Absolutely loooove the drama adaptation starring Deng Wei as Su Yishui!!
Don’t get me wrong.
This was literally the first Cdrama project I actually ‘followed’ from conception to delivery!
I read the novel. I translated the novel.
I followed Deng Wei’s daily 3 second walks to work from late Oct to Feb 2024.
I watched the drama on both iQIYI CN and global sites.
The ‘participation’ value of this drama is most likely irreplaceable in any future projects, of any actors ( even Deng Wei himself lol ) .

BUT nothing is perfect and I want to delve into the parts that was changed in the drama from the novel that I personally as a viewer did not like.
Whether you feel the same or differently, let me know in comments!
What was done better? What was made worse?

SPOILERS ARE IN THIS POST.
I am comparing the novel and the drama so if you have not read or watched the drama and you mind spoilers, please do not go any further.

So what bothered me? Actually quite a few things.
Do keep in mind that certain things are bound to change for adaptation to screen.
I will try to rein in my ranting and not be too negative lol

Kicking off, ranked by how much they bothered me, here is the first.

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Changes made to Xue Ranran

Xue Ranran is now an orphan.

Out of every other change, I disliked this THE MOST.
From the day I read the cast list anxiously, I was bothered that there was no other person with the surname Xue.
From the day the trailer dropped and Xue Ranran said “I have no home.”
My heart sank.

What I loved most in the novel was that Su Yishui had personally watched over Ranran like her secret guardian over the years. He made sure when she was forced off the tree too soon, that she would be found by a loving childless couple who even though were not well-off, treated Ranran like their very own.

He had no direct contact with her, until her health deteriorated and her parents sought the help of the Divine Doctor Su Yishui ( we were so robbed ) to save her life.
No one can accuse him of grooming his Shifu into his disciple.

The whole splitting of ‘consciousness’ to watch over her as a twig bracelet, was meant to ‘cripple’ Su Yishui’s ability to seal the Spirit Spring later in the story.
It seems to have been added so that Ranran can ‘save’ Su Yishui with her own ‘sacrifice’. ( this has its own section further down below )

Ranran being attracted to Su Yishui because he was the ‘only one who was so nice to her’ did not sit very well with me. This was why in the novel, her having parents was great, because she was not someone who did not know love and how it feels to be cherished.

But have no fear! Ranran fell for Su Yishui anyway, because she was bound to, by destiny, by fate, because it was in her ‘coding’ to love him – becos he’s just her beautiful cup of tea!

Case in point, Ranran thought he was attractive even when she thought he was planning to ‘eat’ her for his own cultivation. Her sense of aesthetics remained the same in both lives.

Turns out the version Xue Ranran initially fell for is the mature edition of Su Yishui – this part was consistent in the drama. But she did ‘get’ who Su Yishui was – cold, ferocious. Its not as if she fell for a warm fuzzy bear version of him.

The glimpses she got of a soft fluffy marshmellow was enough.

I suppose at least we got to see that Ranran, even though she was all alone in the world, was not afraid to ‘leave’ Su Yishui, even if she didn’t have a backup home and loving parents to run back to.
She was all ready to ‘leave’ him when she was angry with him for being in love with the fake Mu Qingge.

Where did she get her confidence that she would surely win though lol
In the novel, when Ranran went to the Trials, she only had the idea of just enjoying herself and seeing more of the cultivation world.
She knew her powers were weak. She basically packed BBQ and wine for a school excursion.

In the drama, hilariously, her Shifu beat her to it. Leaving.

Her ‘Formless’ Spirit Root

The ‘Formless Spirit Root’ is one of the most ridiculous plot device in the drama for me.
First this Spirit Root concept has been introduced in the drama only, it does not exist in the novel. Why it exists looks to me like the writer’s way to cheat in the story.

Mu Qingge had the rare Five Spirit Roots. Mu Ranwu stole it with the Soul Devouring lock.

In the novel, Mu Ranwu stole her ‘charmed life’, from my understanding its like stealing her cultivation, her 八字 eg the good things that happen to her thanks to the auspicious hour of her birth, but not the alchemy talent which apparently is not power based.
This at least makes sense since Alchemy is a studied skill.

However this made me wonder, what ‘power’ did Mu Ranwu steal anyway?
By the time Mu Qingge died, in the drama she had no more golden core ( she still had it in the novel ) and she was pretty much drained without much spirit power left.

They changed the Master who took them in, but the other details remained the same. Mu Ranwu had always felt a crippling sense of being in her sister’s shadow.

This transfer was supposedly a one-time thing.
Their names had been written on the Jade and that was why Ran 冉 from Ranwu was burnt into Mu Qingge’s hand where her sister had pressed the jade to. This was where she got her name from Ranran.

Drama changed this to that cherry blossom mark on her face to show who is the ‘real’ Mu Qingge.

From here on, everything feels confusing in the drama when it came to this for me.

The drama version of the Soul Devouring Lock seems to be defined as a constant ‘Lock’ of a shared fixed reservoir of spiritual power – which already made no sense to me. Yes I know, why am I looking for logic in a fantasy drama? But logic can and should exist. Xianxia doesn’t give it a free pass to be nonsensical. Why would this happen?

Both women were cultivating separately on their own, so why would the sum of their cultivation of spiritual power be only drawn from one another, especially when they both had great cultivation spots to harness the powers of nature from?

Cultivation Stages | Love of the Divine Tree

It would seem that every time Ranran levelled up, would cause Mu Ranwu to fall from her level? By being locked together, they can only hold one load of power even if there is two of them constantly cultivating and adding to the reservoir? This does not compute well for me. How does it make sense that the combined ‘data plan’ is not enough to sustain eg formation of two golden cores for two seperate bodies? The rules of this shared ‘data plan’ is too confusing.

