The Blossoming Love had all the things I adore in a Xianxia (fantasy) drama – magical arrays, cultivator sects, sword graveyards, gorgeous costuming, and an abundance of glowing, glittering special effects. It had mixed worlds and peoples (immortals, humans, demons, and more) and their usual struggle to get along. It may not have had the highest budget, but they used their money wisely. Everything looked fantastic.

But what elevated this drama into the upper echelon for me was the surprising development of the three main characters and the really wild plot line. Even by Xianxia standards (where anything can happen and usually does) this storyline stood out.

Quick Plot Summary for the Set Up (when things still seem “normal”):

In this story, there are two ancient divine artifacts: the book of fate and the chaos pearl. These two artifacts have been controlling all three realms since time immortal. Due to some dramatic events that will be revealed later in the show, the chaos pearl fell into the human world.

There is a magical barrier between the human world and the Dark Realm (a magical hellscape filled with evil immortals that can’t be killed cause they constantly reincarnate) – and that barrier is old and weakening, with the baddies inside eager to break free.

The chaos pearl was used to create the barrier between the Human World and the Dark Realm and it has been closely guarded by the cultivator alliance for centuries.

Recently a mysterious group has been helping the Dark Realm… trying to steal the chaos pearl and break the walls between the worlds forever…

That’s the basic set up of the drama to get you through ACT I.

Let’s peek at the major locations:

Now let’s meet the three main characters!

***very mild spoilers for the first part of the drama below

They all have X names… so I gave most of them nicknames to help us out.

ML – XIE XUECHAN – “White Knight”

The male lead Xie Xuechan, our White Knight, is the most upright, moral, rigid and respectable man you can imagine. He’s the top sword cultivator in the realm, heir to the Snowy Mountain Sect folks who are guarding the chaos pearl, and a total badass in white robes.

Our White Knight has followed the righteous cultivation path, meaning he’s closed himself off from his emotions so he can care for all people equally, with no one in his heart who might sway or influence his decisions in protecting the whole world. He’s noble to a fault and you may not love him right away but trust me… you will fall hard for this big hunky man with an iron will and pure heart.

He’s irresistible.

The actor Vin Zhang is very manly, too – he doesn’t have the typical idol look, nor the beautiful ethereal look that I tend to lean towards. He’s a big guy with a deep voice, exactly the type to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. I firmly believed he could protect all of humanity – by himself if need be. I mean… look at this colossal man!

Formidable. That’s the best word for him.

Only a certain type of dude can manspread to this extent and still look cool af.

He’s larger than life (and larger than the majority of chairs). Comically huge swords look natural in his hands instead of like cosplay props.

He can wear the most delicately embroidered robes – hell, you could put this dude in full drag – and you will not get any rainbow vibes from him whatsoever. He’s a zero on the Kinsey Scale.

He ain’t my type, but I love our White Knight. Just… totally love the dude.

And so does our exceptionally beautiful leading lady.

FL – MU XUANLING – “Saintess”

The female lead Mu Xuanling, also known as The Saintess of the Dark Realm, is a petite beauty whose only goal is to steal the heart of our stubborn White Knight cultivator… who in turn wants nothing to do with her. She’s a feisty spirit that cultivated demonic energy and is well known as formidable villain. Obviously not an ideal partner for the purest of pure heroes who is not supposed to fall in love – and obviously a perfect set up for the romance of the century.

In the opening scene our hero is tied up in the Dark Realm and our Saintess saunters right up to the guy and makes her intentions crystal clear.

When I say her only goal is to win her man, I mean it.

This girl is relentless.

A non-stop flirting machine.

She doesn’t care who is watching or what others might think.

She’s never gonna miss an opportunity to press herself against her big statuesque man, bat her lashes, and drop some innuendo. It’s a nonstop assault on his puritan armor.

And it is soooo fun to watch their push and pull dynamics!

After he escapes the Dark Realm in the first episode, his powers are temporarily locked away and this tiny spirit girl is suggestively bullying him – pushing him around, jumping on top of him, pinning in to the bed. He’s batting away her eager hands (or sexy legs), exasperated and very clear with his intentions but she will not be deterred! She is having the time of her life teasing this big dude.

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And you can feel the zing between these two in their first encounter. Their chemistry is sizzzzzling. He’s saying no every five minutes but his eyes are always following her. You know he’s gonna break out of that restrictive shell eventually (and probably break a few bed frames with her).

Viewers, it’s deeply satisfying to watch a tiny woman claw her way into the pants of this huge virginal knight.

Whether fighting or flirting, they are the OPT of the year. They OWN this drama.

The casting director deserves an award, too. Just look at them! The height difference! The natural chemistry! The casual playfulness of their interactions both on and off screen!

Legends.

Listen, I was totally in love with the second male lead from the moment he came on screen – and I still didn’t ship anyone else with the leading lady other than this big hunky hero. Nothing could come between the two main leads, you hear me! Not even God! (spoiler? Haha, if ya know you know)

So let’s talk about my man – the second male lead.

SML – NAN XUYUE – “Xuyue”

The second male lead is Nan Xuyue, the character that made me lose my freaking mind and drove me to obsession. He is 10,000% my type, aka a pretty, pretty man with an agenda.

If you’ve seen Fangs of Fortune you might recognize him as the older brother of Yichen (and if you haven’t seen Fangs of Fortune then add it to your watchlist!).

He was also the sexy serpent guy in the movie The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity.

Wang Duo!

When will this actor be the lead in a drama, I ask you?

I am not alone in my second male lead syndrome – I think most viewers were spellbound by this complicated character. And I also think that as much as we loved our second male lead Xuyue, no one was seriously shipping him romantically with the female lead at any time throughout this drama. We were all happy to love him separately. Personally.

He was ours, damn it.

_{this is what I signed up for with C-Dramas… lovely, delicate men with perfect eyeliner and long wigs and exquisite robes… I could stare at this beauty all day….}

Our beautiful, strange creature Xuyue.

Xuyue is a refined, calm, soft spoken, genius-type who rose to fame for creating exceptional magical arrays (teleportation wormholes, carriages that are bigger in the inside, letters turned into origami birds that fly to the intended reader, so many cool things). He’s the type of guy that plays chess by himself, playing both sides with equal seriousness. He does not delude himself as to his value or importance – he always knows when he’s got a winning hand or a losing hand.

