- Episodes: 39 (Season 1), 23 (Season 2)
- Main Cast: Yang Zi, Zhang Wangyi, Deng Wei, Tan Jianci, Wang Hongyi, Dai Luwa
- Genre: Romance, Wuxia, Fantasy
Brief synopsis of the drama
An ongoing war takes place on the land, Dahuang, between the Xiyan kingdom and the Chenrong kingdom. Two children lose their parents in the war and they become separated from each other. One of the children is the grandson of the king of Xiyan. He loses his father who dies fighting in the war while his mother kills herself after killing the ninth prince for intercepting the letter that delayed reinforcements resulting in the death of her husband. The other child is the daughter of the princess general who dies fighting in the war also. The grandson of the king of Xiyan is Cang Xuan (Zhang Wangyi) and the daughter of the princess general is Xiao Yao (Yang Zi).
The story goes forward 300 years. The Chenrong kingdom has fallen. The Xiyan kingdom was victorious in the war and the land once ruled by the Chenrong kingdom is ruled by the Xiyan kingdom. There are still remnants of the Chenrong army, however. Cang Xuan works undercover in Qingshui Town to eliminate them. It’s the first step for him to gain power so he can protect the people he loves with bringing a more peaceful world. Cang Xuan hasn’t forgotten about his childhood friend, Xiao Yao, of whom he has been separated from for 300 years. He encounters her in Qingshui Town, but he doesn’t recognise her. Xiao Yao works as a physician among mortals and she presents herself as a guy under the name of Wen Xiaoliu (Yang Zi).
Thoughts
We came across Lost You Forever after a handful of episodes in the second season became available for us to watch. What brought us to watching Lost You Forever was that it was a costume drama with a fantasy element and the female lead character was presenting herself to everyone as a guy. The female lead character presenting herself to everyone as a guy always brings an enjoyable watch in our opinion. Also, Yang Zi played the female lead character. If Yang Zi was in it and the synopsis sounded like something we liked watching, we tend to find that drama enjoyable to watch by the end of it. The dramas we’ve watched with Yang Zi in it are Go Go Squid! (2019) and The Destiny of White Snake (2018).
It was a bit difficult to recognise Tan Jianci with the white hair and makeup of Xiang Liu. We watched a drama Tan Jianci was in a few months earlier and it was the first drama we’ve come across of his. When Fangfeng Bei made his entrance into the story (also played by Tan Jianci), we finally remembered which drama he was in that we’ve seen. The character Tan Jianci played in that drama was pretty cool and we were pleasantly surprised to find that Xiang Liu was played by the actor because, as we will say below, Xiang Liu is a character we found very intriguing and rooted for in the drama.
(For anyone who’s curious about which drama we watched that Tan Jianci was in, it was Love Me, Love My Voice (2023). Tan Jianci plays the male lead character, playing a talented and famous voice dubbing artist who is also a cardiac surgeon. Promoting the drama a bit more, Love Me, Love My Voice is a sweet modern romance drama. If you haven’t come across Love Me, Love My Voice, it’s worth checking out if you like a drama where the male lead character has a secret identity; it’s a fan and an idol interacting; there’s a theme of ancient Chinese music with the female lead character of the drama a university student who has a talent in composing music in that genre; and the idol and fan become closer through their interest and love of food with the male lead character also able to cook very well. The romance plot is a kind that is very cute and sweet. It might make you smile from the sweetness and chuckle from the cuteness. The drama’s overall feel is light, fun, and upbeat. The first episode immediately draws you in with the male lead character—the female lead character’s idol—suddenly entering into her voice chatroom, responding to the talk she was having with her friend about a dish she told was extremely tasty. He disappears from the voice chatroom immediately after that, leaving the female lead character wondering if she had imagined it and wonders if her friend had also heard her idol speaking. The female lead character realises she hadn’t imagined it when she sees the voice chatroom logs which let her know that her idol had indeed entered her voice chatroom and had also left it.)
Lost You Forever had us wishing the end episode could’ve maybe given us a bit more before ending. The reason for wishing for a bit more before it ended is because the character that caught our interest is Xiang Liu.