And now, Five Spirit Roots is extremely rare, but apparently Xue Ranran now has another type of even more rare status, called ‘Formless Spirit Root’.

Yet this state seemed useless.

After Su Yishui and Zeng Yi stole one root in their Spirit Root Heist, only then could Ranran start to begin her own cultivation.

Basically its like she paid her great sacrifice for Su Yishui with this great rare ‘nothingness’ created for this sole purpose, and her sacrifice will be negated by the end when Mu Ranwu returns her all her powers.

Facing the spell of Dun Tian’s demonized wife ( also not in the novel ) forced the cowardly Mu Ranwu to break their lock and finally give up what she stole. How convenient that the spell attacks the ones with the stronger spiritual powers.

Mu Ranwu now became a sad patsy who was holding Mu Qingge/Ranran’s spirit powers for her, so that she can ‘pay’ for her sacrifice for the completion of Su Yishui’s soul with literally a rare ‘nothing’.

What is even stranger was, Mu Ranwu had steadily been falling down the stages of her cultivation as Ranran had levelled up. She had fallen to the early stage of golden core but all of a sudden, when she returned the powers, its back to a full tank? This would save Ranran the time she didn’t have, because there was not much time to cultivate to a higher level for the final battle that was coming.

If Mu Qingge potentially had her cultivation and Spirit Power at the Transcendence Stage in the beginning. Mu Ranwu stole her Five Spirit Root, but what else did she manage to steal? She was on the tree for 18 years, so I suppose she was cultivating during the time as well.

However if the drama wanted to keep showing this ‘tug of war’ between the sisters, the loss of Spirit Power from both sides has to be accounted for right?
How can Mu Ranwu return something to her which she no longer possessed? Was Mu Ranwu in fact, at the Transendence Stage herself? But what we saw in the drama was unsuccessful cultivation attempts, so I am not sure how far along she got. If she was ready to ascend, why was she so desperate for Dun Tian to ‘take her to a better world’?

Granted, I suppose Mu Ranwu was not reborn at the Transcendence Stage because Mu Qingge was still ‘alive’ and Ranran probably have had been sharing some kind of reserve spirit power.

No explanation why its incomplete either. Maybe the ‘formless’ part didn’t make it over?

Also, looks like Mu Ranwu’s body was never meant to be able to handle that much power anyway?
Why would she puke blood just because Ranran used the ‘Break the Galaxy’ attack?
Is her cultivation not able to even handle expending that amount of energy?

Where did all the cultivation go? Looks like its expended everytime someone uses an attack or levels up?

I am starting to think of Mu Qingge used to be like an awesome phone.
Xue Ranran being reborn too soon, was a normal phone, with her data plan stolen by her sister.

At first, she kept using Mu Ranwu’s spiritual powers because her own cultivation was not enough, and later when she could no longer store spiritual powers after she sacrificed that Formless Spirit Roots, she took spiritual power from tethering to Su Yishui’s special open hot-spot for her. lool

In the novel, it was true that Xue Ranran was kind of a data guzzler.
Due to her body’s weak constitution, I think the character set up was she was not able to store vitality/spirit power. So she was like a ‘bottomless pit’.

Su Yishui’s main goal was for her to level up, ascend and leave this damaged and weak body behind so she can live. I am a little fuzzy on the novel details but I think she only got better after Su Yishui continued to cultivate with her during his amnesia arc on their romantic boat not-honeymoon.

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Changes made to Su Yishui

Su Yishui’s great sacrifice was ‘downgraded’.

In the novel, there was a huge reveal in the end.

How was Su Yishui so OP? How did he fight a demonized fallen immortal with half a golden core?
The answer was, he was already an immortal himself!!

Su Yishui had powered up enough to ascend when he took the Demon Spring and what he gave up to reincarnate Mu Qingge ( and Mu Ranwu ) was not just a normal golden core, but half of – wait for it – an immortal’s core.

Not only any immortal. A Demonic Immortal. Not seen in thousands of years. Interestingly, when the Imperial Emperor ( Su Yishui’s original identity ) went down to earth to bear the tribulation for the masses against his will, his ambition was to do something never seen or done before.

He did succeed, even though he had forgotten about it.

The point was, Su Yishui practically gave up immortality for a chance for Mu Qinnge to live again.
In the drama, they also made it ‘close’. Su Yishui had been on the cusp to ascend. Mu Qingge expected him to seal the Demon Spring and then ascend, leaving all these troubles behind.

I don’t know if the drama didn’t know how to resolve his status as a demonic immortal who cannot ascend, but the drama also invented the concept that the core can be ‘repaired’ and made whole again.

In the novel, a broken core meant Su Yishui could never repair it and had no chance to return to Heaven, which they resolved using another ‘cheat method’ by having his current body destroyed by lightning trials, and he himself reborn again with the Divine Tree. ( I am quite sore this last arc didn’t happen)

The whole arc about how Xue Ranran went to the Netherworld to collect the fragments of Mu Qingge’s golden core to save Su Yishui, was also very strange to me. Suddenly they can recycle old golden cores and do transplants?

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Su Yishui’s mother issues

In the novel, Su Yishui had been engaged to Wen Hongshan.

And it was because, his mother really liked her.

Wen Hongshan had tried to find a cure for her when she fell very ill. And since he had a loving relationship with his mother, even though they had been poor when he was young, he did not want to go against her wishes.

