that a chinese tourist had been kidnapped and murdered in Sunam (or Suman?) but he couldn't confirm the identity. But it would probably be our ML.

Therefore, the Chinese authorities would inform the family.

Unless he was taken hostage by a rebel group and either was killed or released and it's a happy ending. But I don't believe that because the reunion didn't feel real. It was too eerie so my first thought was hallucination".

And unless the writer/director revealed that the ending which aired was not the one they had planned or something like that... it's a sad ending.

His sister knew. In one scene, she comes back home and she looked very sad. And she tells the FL that her brother wanted her to have his flat so she gave him the papers making her the owner. And to stop waiting for him and live her life.

It hinted strongly that she knew something. Maybe she learned recently from the chinese authorities, I don't know. But that scene was striking, in a bad way.

Well, at least, we know we're not crazy. I mean, if viewers on the other side of the planet react the same way as us, it's that they understood the ending the same way we did.

I swear, when I first watched the last scene, I thought the eerie appearance of the reunion was because of a bad angle on my computer so I rewatched it from another angle and then I was angry: it was an hallucination, that was clear as day!

And it stopped there. The hero was last seen being grabbed by robbers and disappeared from the surface of the world, never contacting anyone. He was murdered. His body never found. And the FL developped the same mental illness as the ML.

Talk about a slap in the face ending.

Any idea as to how the chinese viewers are taking this ending?

That's why she is having mental health issues and is hallucinating the ML: she realizes while in Suman that something bad happened to him.

She collapsed then and she started her first hallucination there.

It was because of her, of her not so beautiful lie, that he went back there and was probably murdered. His body hasn't even been recovered. What an awful ending for such a wonderful male lead.

His sister knows. She is sophisticated, seems to have money and connections. When she comes back home to her parents, her face tells it all: she knows that her brother is dead or presumedead by the chinese authorities. That's why she gave the FL the documents making her the owner of his flat. That's why she tells her to go on living instead of waiting.

But the FL is apparently in denial and keeps hoping. But deep down, she knows. That's why she keeps hallucinating the ML. It's her fragile, guilty mind which is playing tricks on her.

Just like the ML with the child.

Yeah, I watch modern Cdramas, mostly rom-coms, because I want positivity. I don't want my dramas to end in tragedy. But " A beautiful lie" ends like that.

I don't care that the "reunion" was shot: it didn't feel real. That filter, like the one when she first hallucinated him in Sunan, yeah, not good for her mental health.

That was the subtle hint I was talking about: technically, a happy ending. But if you watch closely, it's not. If it was, he would have come back at the beginning of the episode, explained what had happened to him and we would see him with his family.

Here, only the FL sees him and it ends abruptly with this unreal filter. It feels unfinished.

She hallucinates the ML, like the ML hallucinated the dead kid. So chances are that the ML is also dead, hence why she hallucinates him.

The difference is, the ML knew the child was dead and was feeling guilty for not saving him.

The FL.... maybe suspects that the ML is dead but she is in denial and her brain creates those hallucinations of the ML. She probably feels guilty, like the ML felt but for a different reason: she was the one who came up with the fake alive child, to get him to go to Sunan, the origin of his trauma.

And going back was what killed him. When she realizes that, she collapases and she starts hallucinating him because she needs to believe that somehow, he is alive somewhere.

The brain is a complex machine, after all.

So she ML is dead and she is having mental health issues, from which she might not recover.

I would love to be wrong. And it would be easy to give us a 5 mn bonus scene explaining the ending. The fact that we didn't even get those 5 minutes... doesn't bode well for a HE.

Maybe the director will come out and say that he is real. I seem to remember that the director of "Bright Eyes in the dark" posted about it being a HE even though it didn't look like it.

But yeah, it's not the first time that directors go the "Shrodinger's ending": both endings could be valid, happy one or sad one, but if you pay close attention, it's subtle but it's a sad ending. I don't know why they do that.

It would be easy: shoot a 5 mn bonus scene, showing the two main leads in their home, with the ML explaining that he had been beaten and kidnapped by rebels who forced him to do surgery for their soldiers.

He was then liberated thanks to Chinese Special Forces and brought back home after a debriefing.

HE, and they have a kid, like in the orignal novel.

