Drama Tea<p><strong>Feud ( 临江仙) review</strong></p><p>Li Qingyue, an insignificant disciple of the Jingyun sect, finds herself in a unique position when she gains the attention of the mighty immortal deity Bai Jiusi who “agrees” to marry her.</p><p>However, Bai Jiusi hasn’t fallen head over heels for her. Instead, he believes that she’s playing a game with him. This belief lies in a centuries-old feud he has with Hua Ruyue, a powerful goddess and someone he loved and hated.</p><p><strong>Characters</strong></p>Bai Jiusi and Hua Ruyue.<p><strong>Bai Jiusi (Joseph Zeng Shunxi): </strong>A deith whose element is ice. Hua Ruyue’s husband. As they were birthed from Hongmeng and made from the same source, they’ve been entangled in each other’s existence since the dawn of time.</p><p><strong>Li Qingyue (Bai Lu):</strong> An unremarkable junior disciple of the Jingyun sect.</p><p><strong>Hua Ruyue (Bai Lu): </strong>The fiery goddess and Bai Jiusi’s former flame. She has a deep grudge against Bai Jiusi.</p><p><strong>Fan Ling’er (He Ruixian):</strong> A 200-year-old immortal with great craftsman skills.</p><p><strong>Zhang Suan (Chen Xinhai):</strong> Li Qingyue’s senior at the sect. He secretly likes her.</p><p><strong>Xiao Jingsan</strong> <strong>(Hong Yao)</strong>: An immortal with shady motives.</p><p><strong>What I liked</strong></p><ul><li>Well-developed characters with solid arcs of their own. Excellent character writing!</li><li>It’s beautiful. I like that it broke the trend that divine realms and everyone in it had to be in white, pastels or gold. Instead, the sets and costumes are colourful and seem to get a lot of inspiration from Dunhuang art.</li><li>The complex exploration and depiction of love, especially between a married couple. It dared to go to plot places that more generic xianxias would not dare explore.</li><li>The acting of the main leads is great! They sold me with their performances.</li><li>It’s an original script! We need to celebrate these.</li></ul><p><strong>What I didn’t like</strong></p><ul><li>The show took way too long to get to the meat of the story. It painted itself too hard as a tropey, cookie-cutter xianxia (presumably to get a bigger ‘gotcha’ reaction when the real plot is finally revealed). Impatient viewers would have abandoned the drama before it got to the good parts. In fact, I nearly did! Out of curiosity, I decided to spoil myself and discovered that the drama was more than it seems.</li><li>The writing quality is uneven and felt as if it was a case of “too many cooks spoil the broth”. The writer, Zhao Na, who also wrote the mostly-wonderfully-written A Moment But Forever is credited as the first draft screenwriter, but Ren Yanan is credited as the final screenwriter, so we can imagine what changes happened to the script on the way to the screen.</li><li>Some plots were left unexplained.</li><li>Some plots didn’t make sense. (For this, look at the spoilery section below)</li></ul><p><strong>Spoilery thoughts about the drama</strong></p><p>They tried a little too hard to be mysterious in this drama. Some dramas explain too much. This drama, explained a little too sparsely. This made for entertaining discussions online. People’s speculations about the plots were more entertaining than the actual plot!</p>Click to reveal<p>Most of my problems with the script were in episodes 1-10, or Ruyue pretending to be the naive, innocent human Li Qingyue. It didn’t make sense that Qingyue would behave the way she did in private if she was Ruyue in disguise. For example, at one point Ling’er spoke threateningly to Qingyue in private, and I wondered if they were putting on a show for the secret cameras in the room or something.</p><p>Then there was the main villain’s plot. Just … what was it for? If Jingsan wanted to bring his family back, and he realised the only way was to use the Time Dial that he invented, and it required his sacrifice, why go through all that trouble manipulating Bai Jiusi and Hua Ruyue? Why divide them like this and ruin their lives? If it was to erase a name on the Infinite Steele, the monument that holds back the demon realms, wasn’t there a simpler way to do this?</p><p>Far too many questions, and they could do a little bit more explaining with this one!</p><p><strong>Thoughts about the ending</strong></p>Click to reveal<p>It was a most philosophical ending, leaving viewers with a lot to chew on: The role of the divine, forgiveness after unforgivable acts, and rising above hatred and regaining love that was lost.</p><p>In the end, Hua Ruyue discovers that while she cannot change her present, she could gift the people in the past a different future, creating a parallel timeline in the present.</p><p>I respect the writers for not using that convenient time device to change the future and wiping out our couple’s tribulation in the process. As the deity of time said, you can’t change the past, but I guess you can spin off another existence.</p><p>I really did want Bai Jiusi and Hua Ruyue to get their son, Shi An, back. Badly. And I was disappointed that it didn’t happen. But I acknowledge that a “reset button” would’ve cheapened their suffering and would’ve rendered one of the drama’s biggest themes meaningless: Actions have consequences.</p><p>Also, I’m also moved that the writers chose to honour such a realistic path for a married couple. Because in real life, so many couples never survived the death of their child. If a convenient reset button had been pressed, it would send the message that a couple’s love can only survive if the child is alive. But by retaining Shi An’s death for our main timeline couple, it sends a hopeful message that love can survive even such disasters, and that even gods cannot conveniently reset the consequences of their actions.