In the drama, his mother made him believe she no longer loved him ‘for his own good’ and instead gave him a complex, making him feel like an unwanted child all his life.

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Su Yishui is not the Divine Doctor Su 苏神医

In the novel, Su Yishui did not have to be in seclusion for 18 ( novel 20 years ), he had made quite a name for himself as the Divine Doctor Su.

I suspect he studied medicine so that he can be ready for whatever condition Mu Qingge may return with, because nobody can know for certain what kind of side effects being reborn from a tree would be.

Drama chose to allude to some random things about Su Yishui’s medical skills but that was it.

The centipede blood is funny but this won’t have been accurate.
The doctor Su Yishui would have known the properties of that and refused the medicine.
Or they could have made him know what it will do and drink it anyway so not to hurt her feelings hehe

So even Mu Ranwu who just returned knows these skills of Su Yishui.
Was he already good at medicine in the past?

He did make scar removing cream for Mu Qingge even as a teenager.

Leading in to the next part, can you imagine what a killing Dr Su can make?
Scar removing creams? hahahahah

Let’s not forget, his Divine Surgical Skills.

Su Yishui can stimulate the 灵台 spirit/soul/psyche, helping Zeng Yi to execute the dangerous Spirit Root transplant haha
灵台 should not have been translated directly as heart but there is no clear word in English to describe it.

Su Yishui became Su Solo

In the drama, Su Yishui tried to go it alone in everything, compared to the novel Su Yishui, who in comparison, seemed way more ‘fun’ and ‘laid back’. Cocky even.

I actually don’t disagree with the decision to go this way.

Considering this ( whispers: multiverse) version of Su Yishui does not have an immortal’s half core and is suffering from stress over constantly freezing over when his feelings for Qingge/Ranran are stirred ( think the Hulk trying to get his BP down so he won’t change lol ), it does make alot of sense that he was not going to bring Ranran along with him into dangerous situations.

I liked how the writing steered back to Su Yishui with his disciples at the Locust Forest just like how the novel was written. Its great how they started at a different point but went back to the same story path.

In the novel, Su Yishui was very confident though. His trap for Wei Jiu was intricately set, and he needed Ranran’s ‘wood elemental powers’ to let the vines grow quickly in a week’s time. I kind of miss that detail for Ranran and the hint of her Wood elemental powers, being linked to the Rebirth tree.

The novel Su Yishui brought his little disciples with him to Wangxian Pass for some experience in hunting demons. He prepared some green paper lotus leaves for Ranran in times of need and stood by to take over the fight.

The drama version he ‘ran off’ with General Qin to avoid Ranran, but thanks to someone who sneakily brought the gang back together again with his plan.
But this Shifu also prepared something to save his disciples in their time of need – by infusing his spirit power into the cherry blossom branch.

But novel Su Yishui did regret bringing Ranran and the others to the Capital when he went to retrieve the borrowed book from Su Yu.

Mu Qingge’s last words

I feel that Mu Qingge’s parting words to Su Yishui also led to this solo behavior and added to his sense of guilt.

Not to put blame on the dead, but what kind of cold and bitter words are these?

To be honest, I am not a fan of these displays of ‘tough love’.

I wonder if they ruined Su Yishui’s relationship with his mother as a means to make it look like Mu Qingge is not the only woman in his life guilty of hurting him ‘for his own good.’

For eternity? What a punch in the gut to an already distraught person.
What real wrong did Su Yishui do? Its not like Mu Qingge made the best choices either ( drama ver)

I get that she was trying to dissuade him from trying to bring her back – nobody even knew that was possible, so isn’t it better to part with better ‘last’ words? Surely she could have said something better than ‘Do your homework I gave you + I never want to see you again. EVER.’

We can say she was trying to sound harsh so he will ‘listen’ and focus on whatever task she had given him, but this again shows, Mu Qingge doesn’t really know Su Yishui.
How was Su Yishui supposed to leave things as they were?

This is why I preferred the Mu Qingge in the novel, she was at least more gentle towards him, actually helping him to remove the Spirit Spring willingly, instead of this steely person who hurts him over and over ‘for his own good’

Being told that she never wanted to see him again, what else could Su Yishui have done?
Especially when she had been slowly recovering more and more of her memories.

Contrast this to Mu Qingge’s last thoughts right before she died in the novel, was a loving one for Su Yishui even when she had misunderstood his feelings towards herself…

Would Su Yishui still have brought her back? He obviously did in the novel.
Was it any less sweet? I think not hehe He also felt guilt towards her so the angst was still there…
So which version do you prefer?

The Curse 刺面焚心咒

Sorry but what was that reaction loool

In the novel, Mu Qingge’s motivation for casting the curse was done to ‘protect her handsome Shui’ while she was dying, not as a cover for a silencing spell.

While the drama version explained as Mu Qingge preventing the two of them to say the truth, Su Yishui and Zeng Yi could not ‘clear her name’.

I was also quite disappointed that the ‘Face Melting Curse’ only made Su Yishui more beautiful.
HAHA
Seriously are we supposed to think some face tattoos diminished his beauty?
Where was the blurry features that hid his handsome features?
Where was the scary effect that made people avert their eyes?

The body lines.
This was an effect that was supposed to happen later in the story, after Su Yishui started carrying the bottle of Spirit Spring and its influence was seen as lines crawling up his body towards his neck.
I suppose the drama decided to combine both, because body make up was time consuming but honestly it made no sense to combine the face curse with the body one.

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Su Yishui is very wealthy on his own

The drama changed the renovations of Lingxi Palace and made it Su Yishui’s designs and payment, so that Su Yu was not the one who built their ‘home’. I liked this change.