He’s also a very insular character – closed off from others, and full to the brim of secrets. You can always sense the wheels turning in his head, leaving you wondering what he’s really thinking about in that vast and fathomless other world of his mind.

And at his side is his female servant, Feng Yao. She’s probably the only person who really knows this mysterious guy – and even she knows she doesn’t know everything about him.

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At one point he and our White Knight were the two best fighters among the cultivators, both born with an extra aperture (the best cultivators have nine but these two boys both have ten). They were a cool duo, our White Knight wielding his massive sword, while Xuyue wields his magical fan.

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But they did not stay a dynamic duo for long, as poor Xuyue’s body and apertures was broken sometime in the past, greatly reducing his powers and leaving him relegated to the side lines. The two cultivators are still friends though, with our White Knight being one of the few people Xuyue genuinely cares about.

Most second male leads are used as love rivals in dramas, but not Xuyue. He is something much more intriguing: a true outsider. More so than our hero White Knight who is isolated in leadership, and more so than our slave spirit Saintess who had to run away to hell to survive. Xuyue is an outsider because he’s basically a genius asexual sociopath (I don’t mean any of those terms in the derogatory sense either).

He is the definition of OTHER.

He understands the concept of feelings but struggles to actually feel them. When he feels anything at all he attaches an undue importance to them.

He’s someone who is no stranger to disappointment and has learned to keep a distance from the things that might hurt him, to observe from the peripheral. His insight into others is keen and accurate. He gets why people do the things they do… and recognizes that his own motivations and feelings are not the same as them. He knows he’s different.

And Xuyue is inexplicably drawn to our female lead.

They’d met briefly over a decade ago and the impression she left on him was far beyond a reasonable response. In the ten minutes they were together, he felt a sameness between them – something he had never felt with anyone else. What is instant connection? Who can explain why we feel comfortable with some people from the first encounter? He is as baffled by it as we the viewers are, but for whatever reason he is compelled by her – pulled towards her with a subtle urgency he cannot control or ignore.

And again it’s not a sexual attraction. He is well of how she feels about his friend and is fascinated by their interactions and their growing love for each other. But he’s like a man possessed. He just knows with each passing day his need to be near our little flirty Saintess grows stronger and stronger.

This dynamic was sooooo different from the norm.

Who can tell where the story is going when you’re given such an unusual “love” triangle?

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I love the way she loves you.

I mean… WHAT??? That is quite a statement, Xuyue! If it wasn’t already clear from the beginning, it’s obvious by this point that Xuyue is a true wildcard.

As the fandom watched this show air – one of everyone’s favorite speculative games was WHAT IS XUYUE GONNA DO?! It was anyone’s guess – so we entertained ourselves imagining all kinds of crazy scenarios.

So… that’s our basic set up and three main characters and their dynamics.

There are more people than the three main characters of course – side characters, side couples, more bad guys and good guys and inbetween peeps too. This is such a well written show – even the super campy, cheesy characters have unexpected depth or insane backstories. You’ll have fun with all of them.

The Blossoming Love is a long drama (there are longer, of course, but this one is still quite lengthy). It’s 40 episodes jam packed with sects and secrets and reveals and reincarnations. My first experience watching it was several episodes at a time for several weeks as it aired. And I recently rewatched it before writing this review, committing to a binge watch of about ten or more episodes a day – and it holds up to my initial high impression of it (though admittedly binging a 40 episode drama is a task in our distracted age – so if you do binge it just put your phone down and take frequent breaks, cause what’s happening on screen matters). The best thing about lengthy shows is you can’t possibly remember everything – so rewatches are always full of rediscovery.

If you haven’t seen The Blossoming Love yet and you like fantasy dramas or romance dramas, go check it out. It’s available on some streaming platforms and docked on several pirate bays.

Trust me when I say it’s gonna surprise you and charm you. Several times.

After the madness unfolds (and it goes hog wild) and you’ve gotten through it all – come back here and let’s reminisce on the insanity of the second half of this drama together in the spoiler section below.

There is so much more to discuss because the first plot arc is just an overpainting of what’s really going on. This show unfolds like the puzzle box from Hellraiser. In that you might have expected something wild to happen but no one can me they were expecting the Cenobites, ya hear me? That story broke the mold as far as what our expectations of Hell were. This story breaks the mold as far as your expectations of rebirth stories in cdramas. (Is that Hellraiser reference too random? I was a Clive Barker girlie growing up)

Overall Rating: 10/10. Don’t Let Fate Decide: Love Your Lovers and Kill Your Gods.

WARNING!

Everything below is full of massive spoilers for the whole show!

Before we really dig into the plot twists and the really crazy stuff… let’s take a short break and admire some random scenes out of context. There are soooo many memorable scenes in this show, too.

A few scenes that stood out to me:

• When Xuyue is saved by the sexy guy from the Decaying Immortal Pavilion and they just have VIBES. I’m sorry… but this whole scene was so queer coded. And since this Chinese drama was one of the most heterosexual shows I’ve seen in ages (and whatever asexual/nonsexual/whatever Xuyue has going on), this small slice of queerbaiting was deeply satisfying for me. I just like pretty boys staring at each other and touching hands, what can I say.

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• The bird boats! Like… these were barely in the show but I just thought they were so cool and pretty and I wanted to fly serenely through the clouds on one.

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• The scene where Pearl swan dives backwards into the reincarnation pool and Fate tries and fails to catch her. As someone who never fast-forwarded through the opening sequence of this show even once (I love the title song!), I was always struck by how gorgeous the snippet of this scene was in the title credits. And to see it play out – with the full story and emotional impact behind it… argh! So beautiful and tragic. Every time he saves her in this show, she seems to get further and further away…

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• The dream sequence where our Saintess imagines she is sword dancing with the White Knight and he would do anything for her. It was so sweet to see them dancing around in her imagination, his goofy love-struck smile and her smug satisfaction. I laughed out loud when she asks if he’ll go against his principles for her and he immediately said of course! and she just smiles, enjoying the delusion, because even in her dreams she knows that will never happen.

_{gifs by @zhoufeis – link}

I also loved these text post memes from the fandom.

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• And this scene where Xuyue serenely exposes himself as the suicidal obsessed freak that he is.

“I once said… that if I hurt Xie Xue Chen one day, she could take my life. Since I promised her, I’ll keep my word. So Xie Xue Chen and I will die together. I’ll just give her my life.” (ep 26 – Wang Duo just bringing the eeriest performance to the screen with his light smile and unnaturally calm demeanor)

_{gifs by @cdramastuff – Link}

Okay, enough snippets out of order – let’s get into the second half half of this tale and stick to the timeline!