The last episodes made sure to have the FL go through the same trauma as the ML. She goes to the same place, Sunan, where the kid died and the ML, who had gone there to help, started having mental issues.

The FL goes to Sunan where she had sent the ML, hoping that he would heal there. He dies, like the kid he tried to save. The FL starts hallucinating shortly after his "vanishing act", and she keeps hallucinating once back home.

Basically, repeating the same trauma as the ML.

Good explanation for the drama's title. Someone mentioned on this topic of discussion that the writer also wrote for Love is Panacea, which also had a sad ending.

When she hallucinates their reunion and their wedding in Sunan, there was that blueish filter, the same we see in the last scene.

Also, when he realized that the FL is in Sunan, he rushes to her, but 4 guys grab him and you hear a short, doom music.

Then later on, his pen is sold by another guy, who probably found it. Same with his bag.

At least a year passes by. He never contacts his parents, including his mother who has health issues. He never contacts his sister. Or his friends. Or the FL. Or XiXi. He never posts pics on his phone. He never writes to anyone.

One day, his sister comes home looking very sad. She was the only one, with the FL, to know the truth. The parents don't know. They lie to them, hoping that he would come back, that he had vanished of his own free will (but the last time we, viewers, see him, he is grabbed by four bandits/robbers).

But then, the sister appears and she is... the picture of tragedy. Maybe she learned something? At that moment, whatever she knows, she gives the FL the papers making her the owner of her brother's flat. He had told his sister that he wanted the FL to inherit his flat.

Why does she do that, at that precise moment in time? Unless she learned from the authorities that her brother was dead. Or presumed dead. Secret services in the world investigate and learn stuff. Someone could have told an agent that a chinese tourist had been kidnapped and killed in Sunan, but couldn't tell where his body was, so no way to confirm that it was the ML.

Unfortunately, this kind of things happen in real life.

What we know is that he was getting better. Then he was kidnapped by 4 guys. So either he was killed and his body left to rot somewhere and never found or he is an hostage of rebels. Or he has amnesia but it would be easy for people to bring him to other chinese living there.

And the filter used for their "reunion", it was unreal. Plus at one point, look at his hand on her, it seems as if he is not there. There's nothing solid in that reunion.

Plus the fact that she keeps hallucinating everywhere...

The director went the Shrodinger's ending: we see the main couple reuniting, but everything indicates that it's not a real one.

Typical of some directors who want to be edgy. It reminds me of "Bright Eyes in the Dark ", where the ML, also a hero who saves people, goes away, the FL lives her life (a dancer, too) and in the end, there's a representation but the seat where the ML should have been is empty.

Later on, we see the ML, alone, not interacting with anyone, as if he was a ghost and that ends there.

Same here with "A beautiful lie". The ML, a heroic doctor, goes away, the FL goes on living, she sees the ML everywhere and we "see" the ML, but in such a way that it hints at him being dead.

He gets a mail from a friend that the kid might still be alive. He goes to Sunan? I think it's Sunan. He investigates and believes that the kid is alive. His mental health improves. He contacts the FL.

But apparently, it was a lie orchestrated by the psychiatrist and the FL and the foreign friend to get him to go to Sunan and confront the origin of his trauma.

The FL goes there and he sees her. He understands that it was all a lie (maybe that's where the title of the drama comes from? A beautiful lie from the FL to help him heal?)

After that, he vanishes. HIs bag is found. Nobody knows what happened to him, dead, alive, we don't know.

Time goes by, the FL goes on hoping, and she hallucinates the ML (basically, she has now the same mental health issues that the ML had). Even when his sister, who seems to know more about her brother's fate, gives the FL the papers making her the owner of his apartment since it was her brother's wish a year ago. So voila. She inherits his flat. He never contacts anyone in a year, not his parents (and his mother was sick with diabetes and in hospital), not his sister, not his friends, not the FL. He never posts pics. His bag was found so it suggests that something bad happened to him. Killed and left to rot somewhere in the desert? An hostage of rebels? We'll never know.

It ends up with the FL having a dream the ML is back, she gets up, goes to a public place and bam, out of the blue, the ML appears and they hug. Except that the ML is eerie, unreal, and it's easy to deduct that it's another hallucination.

End of drama.

If there was a second season, that could work. Or a bonus episode. But no, that was the ending.