In the novel, Su Yishui worked very hard to amass his own wealth, and since he was never officially registered as his father’s son, when his father’s assets were confiscated after the failed coup, his assets were not affected.

The reason for this was simple and very adorable.
Su Yishui knew Mu Qingge had no concept of money, so instead of scolding her for being a spendthrift, he prepared alot of 老婆本 money to support his future wife.

Also, Zeng Yi was a very business savvy CFO, not just a finger-shaking figure that ran about.

In the novel, Su Yishui made contact with an old Eunuch from the Palace whom he was friends with in the past. The drama added this part, which was strange to me. I kept wondering if this loyal servant is not yet another version of Dun Tian.

Why would a servant not make off with the secret fortune of Prince Ping and loyally waited for Su Yishui to return? Are we supposed to believe Prince Ping left him that money? HAH

Too bad Su Yishui didn’t say, I don’t need his dirty money.

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And so Su Yishui’s half-core status is set ‘back on track’ after he over-exerted himself when he saved his disciples from being killed at Tian Mai Mountain, and finally ‘reset’ to a state where he won’t freeze over if he tries to kiss her anymore.

While Su Yishui looked very cool and impressive but he overloaded his core.

So, RESET.

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Did Xue Ranran save Su Yishui a few too many times?

In both the novel and the drama, Ranran was sickly due to her poor health, and needed Su Yishui to ‘top up her tank’ very often.
Ranran was ‘born prematurely’ so she could not hold spirit power. When she realized that Su Yishui had been keeping her alive by constantly ‘fueling’ her up, she was very touched by his actions but also angry with him for risking his own life to save hers.
This caused quite a few hilarious quarrels.

After her rebirth, Su Yishui is now the protector role, who will shield her from pain to the best of his abilities.

He takes on her lightning tribulations.

Always ready to lend her a shoulder.

Su Yishui, always the dependable Shifu.

Even when Su Yishui had amnesia, he would still put his own life on the line by instinct.

So don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to seeing Ranran reciprocate to all his ‘giving’.

I definitely have no issues with a more balanced relationship, where its not just one-sided ‘saving’ all the time.

How cute is this?!!

This was OOC. Su Yishui would never.

So I get it that the story plot needs to see some changes for such reciprocating opportunities to occur. My main problem with it was, sometimes the writing was too deliberate and felt forced in.

In the drama they used this ‘broken soul’ link to Mu Ranwu, and later the loss of her Formless Spirit Root to show why she was like a bottomless pit that Su Yishui needed to constantly pour his cultivated spirit power into, just to keep her alive. However, later in the drama, Ranran was able to ‘draw on the spirit energies from nature’ and was still be able to fight against Dun Tian, but by drawing on Su Yishui’s power.

Honestly I didn’t agree with her whole ‘I need to go to the Netherworld with you‘ logic. She was going to use his power when he needed it the most, so she will end up being a burden more than actual help? Of course I also understand she cannot wait in the mortal realm and let him go alone in that dangerous mission, while she waits in the mortal realm waiting for news.

In the novel, Su Yishui never needed Ranran to save his life by giving him the chance to seal the spirit spring without sacrificing his own body as a seal, by returning his strand of consciousness since he never had to ‘split’ anything in the first place.
There was no need for her huge ( negated ) sacrifice to use the ‘Formless spirit root’ to carry out this repair.

Su Yishui was the one who fought Dun Tian in the final battle using the sealed away powers of his half an immortal core, going head to head with the fallen immortal. His fate was to perish together with Dun Tian since they were evenly matched, but Ranran changed that fate by joining in, toppling the scale towards the good guys.

Su Yishui also does his best to let Ranran have peace of mind about her mysterious past.
Even though he was torn up that she did not remember anything, he selflessly wanted her to be free of the burdens from her past life.

To demonstrate that Ranran is not only taking from Su Yishui, but she was also willing to give him her everything.
Both of them would take turns offering each other solace and words of comfort.

Su Yishui even had a misunderstanding with his mother which Ranran was the one to resolve, by convincing him to see what his mother had left him.

In the novel, Su Yishui did often tend to defer to Ranran’s opinions, such as how she felt he was too harsh in dealing with Bai Baishan.
The drama kept this consistent.

Not only does Ranran ‘save’ Su Yishui, she also saves him in his subconscious.
Again, this only came about due to the addition of the Ice Lotus technique.

This scene is so beautiful I really didn’t mind!

This sacrifice to restore Ling Xiao should have had a bigger impact, but they made Ranran say these lines in the front, which for me, discounted the value of her action.

Would she have done the same thing for Ling Xiao’s owner, even if it was not Su Yishui?

I think she’s just lying to herself hahahah
She treats Su Yishui different!

First off, the Xuan Tian ( used to be Fan Tian ) ‘Teachings’ was actually ancient text written by the demonic cult of the Demon Lord.
In the novel, all it would show to them was how to find an alternate way into the Netherworld outside of the three years – which was to find a place where there had been alot of bloodshed and negative energy. Drama version also used the same battlefield – Fanyao Battlegrounds.
Strange flowers would bloom and the Netherworld would open.

The drama writing needed to ‘fix’ the non-existent problem they built into the drama from somewhere, so the answer to this was also in that all-purpose book.

This also resets Xue Ranran back to the original state in the novel because there was no such mention of Formless Spirit Root at all.

Okay I minded this one.
When Ranran realized Su Yishui was planning to prepare another war ( this was not in the novel even though it was true that he recruited some sons from prominent families as his new disciples ).
Is it just me but here Ranran started to feel like she is too preachy.