DISCLAIMER:

From here on out, this is no longer a review – this is just a commentary rundown of the second half of the series – going through all the major twists and reveals.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Basically, it’s just me fangirling over this show for a really, really, really long time so… you know… feel free to join me here. But I fully admit I went overboard with this review and currently can’t bring myself to edit it down – it was a rush of fangirling joy. So I’m just gonna leave it to remind myself of being happy.

Things started going off the rails around episode 19.

This is the episode in which our major villain spirit/demon Sang Qi (with his stunning white locks) finds out his cultivator sweetheart Ningxi did not, in fact, betray him and cut off his arm – her sister did that in disguise. This betrayal was the basis for his turn to the dark side and it was all a ruse! The tragedy of it this poor dude’s life. He will not be the only character to discover their entire foundational motivating trauma is based on a lie, either.

Our major villain was not the only one bamboozled by Ningxi’s pissed off sister. We also find out Ningxi was told Sang Qi was dead – news so upsetting to our lovestruck young lady that she killed herself in despair. But I hear you saying “Betrayals and backstabbing and lovers parted by lies and jealous siblings or rivals is all standard Xianxia melodrama, that’s nothing special.” And you are correct.

It’s what happens next.

The villain’s sweetheart Ningxi has some sort of divine special body that can bring people back from the dead (I know, right? weirdness). Since her body was so full of this magical vitality, even after she killed herself her body does not decay. She’s dead as a doornail but just looks like she’s sleeping.

Here’s where the batshit crazy stuff comes in.

Her sect leader marries off her corpse to a cultivator from another sect. Using his blood and the chaos pearl, they magically impregnate said corpse.

You heard me.

They used blood, a divine artifact, and their combined moral bankruptcy to knock up a corpse.

And it worked, too!

I mean… WTF.

Xianxias are insane, ya’ll!

I love these shows so much.

Anyways, our armless villain Sang Qi finally learns where his sweetheart is buried and promptly exhumes her corpse and spirits it away to the Dark Realm, where he tucks it into his bed and proceeds to pine over it for the next few episodes. To be fair, she’s looking pretty good for a corpse – she hasn’t aged a day in 20 years and is looking pretty outstanding for a carcass that birthed twins.

But it doesn’t stop there, folks. That’s just a taste of the absolutely bonkers plot lines about to be tossed your way.

But first there’s a little side quest with our ML and FL to a magical island.

These two love birds are going shopping for a magical lotus to break a spell or some nonsense. Our Saintess has been brainwashed into believing she never loved our big hunky guy, so we’re in a nice role reversal territory with these two. He’s openly smitten with her at this point and just spends the majority of his time teasing her and flirting away, enjoying her flustered and confused expressions.

They run into slutty spirits, miasma illusion traps, and two immortal lovers caught in a hellish time loop (foreshadowing galore!) before they get their hands on the magic lotus.

They also squeeze in some quality make out time cause what else are you gonna do when you glamping on a mystical mountain with your boyfriend/girlfriend?

While our main leads are canoodling in the mountains, there’s some time to develop a side romance between two secondary characters too. I won’t get into that here but they are adorable and own all my heart. Fu Lansheng our rich sweetest boy and the kickass princess Gao Qiumin were truly an inspired pairing and watching their romance slowly build in the background was marvelous.

The next few episodes glide by with nothing shockingly insane happening. Just cool storylines further developing a very solidly entertaining plot.

But there are hints of chaos brewing.

For example, in ep 22, we learn a Cyclic Deity told a cultivator that “this world is just a lie.” (that’s not ominous at all)

The cracks in White Knight and Xuyue’s bestie relationship are starting to show… cause Xuyue is acting more unhinged around our main couple. Xuyue has always known and accepted that he is not the one the Saintess loves… and yet he cannot let go of this deep-seated feeling he is supposed to be with her (…wait for it… that reveal comes later and it is wild).

In ep 23, the drama starts revving the engine again. Things start happening very quickly that shake the foundational plot of the show.

Our Saintess calls out Xuyue for acting shady and threatens to kill him if he ever messes with her man. “Having sincerity and being sincere are not the same thing.”

The way these two talk when they are alone is fascinating. Almost as fascinating as the way Xuyue talks with his servant lady bestie, Feng Yao.

After Xuyue has another dream of our Saintess telling him they will be together forever, he confesses to Feng Yao that he may be losing his marbles. “The feeling of losing control is very unpleasant.” Clearly there is some past life pressure cracking down hard on this serene boy and he is, of course, smart enough to realize he is no longer in full control of his actions.

Meanwhile our main leads enjoy a brief interlude of being happily in love without drama…. in a xianxia drama… which means everything is about to suck super hard for them very soon.

This is a cdrama near the halfway mark so you know any peaceful moments won’t last.

In ep 23 we suddenly have the dark clan talking amongst themselves about the “Fallen Deity,” wondering if he may be waking up…

and the scene pans down inside the hellscape of the Dark Realm…

deep into the darkness….

and we see someone who looks just like our leading man in the depths of the Dark Abyss.

(gasp!)

Whaaaat is happening????!!! WHO IS THAT GUY??????!!!!!

We’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out.

Meanwhile, we discover the true goal of Villain #2, the mysterious Master of the Decaying Immortal Pavilion (yet another hottie in this show… just look at this face card!).

He wants to find the entrance to the Divine Heavenly Realm using the chaos pearl (the Heavenly Realm was cut off way back in the day and no one has been able to get to it since). And… fair. I mean, is that not half the reason people cultivate for years and years – on the hope of ascending to immortality in the Heavenly Realm?

Villain #2 doesn’t care about the wall between the Dark Abyss and the Human Realm at all. He only cares about the wall between the Human Realm and the Heavenly Realm – but in order to break one he has to break the other.

***On a side note: I absolutely love this guy as a villain cause he never seems that pressed for time. He’s the most “we’ll get there when we get there” kinda dude. A leisurely villain, if you will. You can see it driving his underlings crazy when he’s like “whatever, our plan failed this time but, you know, the pearl is still out there so maybe next time I guess.” (Paraphrasing but I swear he says something similar at one point and his underling looked both shocked and annoyed by his lackadaisical attitude).