Xiang Liu is a very intriguing character. He’s a nine-headed snake demon with nine lives and with incredible spirit power. He doesn’t come across as a people-eating monster which he’s described as, but Xiang Liu does say to Wen Xiaoliu during one time when they sat and talked by the shoreline that he preferred to eat mortals. It sounded like it was to frighten Wen Xiaoliu, but it might be a fact about him when he did go pierce Wen Xiaoliu’s neck with his fangs after saying that. ‘Eating’ Wen Xiaoliu became a regular thing after this when Xiang Liu realised her body was precious because her blood had healing power. He often went to her to heal his injuries after fighting.
We can see that Xiang Liu can be scary. When we think Xiang Liu couldn’t possibly do something that would hurt Xiao Yao because they seem like they were friends now, or he shows he might like her, he suddenly has a tight grip around Xiao Yao’s neck because she said words that angered him.
The final Xiang Liu scene in the last episode where we see this black ash-like bodily substance flowing out from where the arrows pierced his body, disintegrating and turning the arrow shafts and all the things around him into black dust, we see why Xiao Yao said she’s scared to let someone like Xiang Liu into her dream. He is quite a dark force.
But we like the Xiao Yao-Xiang Liu pairing. Xiang Liu feels like someone who can be pretty even-tempered if the person has kindness and a non-discriminatory eye. That’s how Xiang Liu thinks of his foster father, Hong Jiang, we think. (Hong Jiang is the general of the remnants of the Chenrong army of whom Cang Xuan is trying to eliminate to bring about a more peaceful world.) Hong Jiang is someone who saved Xiang Liu in the past and, with Xiang Liu saying that his foster father had taught him healing methods even after having stabbed him because of his distrust in him back then, we gather Hong Jiang is kind, forgiving and didn’t see Xiang Liu as a monster.
Xiao Yao probably comes across as being someone like Hong Jiang to Xiang Liu in the way that Xiao Yao is kind and doesn’t see Xiang Liu as a monster or a villain. We like how Xiang Liu is surprised and moved whenever he hears Xiao Yao say he’s not a bad guy and he’s someone who she thinks is pretty good.
Disregarding the rule of the poisonous bug (the rule is those who have it have many obstacles and they can never be together), it feels like if Xiang Liu wasn’t so loyal to his foster father, he would most likely give up everything and become someone important to Xiao Yao—choose her over his foster father because we think Xiang Liu did have a period of opportunity to enter Xiao Yao’s heart.
That period of opportunity was after Xiao Yao gave up on Ye Shiqi/Tushan Jing after she found out he was having a child with Fangfeng Yi Ying. (The child wasn’t Tushan Jing’s, but at this time this hadn’t been uncovered yet.)
There was a scene where Xiang Liu plunged Xiao Yao into the sea after Xiao Yao asked Xiang Liu why he hadn’t transformed his hair back to its original colour. He had Fangfeng Bei’s hair colour, but he was wearing the white attire that Xiang Liu wore. This brought Xiang Liu to be (maybe) self-conscious about him being a monster or villain where Xiang Liu all of a sudden said to Xiao Yao that all villains start out like ordinary young men. That brought Xiao Yao to say to him, “You’re not a villain.” And then Xiao Yao was brought down into the water by Xiang Liu.
A previous time where Xiang Liu brought Xiao Yao into the water Xiang Liu didn’t let Xiao Yao swim to the surface and kept her underwater holding her breath. He only allowed Xiao Yao to get air through kissing him. In that previous time, Xiao Yao chose to suffocate rather than kiss Xiang Liu. Xiao Yao thought this was another time Xiang Liu was saying she could get air only if she kissed him.
This time, Xiao Yao didn’t refuse to get air through Xiang Liu kissing her. Xiao Yao’s reason for not refusing to be kissed by Xiang Liu to get air this time is because she no longer was in a relationship with Ye Shiqi/Tushan Jing. And so, we see Xiao Yao close her eyes and bring herself closer to Xiang Liu for him to kiss her. Xiang Liu showed he wanted to, but seemingly something was going through his mind which made him snap out of it and laugh at Xiao Yao for misunderstanding—which she had. Xiang Liu didn’t let Xiao Yao swim to the surface not because he wanted to force her to kiss him. It was to let her know she could breathe and talk underwater.