Actually she is not like this only to Su Yishui but also in her interactions with Su Yu and Mu Ranwu.

Sure, she is now more like Mu Qingge to the ‘teenage’ Su Yishui now that he’s got amnesia, but these kind of moral lessons just feels off since Ranran is not that much older.

The sudden onslaught of advice pouring out from a ‘very wise’ Ranran just feels a bit annoying at times. lol Is it just me?

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The Mystery of Mu Qingge’s golden core

Sorry but this was so whack.
The novel’s final battle build up was admittedly very simplistic, so I understand it was necessary to add more complications to the story.

Maybe they really trying for like Su Yishui gave Mu Qingge half a core and now she will save him with a whole core? Is the writer trying to match everything the couple does for each other?
Mu Qingge dies for Su Yishui so he was also willing to destroy his own core, kill himself to change the future he saw where he had killed her.

The core looks completely intact to me.

Still looks like a full core.

Towards the last arc of the story, suddenly Ranran has to save Su Yishui from one thing after another, and I really felt that I got annoyed by the forced plot points.

Was Su Yishui melting the Ice with the power of the golden core?
Does this count as expending the power left inside?
( starting to wonder if the core is like a fusion battery )

Did her golden core break here? But even if so, shouldn’t the pieces be scattered inside this big chamber and not all over the Netherworld outside?

So here seems to be a bug in the plot.
By forcing the need to save Su Yishui with Mu Qingge’s old golden core, the story plot seemed to lose track of itself?

The Netherworld which was so difficult to travel to, can now be assessed remotely, and a physical object can be retrieved by a spiritual connection?

I would appreciate it if anyone can tell me, where exactly did Mu Qingge’s Golden Core end up scattered outside that chamber all over the Netherworld for her ‘Collect the pieces‘ quest?

Mu Qingge herself said she failed to seal the Spirit Spring in the Netherworld, that was why she kept it in Wangxiang Pass. In the novel she had no time to find an alternate way to re-enter the Netherworld, that’s why she hid it there – made so much more sense – they really should have stuck with that version.

After risking her life to collect the shards of Golden core from the Netherworld, Ranran further risks her life to save Su Yishui who was going to be lost in his consciousness, again.

Who thought this was a great idea?

I would have preferred that scene shot as it was supposed to be, a flashback of Su Yishui with Mu Qingge, and he was fighting off the influence of the Spirit Spring willingly, not by force.
The drama version oh how Mu Qingge ‘helped’ him, was just too mean to Su Yishui.

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The ‘Demon’ Spring – Spirit Spring 灵泉

The nature of the Spirit Spring was changed in the drama. Not for the better IMHO.

The Spirit Spring, was supposed to be just a somewhat neutral entity that kept the balance in the Netherworld. Its absence from there made the realm unbalanced.

It was literally a spring of power, at the base of an upside down waterfall, which I admit I was disappointed the drama could not replicate.

The Spring can look into the human heart, and it becomes corrupted by human greed and amplified it. It is not evil on its own.
Yes in the novel, with Su Yishui, it always tempted him to be the most powerful in the world, and later on, it would use Ranran to tempt him into giving in so it will make his dreams come true.

The drama stuck with the concept that a demon’s child, is merely a person born at a certain date and time, who met the most Yin conditions to become a vessel to house the Spirit Spring, which was ‘the most Yin force in the entire world’.

But the drama made the Spring a force of evil, which had to be ‘sealed’ away.

Actually the method of freezing the Spirit Spring was used by Mu Qingge when she had no other way to seal the Spring in the mortal realm. The Spring should have been ‘set free’ back into the Netherworld to resume its function.

The drama version used this method instead.

Su Yishui returned the Spirit Spring successfully to the Netherworld.

In the novel:

That’s it.

Su Yishui did it. He fulfilled his promise to Mu Qingge.

It stayed there. Free and hydrating the Netherworld, doing the function it was meant to do.

In the drama:

In the legends, it took many immortals to seal the Spring.
Su Yishui managed to seal it by himself, as a mortal man with only Transcendence Stage. Just sayin’. *wink*

However, the drama added the arc where Su Yishui gets possessed, goes undercover, gets ‘taken over’, finally to change the future he saw in the dragon scale, and sacrifices himself to save Ranran.

While I am not entirely happy about this step ‘backwards’, we have to admit demonic Su Yishui looks incredible in the red guyliner.

Most fans definitely did NOT seem to mind Shifu becoming possessed later, because demonized Shifu was one hot, sexy man, but from a storytelling pov, it looked like a kind of failure.

All that hard work seemed like it had been for nothing.

They did retain a version of the novel’s story, when Su Yishui was fighting off the influence of the Demon Spring every night, he would go into the forest and have Zeng Yi chain him.
In the drama, he had Yu Chen bring him the demonic vines to help him drain the Spring’s powers to bring it under his control.

Even when he said ‘Su Yishui is no longer here’, Dun Tian noted that he never directly attacked Xue Ranran.

It did manage to tick some boxes needed for period dramas these days.

Female lead must stab the male lead.
The twist in this drama is, he helps her.

Su Yishui destroys his own golden core to weaken his body and helps Ranran stab the Spring.

In the novel, Su Yishui did sustain a life threatening stab wound after fighting Dun Tian.
It’s really too bad they didn’t follow the novel for the final battle.
Turning back time was far more straightforward than trying to look for a suitable alternate dimension out of only 3000 choices lol
That logic of the fight was far more logical than the constantly shifting plan of Dun Tian.
First, its fine to destory the ‘heart’ of his tower, then its also fine that two out of three of his sacrifices are no longer alive?