But back to our male lead’s doppelganger in hell’s basement:

The Fallen Deity starts calling out to his twinsie White Knight (these two are telepathically bonded). They start fighting for control of White Knight’s mind – and our big White Knight seems to be on the losing end of this battle, constantly blacking out.

At one point our White Knight falls out and when he comes to he seems to be a totally different person (not the Fallen Deity evil guy but someone else entirely!). He’s pulling the Saintess into his arms and swearing he’ll never lose her again (time travel future version of White Knight, is that you?).

After he’s finished hugging all over his little cutie, he reveals the secret the identity of the Master of the Decaying Immortal Pavilion and exposes his plans. Future Version White Knight rushes to face off against the cute Villain #2 – and right before he’s about to get stabbed, he blacks out again.

Dramatic cut scene, anyone?

Meanwhile Villain #1, Song Qi, is still hanging out with his dead girlfriend. He’s got her all tucked into bed and just lingers around staring at her face all day, I guess. I dunno, I don’t wish to speculate.

Villain #2 shows up and taunts him for hanging out with a corpse – trying to get Villain #1 back on track to destroying the wall by rekindling his desire for revenge against the humans… but Villain #1 just ain’t feeling it anymore, now that he knows everything he was mad about wasn’t true.

And then PURE INSANITY sets in.

Ep 24 is wild.

BIG REVEAL: Villain #2 is over 6,000 years old! He was around when the barrier between the two worlds was created so he knows how to tear it down.

And so he does tears it down, slicing a hole into one of the weak spots.

Villain #1 Sang Qi goes soft and suicidal. He has a heart to heart moment with his former protégé our Saintess before yanking out his own inner core and transferring his power to her.

Owning up to his overdramatic nature, he finally takes his corpse gf out of hell and sets her up in a lovely canopy bed on a hillside cause… sure… that’s not weird at all. We get a nice back flash to how the two met and fell in love… poor doomed babies…

He lets the last of his demonic energy go and promptly peaces out to the great hereafter, holding his dead lover in his arms. I guess whoever finds these two corpses on a bed later will just have to clean all this mess up. RIP Villain #1.

Our White Knight hero rushes into the Dark Realm – his mission to use all his power to seal up the Dark Abyss Void Sea so the demons can’t reincarnate. At least that way the Human Realm will stand a chance against these baddies. It’s not a bad plan, actually.

He’s joined by his honey pie the Saintess who uses her newly acquired power from Villain #1 to help out.

But the broken barrier between the realms is not our only problem.

Now that the barrier wall is damaged, humans are suddenly very concerned their spirit slaves may jump on the chance to revolt. A fair assessment, as that is exactly what the slaves proceed to do.

VIVA REVOLUTION!

The immortal sects are attacked from within by their slave spirits and no matter where you turn, swords are flashing and bodies are dropping. This absolute chaos was organized by Villain #2, who needed everyone to get out of his hair so he could focus on his own agenda.

The White Knight and the Saintess manage to “freeze” the hell world, stopping the demons from leaving… but surprise surprise they couldn’t freeze that Fallen Deity guy who was trapped in the Abyss. And he is not a happy camper. He’s been dropping all kinds of cryptic and vague hints about his connection to our love birds and all signs point to WTF CITY.

Ep 25. The batshit crazy plot spiral continues.

Big Baddie Fallen Deity recognizes our Saintess as the Chaos Pearl Girl and starts spilling his backstory immediately (this is not surprising as apparently the dude has not been able to talk to anyone in eons trapped in his underground prison).

He tells her that he and the Chaos Pearl were once lovers.

That he ascended to the Divine Realm and slaughtered all the gods (yo why did you kill everyone the second you got to Heaven, my dude?!).

As punishment for this crime she, the Chaos Pearl, destroyed the Celestial Ladder and cut off all humanity from attaining immortality. Then she imprisoned him for 10,000 years in the Dark Realm – which he considers a serious betrayal and has been stewing on it ever since.

Like whaaaaaaaaat?!!!

OMG what is happening?!!!

He tells her as the Chaos Pearl she can control time… and reverse time… and reverse the universe itself.

Like, holy shit, bish! you can do all that???

And also we’ll definitely be coming back around to that cause that’s some critical intel you are letting slip, sir. Our Fallen Deity guy is just dropping spoiler bombs left and right here.

He tells our Saintess that in her current state she’s pitiful and weak and he’s looking forward to making her suffer. And… uhm… sure… sure, you are.

It’s very clear Big Baddie Fallen Deity is still super into our girl, even if she can’t remember him and has no idea what he’s talking about, he is threatening her in the most lovesick way.

Sir, you can get your revenge without gently caressing her face, you know.

He’s a terrifying ancient emperor devil god but he’s looking at her like a heartbroken man still desperately in love and pissed off at himself about it (which yay! angsty lovelorn villain = xianxia bread and butter).

And better still he’s visibly jealous of her love for the White Knight.

Oh, and our White Knight?

We learn he is merely a small fragment of the Fallen Deity’s soul that was lost in his fall from the heavens.

WHAAAT??!!!!

OUR MAIN CHARACTER AND HERO IS A FRAGMENT OF SOMEONE ELSE’S SOUL?!!!!

When I tell you my jaw dropped to the freakin’ floor!

I was not expecting them to downgrade our male lead in such a brutal way. Oh your 20+ years of life? That’s nothing. Merely a blink of an eye for the “original.”

Big Baddie Fallen Deity is none other than Emperor Zhao Ming from 10,000 years ago.

And when Big Baddie Fallen Deity calls back his sword it jumps out of White Knight’s hand! You can see the existential dread in our hero’s eyes. Like… I cannot even imagine. I’m not even a sword cultivator and that scene was painful to watch!

How are you supposed to handle being told you’re just a tiny figment of someone else?!!

Our White Knight is trying his best to remain steadfast and strong for his honey pie but you can sense the splintering of his psyche.

He is shook.

Everyone watching this show was shook.

Our White Knight barely escapes hell with his little Saintess and and we are offered a short reprieve from this dramatic situation.

Unfortunately, our break from this overdramatic tension filled scenario is a trip to an agonizingly sad side story that left us crying into our pillows.

The parents of one of the side characters die in this episode and I ain’t gonna lie… I cried like a baby over it. It’s so rare to see happily married couples who are nothing but loving and supportive in Xianxias.

RIP Parents of the Century.