Following this, Xiao Yao said some words out of annoyance and made Xiang Liu angrily swim away from her. He misunderstood her words as her being upset for turning her into a monster who could breathe and talk underwater. She had to feign pain to bring Xiang Liu back to her side. She said, “You did it on purpose. Why did you do this to me? I hate you.” When Xiang Liu thought Xiao Yao was in pain, he, of course, immediately came back to Xiao Yao’s side, worried she was in pain.
After this, Xiang Liu went to scary Xiang Liu mode because he didn’t like what Xiao Yao was saying about her dying again. With Xiao Yao wanting to undo Xiang Liu’s misunderstanding of thinking she didn’t like how she was able to breathe and talk underwater and became a monster because he transferred his heart blood into her, she said, “You have nine lives. You saved me once and I became like you, free to go anywhere. If I die again, and you save me one more time, will I become like you—?” Xiang Liu cut Xiao Yao off with a grip around her neck and threatened to cut her into nine pieces for his nine snake heads to take a bite if she died again. It took smooth words from Xiao Yao to return Xiang Liu back to pleasant Xiang Liu. She reminded him that he was the one who saved her and he wouldn’t want his efforts to go in vain with killing her. She then said that if he depleted too much of his heart blood he could always replenish his heart blood (from her).
We were a bit confused with that last line from Xiao Yao. We don’t know why she suddenly spoke about replenishing his heart blood if he consumed too much of it.
This scene was one of our favourite Xiao Yao-Xiang Liu scenes for obvious reasons. Though Xiao Yao had closed her eyes and waited for Xiang Liu to kiss him only because she needed air, Xiao Yao was still willing to let Xiang Liu kiss her. It says quite a bit when a previous time she refused. We love Xiang Liu’s immediate reaction. It was subtle surprise before realisation. Also, Xiao Yao was playful and looked to truly enjoy Xiang Liu’s company to the point of feeling bad when he misunderstood her.
With Xiang Liu choosing not to kiss Xiao Yao during this moment of opportunity, we can only guess it has to do with his loyalty to his foster father and the Chenrong army. Possibly it might have been he had that ultimate strategy to defeat Xiyan which we saw in the last episode in his mind. At the time of watching the last couple of episodes, we didn’t really register that Xiang Liu cutting off connection with Xiao Yao and doing those final things for her were all leading to him dying. Thinking about how Xiang Liu asked Xiao Yao to make him more poison and how he was drinking and eating them, his ultimate strategy to defeat Xiyan looks very much to have been to use the poison in his blood to kill the Xiyan army because the Xiyan army was just so much larger in number than the Chenrong army. The odds of victory for him and his Chenrong army were stacked against him.
And so, the final Xiang Liu scene, where Xiang Liu was the last of the Chenrong army standing and fighting but losing strength, where he dealt a final big attack but was overpowered by arrow after arrow piercing his body from the Xiyan soldiers, then falling to the ground, bloodied, and covered in dirt, then using his last strength to bring Xiao Yao’s drop of tear which he kept with him into his eye before dying with that tear rolling down his face, it was so sad! The words he said following this scene, saying he no longer could protect Xiao Yao and wished her a peaceful life without worries, we had to pause watching for a bit before continuing watching the remaining scenes of the last episode to stop blubbering over how sad that final Xiang Liu scene was.
After that final Xiang Liu scene, we had wanted Xiao Yao to know all those things Xiang Liu did for her behind the scenes before he went into battle. Xiao Yao figured out one of them. This was Xiang Liu destroying the poisonous bug. Xiang Liu had wanted Xiao Yao to believe it was the queen mother to have destroyed it. The queen mother agreed to say she destroyed it. Nian (Haoling princess now Queen of Xiyan) also agreed to hide it from Xiao Yao. (Nian was the one who helped Xiang Liu bring Xiao Yao to him to have the poisonous bug destroyed.) Xiao Yao ended up figuring out Xiang Liu had been the one to have destroyed the poisonous bug when she found her mirror emptied of those memories she kept of Xiang Liu.
Erasing all memories of him from Xiao Yao’s mirror was another thing Xiang Liu did for Xiao Yao. Xiao Yao was distraught when she found this and she seemed to indicate he was heartless with her asking whether she was so unbearable to him that he wouldn’t even leave one bit of memory of him for her. But Xiang Liu only wanted Xiao Yao to be able to sleep soundly and have sweet dreams. (We find Xiang Liu saying this in a scene before the battle where he was inscribing a message on the poison orb that Xiao Yao gave him some time ago.)