Related to this added arc, the Demonic Python was ‘hatched’ with the powers of the Spirit Spring, by the undercover Su Yishui who wanted Dun Tian to reveal literally the ‘heart’ of his plan.

However, in the novel, that snake had nothing to do with him. It was just a random monster sent out by Dun Tian.

I did not like how they pin that on Su Yishui. SIGH

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Ranran took a little too long to figure out she was Mu Qingge.

Right in the beginning, a drunk Su Yishui mistook Ranran as Mu Qingge.

Ranran actually learnt that she was Mu Qingge way ahead of the original schedule in the novel.

In the novel, she only knew her real identity when Wei Jiu sprung that information on her when they were in the Netherworld, on the way to return the Spirit Spring.

Ranran had stayed calm with the information, and opted to ‘confront’ Su Yishui after they complete their task, however, as timing would have it, she had to deal with an amnesiac Su Yishui after Wei Jiu ( not Dun Tian ) tried to put the Mind Cleanse talisman on Ranran but Su Yishui blocked it for her.

However, due to the way the plot had progressed in the drama, many viewers felt that Ranran – who was supposedly very intelligent – took just a little too long to realize the truth.

She reached the information that she was a rebirth fruit very quickly and then stalled.

Of course, this made for some fun moments when Ranran is effectively jealous, of herself.

In her defense, part of the reason could be, Ranran trusts Su Yishui way too much.

So maybe its not common knowledge that it took half of his golden core to just create two fruits.
Where would he get the extra core material to experiment? *face palms*

With every level up, Ranran gained a little more insight into Ling Xiao’s memories.

How many clues does Su Yishui need to tell her??

Finally, after she successfully entered Foundation Phase, she could start seeing some of her own memories ( in the drama ). It seems in the novel there was no such ‘perks’, and her memories flooded back in random bursts, such as when she recalled the Battle of Fanyao after hearing Su Yishui’s zither playing.

This part is strange because why would Qingge’s memories be interactive lol
Shouldn’t she ‘see through’ the eyes of herself doing something that has already been done?

At this point, so many of us slapped our foreheads and groaned.
Seriously, who else do they know who is female, dressed in red, went to the Netherworld and is connected to the Spirit Spring?

The idiom goes 酒后吐真言
The truth will come out when someone is drunk and their guard is lowered.

Yet Ranran failed to put two and two together.
This was the second time Su Yishui ‘mistakened’ her for Mu Qingge when he was intoxicated.

Alright, I blame Su Yishui again. This man is just too convincing.
He can look at her in the eyes and just lie to her face.

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The true identities of Su Yishui and Mu Qingge had been left out

When Yin Tao started emphasizing that this drama was ‘different’ from typical xianxias, because there was no actual immortals and everything was ‘down to earth’ with only human Cultivators, again, I had that sinking feeling again. Would they really forego that part of the book? Yup, turns out they did.

I suppose I could see why they went this way.

With only 40 episodes, which already felt rather rushed, it would have been difficult to introduce an entire backstory complete with Immortal politics. More sets would also have had needed to be built and more characters added.

It would have looked so great!

The final reveal would have been really amazing though.

The drama we had been watching was actually the tribulation of two immortals? Something most xianxias give one small arc with a few episodes to, developed into an entire series? That would have been so special still.
What do you think? Would you have thrown your popcorn in the air or at the TV?

But here I liked that the screenwriter introduced the extreme rarity ‘Five Spirit Roots’ for both Mu Qingge and Su Yishui, to subtly hint that these two individuals born with a nearly ‘complete’ ready for ascension body, had been originally immortals themselves.

And at least the drama still gave us a white-hair Su Yishui.

The Heavenly Book

Due to the removal of any mention of the true past lives of Mu Qingge and Su Yishui, this part of the plot got a little off course.

In the novel, it was Mu Qingge’s Heavenly Mother, who transported her to a secret little spot and showed her the fate of Su Yishui. He was doomed to become the all-powerful King of the world but have a sad and horrible fate.

It would have been an excellent teaching moment, for parents not to interfere with the love life of their children, since it was actually her attempt to dissuade her dear daughter from any further entanglement with Su Yishui, ( whom she blamed for making her daughter fall from Heaven – long story short, but it was a huge misunderstanding ) actually led to Mu Qingge’s untimely death when she instead became determined to change his destiny.

It was actually a fun arc, to have a disapproving ‘mother in law’ always trying to break up their relationship, and made more sense than Dun Tian bothering to steal the book but never using it. Even though he was written to have been trapped in the Netherworld, Old Feng could have retrieved it, so it made no sense to be hiding there by its loneseome, waiting for Mu Qingge to conveniently steal it.

This was a beautiful but confusing scene in the drama.
Dun Tian stole a/the Heavenly Book but nobody bothered to hunt it down.
He hid it in a painting and upon entering the ‘secret world in the painting’ there is alot of text floating there – are these the guides or warnings that come with the book? – and even the voice of an immortal who is aware that someone is reading the book.

So what is going on? Does an immortal know the book is being read?
Or its more like Siri, only able to scold but unable to send an SOS back to Heaven for its own retrieval? Is the book sentient?
How did Mu Qingge know exactly what it is when she saw it? Why did she talk to the ‘person’ like it was a real immortal?

In the novel, reading the Heavenly Book was a transgression that could only have a death sentence.
However in the drama, there was some rather lame ( I say this with a little love ) addition that a dragon scale is the ‘raw material’ of making a Heavenly book and holding a scale can transcend time and space for a glimpse into the future.