Then it’s back to our leads and their identity crisis – which they can’t even focus on because our White Knight’s gotta patch up a slave rebellion and figure out who is still alive in the cultivator sects.

Our White Knight promises to end slavery and allow the humans and spirits to live as equals.

This is a big deal and I don’t mean to downplay it, but the spirit slaves are not a major plot focus of this drama – they’re tangential at best. Also, I thought it was kinda funny the same dude that had to be arm twisted into taking over the Immortal Alliance not long ago is now making world altering decrees without bothering to get anyone else’s opinion on the matter. Guess finding out you’re a splinter of an Emperor subconsciously boosted his confidence or something.

So what happened to our second male lead and Villain #2? Where’s our crazy Xuyue?

Xuyue traps a pretty lady in a painting after tricking her into telling him where the Chaos Pearl is. Unfortunately he figures out the Chaos Pearl is the Saintess, his beloved obsession, at the same time Villain #2 does. So the honeymoon phase is over between these two enigmas and they are now are at odds about what to do next.

Ep 26.

We learn that Villain #2 is only pretty on the outside, as he has been extending his life through some evil magic that rots your inside like mud. The body can only take so much of this abuse before this method of life extension backfires and the person explodes (which just sounds horrific but honestly at least it’s quick – better than having all your rotted interiors leak out or something unspeakably foul like that – it could definitely be worse than a spontaneous goop combustion).

Anyways, the hot rot boy is pissed off about how unfair it is that there are other realms where people can live forever in perfect health and leisure while he’s stuck in the realm of short lifespans and suffering – and like… I get it. How infuriating. How unfair. His sole objective is to ascend to the Heavenly Realm and after you’ve lived as long as he has and done such horrible things to stay alive… I can see how doing a few more horrible things in order to gain true immortality is just another drop in the bucket for this dude.

Our White Knight, the Saintess, Xuyue, and Villain #2 work together to open up the Heavenly Realm – and there’s backstabbing and double crossing and noble sacrifices and mishaps galore.

The Saintess dies – causing both our White Knight and Xuyue to freak out and flee the scene in an attempt to revive her (it was shocking but also not close enough to the end of the drama to be taken seriously as a true “death” of a main character – this is a xianxia after all).

So our wounded Villain #2 is alone in hell when the entry between the worlds tears itself back open (and what a splendid special effect that was, too! amazing they managed such cool CGI for a show with a moderate budget). The Celestial Ladder reappears right as Villain #2 is dying and it’s the chance he’s been working towards for centuries – so naturally, he double crosses his own people, stealing their powers to gain enough strength to ascend the stairway to the Heavenly Realm at long last (though this truly was a heinous double-cross, we weren’t really given enough foundational screen time between Villain #2 and the spirit slave rebels to be overly torn up over it. I often wonder if this aspect of the drama was not cut out to keep the show from being 56 eps… and if it was cut out, it’s not a massive loss to the plot, just a minor inconvenience at best).

Plot Twist Time!

We are treated to some backstory on the Heavenly Realm and….

apparently the Heavenly Realm actually sucked.

We find out the heavenly immortals used their power to enslave humanity and demanded human sacrifices (of children no less)!

Only one man dared oppose them – risking everything to ascend to the Heaven Realm and try to stop the immortals – but unfortunately he failed and the only gateway between the two worlds was broken (we know what happened there, as the audience, as the Big Baddie Fallen Deity has already given us his backstory, kinda sorta, with the Chaos Pearl).

Villain #2, who was supposed to be sacrificed to the gods but escaped his fate due to this lone hero, swore to continue his mission and destroy the Heavenly Realm once and for all. He figures it’s only a matter of time before the immortals from the Heavenly Realm return to reign over humanity again and enslave them all… (good guess, actually).

But ya’ll. This was so unexpected.

Surprise the Heavenly Realm is full of evil people?

Surprise the Villain isn’t really a Villain? He was a child sacrifice demanded by the gods who happened to live? And the reason he wants to get to the Heavenly Realm isn’t to live forever but to make sure the Heavenly Realm is completely destroyed?

I mean yes he still murdered tons of people and is evil and currently completely rotted on the inside…

BUT STILL!!!

I was not expecting the “Heaven is full of vicious tyrants that must be killed” plot twist at all.

But that’s not the only plot twist!

Our Villain #2 climbs all the way up to heaven…

only to find it empty.

The Heavenly Realm is deserted.

His life long ambition is for nothing. Six thousand years wasted – doing all kinds of horrible things to his body to stay alight and for naught!

There’s not a divine immortal to be found anywhere.

But he does discover the Book of Destiny (which was an unbelievably cool special effect).

AND THERE’S YET ANOTHER PLOT TWIST.

The Book of Destiny reveals the divine clan was defeated by hero Villain #2 admired.

That that hero has the same face as the guy our Villain #2 has been trying to kill. The face of our White Knight. The face of our Fallen Deity.

The Book of Destiny reveals that before the immortals died they asked the Fate to save them… to turn good into evil and evil into good… and so it did.

The Book of Destiny altered reality. The hero turned into the monster – our Fallen Deity – and it was so absolute that even the man himself, our hero/Fallen Deity, believes the new reality and thinks he is evil.

The world is fake.

The legends are lies.

The story they know about how the current world was created is all a fabrication.

HOLY CHEESEBALLS.

My brain was falling off a cliff desperately trying to catch on to what was happening in this show.

Needless to say… Villain #2 is NOT HAPPY.

Ep 27

Sometimes you spend 10,000 years trying to get to heaven only to find it empty.

Sometimes the guy you tried to kill turns out to be the very guy you modeled your entire life around and sought to honor every single day.

Sometimes fate just makes a sad joke out of your life.

So you just gotta torch it.

Villain #2 sacrifices his life to activate a powerful array that completely destroys what’s left of the Heavenly Realm… so that not even the empty shell of their divine clan remains.

It was superb.

Meanwhile below in the realms of the living:

The Saintess is “dead.”

Our White Knight is alive but heartbroken.

Xuyue is mortally wounded and refuses to let his ever-loyal servant save him… but as his soul gives up the Book of Destiny flies down from the divine realm and merges with him… revealing his true identity.

Xuyue transforms into Fate. He is the second divine artifact.

The glow up! That deep V-neck!

Sir… there are horny viewers watching – what are you doing to us?!

_{gif by @lansjue – link}

The Divine Artifacts have costuming PERFECTION.