</p><p>In the end they finally passed their love tribulation, but oh wow, this has to be the most traumatic and difficult love tribulation I’ve ever seen!</p><p>Still, even though I am satisfied with our couple’s ending, the last four episodes left me oddly hollow.</p><p>For one, there are unexplained plot holes. For example, they never explained that resurrection formation Xiao Jingsan made Ruyue cast. Why would Jingsan help her to resurrect her child if it didn’t help his cause? How would it help him in his quest to blot out the name? Was that even his true motivation?</p><p>I think if anything, the plot holes made the discussions about the drama more intense, and for once, for the right reasons. Often, writers and producers of a show would shoot a frustratingly open-ended ending, inciting viewers to generate lots of social media chatter, only the chatter is mostly viewers screaming at the producers for producing such a vile ending.</p><p>This time, it isn’t so. Viewers are genuinely debating the villain’s motivations, our couple’s decisions and the parallel worlds. Now, that’s how you generate after-drama chatter on social media! And you don’t need a vague, open ending for this!</p><p>I’m glad at least that Bai Jiusi didn’t end up with the dreaded reborn without memories thing, but retained all his memories. That somehow, despite the bitterness of their love tribulation they were still able to ascend beyond that. And that’s, well, godlike!</p><p>In the current timeline and the new ones that Ruyue created, Bai Jiusi and Ruyue will be happy, and no longer will they be parted by the schemes of others. Their love has literally survived the cruellest of love tribulations.</p><p>And at the risk of sounding blaise and crass, our version will have another child one day, and that’s a kind of hope.</p><p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>The divine realm finally has colour!<p><strong>Story:</strong> The writing is choppy, with a 10-episode delay into getting into the real meat of the plot. This could drive less patient viewers away. Some plots seem to end nowhere and some themes don’t seem consistently executed. But the character writing is stellar, even for side characters.</p><p><strong>Acting:</strong> Bai Lu has been accused of “phoning it in” by playing the same characters over and over again. I don’t watch enough Bai Lu dramas to be a good judge of this. To me, the most important question is this: Does the actor fit the role?</p><p>Here, Bai Lu fits it and then some, and so does Joseph Zeng.</p><p>Admittedly, I was a little sceptical about Joseph Zeng. I first saw him in <a href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/2023/09/07/mysterious-lotus-casebook-review/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Mysterious Lotus Casebook</a> and later <a href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/2024/12/01/snowy-night-timeless-love-review/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Snowy Night, TImeless Love</a>. Thanks to his big eyes, people think he can only play playful and idealistic heroes. But a cold, divine lord? Even I had my doubts. But Zeng delivered and then some. He sold me the role, and that’s all that I care about.</p><p>In one pivotal scene, I actually found myself tearing up. In general, it’s very difficult for CDramas to make me cry, so this means that their performance has moved me emotionally.</p><p><strong>Costumes and sets:</strong> I am absolutely enthralled that the divine realm is for once, looking close to how Chinese heaven looks like, full of colour and uniqueness. Gone are the white, pastels and muted golds at last!</p><p><strong>Camerawork:</strong> Above average, but not what I call amazing.</p><p><strong>Rewatchability:</strong> Some heart-wrenching moments may be difficult to watch, but there are bright spots of fun that I’ll probably watch again and again.</p><p>This drama is for those who love more philosophical xianxias in the same vein as <a href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/2025/04/29/a-moment-but-forever/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">A Moment But Forever</a>. However, if you’re looking for a xianxia with strong “CP vibes”, or one that will have romantic sweet moments, this may not be for you, as romance is just a veneer in this drama. In Feud, the philosophical exploration of love, marriage, fate and divinity takes centre stage.</p><p><strong>Final rating: 8</strong></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/bai-lu/" target="_blank">#baiLu</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/cdrama/" target="_blank">#CDrama</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/cdramas/" target="_blank">#CDramas</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/china/" target="_blank">#China</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/chinese-drama/" target="_blank">#ChineseDrama</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/costumed-drama/" target="_blank">#CostumedDrama</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/fantasy/" target="_blank">#Fantasy</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/joseph-zeng/" target="_blank">#josephZeng</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/xianxia/" target="_blank">#Xianxia</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/zeng-shunxi/" target="_blank">#zengShunxi</a></p>