The Divine Tree

In the novel, it was mentioned that Mu Qingge did ‘acquire’ some Ice Lotuses from some mountain, it was not explicit that she stole them but instead was just a harsh difficult place to obtain them.
In the drama, its like she just flew in and out and even pulled off a kit-napping.

In the drama, making both the female lead AND the male lead rob an Immortal of his flora and fauna seemed to have had no great consequence.

Sure, this can still be explained that since obviously Qingge was the daughter of the Heavenly Sovereign himself and Su Yishui being the Imperial Emperor, these ‘thefts’ can perhaps be overlooked.

In the novel, Mu Qingge’s Heavenly father was the one who sent the information to Su Yishui in a dream, about the Divine Tree on Mount Jue which he had transplanted from Heaven after his daughter had fallen prematurely. Like any father, he could not be unfeeling and just see his own daughter’s soul dissipate and she would not even be able to reincarnate.

SU YU

In the novel, Su Yu was already emperor. He was also dying.
He was a man in his mid 30s, who was trying to avoid death.

He was friends with Mu Qingge before she passed, and it was true that Su Yishui had been jealous of their ‘connection’ but the novel Su Yu did not force Ranran to marry him.

Su Yu had only one clear goal:

He tried to steal Su Yishui’s body to replace his dying one.

The drama version of the man is more intense, more psychopathic.

In the drama version, Xue Ranran actually had a crush on Su Yu.
This was driving Su Yishui pretty crazy with jealousy.

There was no such connection in the novel. Ranran only met the ‘dog emperor’ for the first time when she went into the palace.

Wow, its like she completely forgot how Su Yu had kidnapped her fellow villagers to threaten her to marry him and tried to take over Su Yishui’s body, effectively killing him by stranding him in the dragon’s body.

She could still think of Su Yu as her friend? I just can’t… She should have torn him a new one.
At least novel Xue Ranran called him a ‘Dog Emperor!’ ( No offense to real dogs )

Personally, I preferred Su Yu in the novel.
He appeared far less than in the drama. haha
I completely did not care for his redemption at the end.

WEN HONGSHAN

The drama Wen Hongshan started off the same as her novel version.

Both versions had a big crush on Su Yishui, both tried to go ‘rescue’ him from Mu Qingge.
They also scarred themselves on purpose in their effort to convince him to leave her, but failed.
Novel version was engaged to him because of his mother’s wishes, but drama version did not get that far.

Maybe the drama did not want Mu Qingge to look like she was a third party to break up an engaged couple. Also this could be why this version of Wen Hongshan did not eventually head down the path of self destruction. But the irony in this was, I really didn’t see enough ‘bad behavior’ from Mu Qingge except her drinking and wearing bold red clothing to get her bad rep as a ‘demoness’.

The novel Wen Hongshan betrayed her Master and conspired with Mu Ranwu and Wei Jiu, killing her Master during her lightning tribulation, among other things.

Su Yishui was stuck in the drama, so Wen Hongshan made a timely appearance and give him the next step – to head to the Capital.

Novel was much simpler. Su Yishui found a note written by Mu QIngge which said she borrowed the book to Su Yu. haha

The drama version however, remained good. I am actually quite alright with this change, especially because she made a cute CP with the stuffy Yan Liangyu.

OLD MAN KAIYUAN

Described in the novel as a wily old fox, even someone devious like him, managed to have a heroic death.

Did they mean the killing of Mu Qingge? In that case, did he think that it was a mistake to kill her? Afterall, why should he be punished if he was going along what the Heavens wanted?

WEI JIU

In the novel, he was definitely more villainy than the drama version, who in comparison, is almost just comedic relief.

The novel version is always ready to backstab or doublecross his ‘allies’, and equally shameless to ask for help too.

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Xiao Bai

The White Tiger of Mu Qingge supposedly came about because she liked unique things, so instead of getting a mundane mount, she fought and signed a spirit pact with a Gengjin Tiger.

While the CG budget made XiaoBai look pretty good when it did appear, its too bad that they could not make it appear for the final battle.

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Removing Yu Tong’s family

Yu Tong was another candidate Ranran thought her Shifu might be in love with.
It was then revealed that she had a husband and child.

Drama did away with this since it was not really necessary to the overall plot, but its too bad, because she did have an interesting side story.

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Adding this guy.

Liang Wu Meng did not exist in the novel. It would appear he was created for drama as a provider role.
It seems he is not yet an immortal, but he has attained some level of cultivation much like a 散仙.
He is probably older than he appears, with divination skills, plenty of divine treasures, but reluctant to ascend. With the Wine Immortal who is not keen to ascend either, the two reminded me of an old bickering couple haha

To be honest, he just seems to serve as the ‘know it all’ in providing the ‘cheats’ to everything Mu Qingge / Xue Ranran is going to require. Okay, so he has divination skills, so he probably anticipated correctly what she will require haha

I even suspected if he was in cahoots with Dun Tian, or Dun Tian himself, at one point.

She said she is not keen to ascend, yet he gives her the Yin Eye Stone to find the demon child.
Can’t blame me for being suspicious of his intentions.
It would have been so great if its revealed he was her Heavenly mother.
Sneaking down to the mortal realm to drink with the Alcohol Immortal, meddling with her daughter’s life… wanting her to ascend to Heaven ASAP…. you can see it right?

Liang Wu Meng ‘inconveniently’ damaged his golden core while in seclusion, so there was no other way to help Su Yishui except for Ranran’s great sacrifice later on.

I find this writing too forced. For an arc which did not exist in the novel, adding it into the drama was not easy to make sense on all fronts.

Pffffffffffffffffft

Okay he remembered later when the plot called for it.