And Chaos Pearl is equally gorgeous in her divine artifact costume…

How can there be such beautiful people in existence? If they hadn’t killed God I might ask him to explain this injustice (ooops we aren’t there yet!).

Fate and Pearl have been companions since the dawn of creation. This explains Xuyue’s obsession with our Saintesss. Even if you’re living as a mortal in tribulation or whatever with no memory of your godhood, those eons are gonna haunt you. Oceans of time spent with just one other person. Eternal companions.

Sigh.

It’s even more romantic to me because it’s not a romance. They were created from the same cosmic source, to balance all things. To work in tandem. They are literally a matched set.

Anyways while Xuyue is being transformed back into Fate… our White Knight is back to work. Signing treaties, taking care of business. His lofty ambitions to unite the human and spirit clans, abolish slavery, and establish peace are realized. Geesh. Who needs the divine realm when you’ve got the White Knight answering all your prayers, eh?

After he’s got the whole realm sorted he pops off to wait one hundred years for a magical flower to bloom so he can see the Cyclic Deity and try to make some Faustian bargains to bring his Saintess back to life. Like a genie, the Cyclic Deity offers him some wishes.

His first wish… time travel.

Ep 28

The Cyclic Deity proves to be the worst salesman of time traveling of all time, warning that messing with time could cause catastrophic changes to the fabric of the universe and possibly tear his whole world apart. But our White Knight still buys in and risks it all – cause by this point he’s so in love he has become the exact thing that his father feared: someone who would sacrifice the many for one.

Our White Knight finds a few moments of true happiness and joy in his otherwise fruitless time traveling attempts to save his girlfriend’s life. There’s some chicken and eggs moments that are pretty cool thought experiments to ponder over. But alas… his adventures in time travel did not bring our Saintess back to life.

The Cyclic Deity then tells him if HE DIES then his soul will rejoin with the Fallen Deity and the chaos power will return to the Saintess/Pearl and bring her back to life. So of course our lovesick White Knight wastes no time whatsoever and promptly implodes himself to save her.

That’s right, our main character “dies” by his own hands to save his beloved – or rather, he merges back into his main body/self. I know, I know, it’s complicated.

Our Saintess instantly revives and knows what he has done. So… mission accomplished, White Knight.

And RIP, ya big handsome fool for love.

Of course he’s not quite dead. Now he’s just a nagging voice inside our Fallen Deity’s brain.

Our Big Baddie Fallen Deity has now regained his power since his soul is restored to 100%.

FALLEN DEITY IS NOW OUR MAIN MALE LEAD.

Fate shows up and whisks our revived Saintess back to his house. She still doesn’t remember her past as the Chaos Pearl and her powers are weak. She’s reeling from finding out her beloved is gone, absorbed by the Fallen Deity, and that her friend Xuyue is gone, absorbed by this new artifact person/thing, and she worries that she herself may soon be absorbed by either the Pearl girl the Fallen Deity was in love with or the Chaos Pearl that Fate knew. She’s not having a good time.

Fate doesn’t care one bit whether she’s on board to play house with him, though. He’s like Xuyue times 8,000. He doesn’t give a shit about anything, he just knows they are supposed to be together and so they will be together, damn it.

So he decides they should get married.

That’s how the humans do it and they’re in the human realm so this makes perfect sense to our man Fate. So what if his bride isn’t willing? What is free will to a guy who can rearrange reality?

Our Fallen Deity breaks out of his hell prison and assumes leadership of the Dark Domain.

He’s the new Demon Lord now and it’s a very, very good look on him.

I think Jane Austen said all men look better once they’ve gone evil. Or some horny freak on Tumblr said it. One or the other.

The character upgrade expansion pack was totally unexpected but also who can be mad about it?

As much as I loved Xuyue and our White Knight Xuechen, those dudes are GONE. Absorbed into a bigger entities. Sexier entities.

And that’s where we are now.

With a whole new/old/ancient cast, new/old/ancient problems, new/old/ancient stories to dive into, and tons of new/old/ancient drama to unfold. The last ten episodes will bring the past, the present, and the future together for the three main characters – as well as some looped storylines with supporting cast.

We have entered NEW POSTER ERA. Featuring a Divine Emperor / Demon Lord and a Pearl Girl.

And our new story line opens with a forced marriage.

The wedding between Fate & Pearl is one of my favorite things in the history of cdramas.

She openly hates him and doesn’t want to do it. He’s so nonplussed about everything it’s almost comedic, shrugging his shoulders when she’s cursing him, saying “you’ve hated me for a long time you just don’t remember.”

He lets her wear mourning black and shows up in equally goth grays.

They don’t bow to heaven and earth cause they are heaven and earth.

They don’t bow to their parents because they have none.

They only bow to each other.

And then she stabs him straight in the heart with a dagger and he just smiles pathetically and tells her he knew the marriage wouldn’t work cause he was destined to have nothing but he still wanted to try it anyway. Then he grabs her hand and plunges the knife in deeper.

Like… sir, you are a bafflingly complex creature. And I could not love you more.

Despite it all, you can feel the weird genre-defying connection between them. Whatever they are it defies traditional categories. But they are a “they.”

Unfortunately for Fate, however, Pearl is also an “us” with her man White Knight Xie Xuechen / Demon Lord Fallen Deity guy. And even in their current states (Pearl not remembering the vast majority of her life and the Demon Lord remembering it all but also remembering things wrong) – you can tell they are a bonded couple. Lovers. Soulmates. They are a “we” and there is no room for Fate between them.

The look on Fate’s face when he crashed their wedding…

THIS BISH.

Seeing our Demon Lord outside in natural lighting was just an excuse to show off the new hair, am I right? He’s like… I don’t think you fully appreciated my splendor in the Dark Realm so I thought I’d crash your wedding so you could behold my look in sunlight.

Purple is his color!

This actor looks best when he’s grinning or sneering. And he’s nothing but smug sneering in his current incarnation.

Demon Lords in cdramas! They always give us what we want.

Xuyue and his servant were already a fascinating team, but once Fate takes over Feng Yao is even sassier. She was kinder to Xuyue, there was a soft pity and caretaking aspect to her relationship with him. But Fate? Now that her boss is a celestial deity, she’s more openly critical. There is an edge of annoyance in her voice and the frustration of dealing with this contrary creature is more obvious.

Despite this, Fate is just as happy to stand around and chat with her as Xuyue was. Like calls to like, I suppose. He’s very patient with her, too. You can tell he actually wants her to understand him – though can anyone ever grasp this guy’s ancient mind? Still, he’s trying… attempting to describe the unfathomable reality of his long lifespan to her, what it was like to be with just one person for thousands of years and more how their absence has caused him to suffer an unimaginable loneliness. He’s like a divorcee who just isn’t comfortable in his own home by himself.

Feng Yao, practical as always, asks why he doesn’t just alter Pearl’s fate and make her love him. I’m ashamed this simple solution never crossed my mind at all. But Fate explains that even he has limitations. That in fact he and Pearl are just the puppets of a being from another world.

Enter… Vast Heaven. The god behind our gods.

Seriously how can this show keep leveling up like this?!

This entity known as Vast Heaven has complete power over Fate and Pearl, controlling them or punishing them at will. We discover Fate has been undergoing some sort of punishment for hundreds of years already… but what we won’t find out exactly what punishment or why until a bit later.

Ah, the layers of power and control in this show are crazy!

We also discover there was a civil war in the heavenly realm and the “bad” divine immortals slaughtered the “good” divine immortals. This caused a huge break between the realms and threatened to destroy both worlds (the heavenly realm and the human realm). In order to restore this massive crack between realities, the Chaos Pearl had to use up all her energy… and fell to the human world.

So that’s how she ended up with the humans.

Fate is pissed off that the warring immortals caused Pearl to be injured and fall out of heaven, so he sends half of his soul to the human world to be with Pearl and with the other half changes into the book of fate.

So that’s how Fate split up into two people.

As retribution against the heavenly immortalities, Fate creates a prophecy that states a Divine Child will be born and all deities will fall. The surviving heavenly immortals were none too keen on this prophecy and asked Fate to further elaborate but got the silent treatment instead.

So this is why the heavenly immortals were always trying to interfere with humans and kept wanting child sacrifices – they did not want to die because of this Divine Child. They rule over the human realm with fear, insisting their demands be met in order for the humans to be spared disasters (which they cause). The ultimate straw man fallacy.

In the human realm, Fate finds Pearl (now healing in her primordial form) and takes her to the Emperor’s palace to recover, since it has a lot of good vibes or whatever. And Emperor Zhao Ming finds her in glowing sphere form and just pops her into his pocket.

So that’s how The Emperor / Fallen Deity met Pearl – ironically because Fate left her in his koi pond.

With a bit of the Emperor’s blood and spiritual power, Pearl gets a human form. She’s got zero memories of her millennia with Fate and instead has imprinted on the Emperor like a baby duck.

Though Fate seems a little disturbed by her faulty memory, he is happy to see her happy as a human. We learn they could not experience the senses as divine artifacts. They couldn’t see colors, taste things, smell things, or feel emotions. This was something that always irked Pearl in the heavens and never seemed to bother Fate at all. As humans they can now taste all these forbidden fruits – and once again this matters more to Pearl than it does for Fate.

The romance between Pearl and the Emperor has a totally different vibe than the romance between our White Knight and the Saintess.

Pearl is an innocent, learning the world and its various contradictions, while the Emperor is a man burdened with the enormous duty of ruling the entire realm (the karmic cycle of paperwork with this guy is strong!). She is something he wants only to protect and love.

Which is exactly what Pearl wants as well: to experience love and protect the one in her heart at all costs. Including her life (sounds familiar, eh? Like a White Knight sacrificing himself for his Saintess? do we sense a theme???).

They are so sweet and I love this story line.

He’s just so obviously smitten with her and he doesn’t care who knows.

He’s grinning like a fool, holding her in his arms in front of his entire army.

Pearl and the Emperor stole my heart away.

Unfortunately for these lovers, god is not a fan of the romance genre. The Vast Heavens warn Fate that they will destroy Pearl entirely if she continues to develop emotions.

Ironically, it’s the possibility of being alone for all eternity without his partner that triggers all of Fate’s buried emotions. He already rebelled against the Vast Heavens to save her once. For the sake of Pearl, he would break Vast Heavens rules as well as his own. He’ll lie, cheat, and steal if need be. Whatever means necessary as long as it keeps Pearl alive.

Frustrated by the rebellion in the Divine Realm, by Pearl’s human form falling in love, and by Fate’s human form scheming against the Vast Heavens to save her – god decides it has had it with all the bs in the realms.

So Vast Heaven says it’s gonna use the Emperor, a perfect being, to descend and take over everything personally.

But Fate has his own ideas.

The Emperor doesn’t know anything about Vast Heaven or Fate and Pearl’s divine artifact status. He only knows the immortals in the Heavenly Realm are demanding child sacrifices and he’s tired of giving in these monsters in the sky.

Our purest of pure boys marches right up to the heavens and openly defies them. He succeeds in ascending to heaven and puts his newly acquired sword to good use slaughtering every immortal he comes across.

If the gods are evil they must be destroyed.

But the gods who escape him beg Fate to intervene – and so he does (as we know from when cutie Villain #2 went to Heaven a few episodes ago and found it empty).

Fate turns the Emperor into a Demon, altering his story, and imprisoning him for hundreds of year.

We learn that before the Emperor is tossed into hell he breaks up his divine apertures and scatters them to the human realm – giving humans and spirits the ability to cultivate divine power – his last good deed before succumbing to forces beyond his understanding that twists his mind and memories.

Learning of her dear lovers fate, our innocent Pearl is triggered back into her divinity. She ascends to the Heavenly Realm as the Chaos Pearl. Where she proceeded to slaughter the remaining immortals who dared ruin her boyfriend!

So it wasn’t just the Emperor who killed all the immortals in Heaven, it was also our girl Pearly!

The few that survive she punishes by tossing them into hell too and turning them into demons.

So that’s how we ended up with those endlessly reincarnating Dark Abyss demons.

She creates the Cyclic Deity to manage time on her behalf.

And then she throws herself into the human realm to be reborn yet again.

Fate, left behind, faces punishment from the Vast Heavens – who curses him to live many lives but never a happy life – that no matter how many people he may love they will all abandon him. Over and over. For ten thousand years. Which is indeed a severe punishment.

These people DO NOT PLAY when it comes to horrible punishments.

And so even though he had no memory of being Fate, in every lifetime he felt he was searching for something – missing something – dreaming of something or someone just out of reach (Pearl, whom he loved and who also abandoned him – but he never gave up on her).