I even wondered if he was in love with Mu Qingge. LOL

With his divination powers, he probably knew who Ranran was.

By the end, they didn’t even give a wink or reveal if he was the old immortal Su Yishui and Mu Qingge had robbed. He couldn’t interfere with mortal affairs directly, but he couldn’t sit by and watch them suffer too much. That would have been nice right haha

What a pity. Indeed.

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Last but not least.

The Medicine Immortal is not handsome.

I CAN HEAR YOUR DERISIVE SNORT!

The older twin brother of the Alcohol ‘Immortal’, was supposed to be a very beautiful man.

Dun Tian was not supposed to know this and that was one of the vital clues which gave his true identity away.

I was so excited and wondering who would cameo but in the end, no offense to the actual actor who got cast, it was an ‘uncle’.

In the novel, he was supposed to have a regrettable love story with the Dragon Goddess.
The Green Dragon was supposed to have been murdered on Dragon island by Dun Tian who drained it of blood in order to build his world ending tower.

The Dragon who made Mu Qingge promise to save her egg fought alongside her in the Battle of Fanyao and perished, so Su Yishui took it on himself to finish all the promises made by her in her past life.

In the drama, the story ‘kept’ to this detail by having Su Yishui step in when Ranran recklessly made a promise to accept a soul oath to rescue the dragon.

Cute things retained from the novel but shown differently

Let’s end this post on a positive note!
I am glad they kept these small parts, even though they found a way to insert into the plots at different points.

Opening Scene made a reference to the portrait still in the Xishan Main Hall, which showed that Su Yishui had never been ashamed of Mu Qingge.

Not your father!

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As the entire not-Honeymoon arc had been written out of the drama for Su Yishui and Ranran, as they hunted down the hidden antagonist in the novel, its nice to see some parts still appearing in the drama, even if its inserted into different scenes.

Romantic Boat Ride

Replaced by a boat scene of Mu Qingge and a young Su Yishui.
Our hot kiss was changed to an innocent forehead kiss. hehe

Secret flower grove, fireflies lantern gift

In the novel, Mu Qingge made her disciple Su Yishui a lantern filled with fireflies once, but at the time he was in a bad mood and he broke it.

Su Yishui brought Ranran to visit the beautiful fireflies flower grove that Mu Qingge took him before, but Ranran got jealous and upset after realizing he was thinking of Grandmaster Mu again.
She also poked holes in the lantern he made for her to release the bugs. lol

RIVER LANTERN FESTIVAL to find the Medicine Immortal

This was changed to their private celebratory lantern party, which was also a parallel to Mu Qingge’s gesture to Su Yishui in the drama.

Mu Qingge made Su Yishui just one lantern in the novel, but in drama she went all out for her confession! Its too bad, she did not have a chance to show him.

Opening The Netherworld

This was supposed to be an impressive field of flowers + an out of control Su Yishui who still remembered to protect Ranran and stop his rampage

The Netherworld was also meant to open up on its own for the very first time because it needed its Spirit Spring back… Maybe drama thought its not impressive enough but a field full of hypnotic flowers would have been amazing.

They included this line but honestly nothing showed that. They were supposed to climb up an upside down water fall to the top, where they would return the Spirit Spring.
And with the inverted rules, Su Yishui became heavy and had to exert himself to move in the Netherworld and Ranran being of ‘non flesh’ would be light.

The scene where she was floating was supposed to be at the end when they were leaving, when Ranran was only able to fall down and not rise back up to the mortal realm and Su Yishui still ‘saved’ her even though he forgot who she was by then.

THE QUILT

Qiu Xi er was supposed to say this back at Xishan, but drama changed it to Alcohol Immortal at Cuiwei Mountain.

The timeline has changed as well. Su Yishui only managed to regain his memory after he was ‘ready to die’ for Ranran during the Final Battle, but since drama added the whole Demonic Su Yishui arc, he met the requirements and broke the spell of the Soul Cleansing Talisman.

KYAAAAAAAA!

FINAL BATTLE

They retained the lightning storm, which was actually cast down from Heaven in their feeble attempt to stop Dun Tian.

In the novel, Su Yishui was destined to perish together with Dun Tian.
In order to power up and fight at Dun Tian’s level, Su Yishui had unlocked the broken immortal core that he sealed away. Using that unstable power and depleting it would have surely killed him, if Ranran had not seen the page from the Heavenly Book’s live update and decided she needed to try her best to change it, and be with him in life or in death.

Its nice that the drama made an indirect allusion to it.

三世一镜 MIRROR OF THREE LIFETIMES

The mirror from an immortal was kept in the drama.

It was actually a divine treasure her Heavenly mother obtained to show them their ‘feud’ from their past lifetimes so that they will break up, but all it did was fill in some gaps.
Neither of them minded how their past was like and in fact, it strengthened their relationship even further.

The Talisman Wedding Present

I don’t want to ruin the surprise for people who have not read the novel yet, but just know that this talisman was indeed a wedding gift specially requested for by Su Yishui from the Alcohol Immortal, and the spell was for something very different. HAHAHAHAHA

The Love of the Divine Tree novel was fun but it was quite simple and straightforward. I understand why the screenwriter had to bulk up this rib by adding more meat to different parts.

I appreciate the bone being retained, so the structure of the story was at least close to the original, and not adapted into something that ended up looking too different.

Some parts of this was like butter, melting in the mouth and full of flavor, and then there were some parts that was chewy and tough, a little hard to swallow. The (mostly) perfectly cast roles, great acting and solid VFX flavoring all spiced it up immensely.

Overall it was a very delicious drama!

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The End
Thanks for Reading!