_{gifs by @cdramastuff – link}

In these ten thousand years, I have lived many lives. An emperor, a general, a scholar, a performer, a beggar… lowly, noble… too many to count, and too many to remember. But in each life, I vaguely remembered that I needed to look for something. It felt like an item, but it could also be a person. It wasn’t until this life as Nan Xuyue that I finally understood. What I was searching for… was you.

How achingly beautiful.

And immensely tragic.

It explains a lot, really, about Fate… who now retains all the memories of these lives. All this terrible human sadness and loneliness and enless disappointment… now wrapped around his celestial indifference like clothes that don’t fit him. He can remember it but he still can’t exactly feel it. There’s a special horror to that.

I would like to state for the record that not only did I love the complexity of Fate, the character, but I was also thoroughly smitten his interior divine form, the book of Destiny. Specifically the special effects for this book. Every time they rolled out that scroll and it filled up the whole room, I was also in heaven! And later, when we started getting “full view” of the scroll… first with Pearl and then with the Demon Lord… that full cosmic roll out version or whatever this is…

Absolutely amazing. That’s such a fantastic special effects design. Simple but completely breathtaking.

The Demon Lord is a force of nature, his existence an anomaly. He was divine at birth, in life, and in hell. Even a scrap of his soul lived a righteous and pure life. As Fate says, he is connected to the Vast Heavens. And I really like that this show was not dismissive of the Demon Lord, who had lived the longest of the three versions and had the full memories of both.

Side note: when the Demon Lord and Saintess go on their hike back to doomed lotus mountain… we all totally fell in love with the smirking Demon Lord, right? Like any lingering doubts were pretty much wiped out when he just snatched that lotus immediately and handed it over to Saintess

Also can we just take a moment to appreciate our Saintess and her amazing, practical hiking apparel? I’m glad she had a costume change before going camping cause I was quite concerned for her comfort.

Fate tries to imprison the Demon Lord in a dream painting. He must have felt a tad guilty about locking him up in a thorn bush before, cause this prison had a dream version of Pearl who was eager to whisk him away to wedded bliss. Of course the Demon Lord does not want a substitute Pearl… though he did indulge in this fantasy a tad longer than necessary and yeah… I feel for ya, Demon Lord.

They all come back together on snow mountain and Fate’s final trap does south. Vast Heaven shows up and traps Fate, punishing him and threatening him. And he’s just all pitiful and accepting of it without fighting back…

Until his servant bestie stands up and says “I’m taking him home.”

And viewers… I died.

The one to break through Fate’s heart and unseal his emotions was his servant. The only one in his entire life who did not abandon him. She could have. Repeatedly. But she did not. Even when he was no longer her master. Even when he transformed into a divine entity. Through all his transformations she was at his side. Just like Pearl has been with her man through all his transformations. But unlike the other couple, Fate and his servant are not a romantic couple.

They care for each other. And it is enough for her to defy Vast Heaven to try to bring him home.

She stands up to god for him! Diva!

Her human body is pelted by divine retribution and she does not turn back. And watching her do so is enough to free a divine artifact from his divine creator entirely. It’s not enough to just keep the Vast Heavens from descending, Fate now knows the Vast Heavens must be destroyed.

The mind an ancient creature cracks open to new understanding – like an epiphany, like reaching a final level of cultivation. He finally comprehends the nature of love – that it is a complex thing that can not be contained in words. Like beauty, it based on emotions. On the eye of the beholder. And through this revelation the black and white world transforms into full color for him.

Like wtf. If you did not cry your eyes out over this then you are made of different materials than I.

The Demon Lord finds out his memories are fake. That his love never betrayed him. He’s so disturbed and relieved and disturbed some more. He literally locks himself in his room for a little while to process it all.

At the end, Fate and the Demon Lord sit down for a game of chess in Hell. These nerds. I love it.

Fate tells him that he sealed him in a prison for 10,000 years to keep Vast Heaven from possessing him and destroying the world.

And then he just casually shares how he got sucked outside of their known universe and saw how everything they knew was just like a painting, controlled and contained… and how he often wonders if there isn’t a heaven behind heaven…

FUCK. Just… never a dull moment with this dude; eh?

And I love that even the demon lord looks horrified by what he’s saying so nonchalantly.

In the end, killing the heavenly immortals wasn’t enough. You gotta get the top of the pyramid. So it’s a battle against the Vast Heavens and I confess I had more fun watching these people take down god on screen than any sports fan watching their team win the Super Bowl.

There is a scene in which the cast is split up, each talking to different versions of themselves. One version explaining what’s happened in the 10,000 years between them while the other attempts to wrap their mind around it. Pearl is heartbroken. The Divine Emperor is guilty someone else had to bear what he sees as his responsibility. And Fate… just sees himself but there is so much unspoken between them, the few words they share like a secret code they instantly understand. And we will understand soon enough.

In the final showdown, it’s the Divine Emperor vs the Demon Lord – both possessed by Vast Heaven – caught in a time warp between past and future – with their respective girlies behind them.

They work together and kill god. I mean… wow.

The Divine Emperor does not survive it though… and so the Demon Lord has to take his place… and relive his own past… literally walking right back into the day he ascended to heaven and was cursed for 10,000 years. And he has to do it again. Willingly. To keep the time loop stable and ensure the Vast Heaven stays dead.

Ya’ll… I can not imagine facing down another stint in solitary confinement for 10,000 years! But he does it. Because of course he does it. Because despite his demonic mind and dark thoughts, he’s still a hero. And what has this whole show been teaching us? That everyone has dark thoughts – every living person – and that does not mean you will allow evil to take root and grow there. It is just a nature part of life, this balance. Who you are is defined by what you do. And so he accepts this insane torment a second time…

I got chills over this entire sequence of events.

Fate sacrifices himself not once, but twice.

Once for Pearl…

the second time for humanity in general.

And so time loops around again or goes back into place or whatever – and we end up with our Emperor / Fallen Deity / White Knight hybrid with our Pearl / Saintess hybrid living happily ever after.

The end.

Oh my god.

What a deeply satisfying xianxia drama. It’s so freaking good! I’ll never stop loving this drama!

And it nailed the ending too!

Sigh.

… what? You’re still here?

Whoever you are… you must have loved this show as much as I did to read all this.

We are best friends now.

I don’t make the rules, bestie. Take your half of the necklace and I’ll see you on tumblr.