The thing that Xiao Yao would very likely never find out is Xiang Liu protecting Ye Shiqi/Tushan Jing from sea monsters when he drifted out into sea after Tushan Jing fought with his older brother.
There were a couple of scenes in the drama that were interesting and had us wondering what the scene was trying to say. One of them was the scene after the event where Fangfeng Bei/Xiang Liu took Xiao Yao away from her wedding with Chishui Feng Long. This was something Tushan Jing sought Xiang Liu out to carry out. This wedding took place after Xiao Yao ended the relationship with Ye Shiqi/Tushan Jing because Fangfeng Yi Ying was pregnant with his child.
After forcing Xiao Yao to leave her wedding, Xiang Liu asked Xiao Yao four questions under hypnosis: Were you willing to marry Chishui Feng Long? Were you willing to marry Tushan Jing? Were you willing to marry Ye Shiqi? Who do you want to spend the rest of your life with the most? Xiao Yao could easily answer yes to marrying Ye Shiqi, but she couldn’t answer who it was that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with the most. We thought she would easily say Ye Shiqi is who she wanted to spend the rest of her life with the most. But then we think about the talk Xiao Yao had with Fangfeng Bei/Xiang Liu which took place before this wedding which made us think that maybe she couldn’t answer that question because Xiang Liu might be one of her answers she’d give to that question.
In the talk between Xiao Yao and Xiang Liu which took place before Xiao Yao’s wedding with Chishui Feng Long, Xiao Yao looked to have been trying to get something out of Xiang Liu—maybe trying to know how he regarded her. Their talk was a discussion on forgetting someone and finding a companion. Xiao Yao asked questions whilst Xiang Liu gave his thoughts. The talk led onto Xiao Yao wondering if Xiang Liu was telling her she shouldn’t marry Chishui Feng Long and then she asked Xiang Liu who he thinks she should marry if she doesn’t marry Chishui Feng Long.
We can only see this scene to be suggesting Xiao Yao was wanting Xiang Liu to answer those two questions with “No, you shouldn’t marry Chishui Feng Long” and “Marry me”. Xiang Liu chose to give an indifferent answer and so we saw Xiao Yao give up wanting to know and responded with saying she can’t marry someone who has a family and someone who is Cang Xuan’s enemy.
Maybe why Xiao Yao wasn’t able to answer that question Xiang Liu had asked, the question asking who she wanted to spend the rest of her life with the most, wasn’t because she was considering Xiang Liu, but she was thinking that she liked that Xiang Liu could freely go anywhere and travel everywhere; however, he’s not able to give up everything for her. Meanwhile, Ye Shiqi couldn’t freely go anywhere and everywhere because he was also Tushan Jing who had the responsibility of being the chief of his clan, but he can give up everything if he can free himself and not be Tushan Jing, the chief of his clan.
The parting between Xiang Liu and Xiang Liu’s little (big) eagle companion was memorable for the reason that we always see Xiang Liu with the eagle whenever he’s travelling in the sky.
We were told a brief background on how the eagle became Xiang Liu’s companion in the last episode. It’s because Xiang Liu saved the eagle once before. That parting scene saw Xiang Liu materialise a bowl of water for his eagle companion to drink, something we see him do sometimes. He shared his drink with the eagle which was alcohol, pouring it into the bowl of water. Xiang Liu said to his eagle companion after it fell asleep in the bowl from being drunk that people have evil intentions and that’s why it shouldn’t trust others easily, or something like that. Xiang Liu then sent his long time eagle companion away.
That parting was sad. We can just imagine the eagle waking up and wondering where his master is. His master is gone! So sad!
Cang Xuan’s feelings for Xiao Yao was something we really wanted Xiao Yao to know. Seeing Cang Xuan always holding himself back from going through with expressing his like to Xiao Yao made us want her to hear his confession.
In the last episode, Cang Xuan finally manages to make it really clear to Xiao Yao. It was really satisfying to find Xiao Yao truly understanding how much he likes her, that she is the person he has ever liked and those three weddings to those three women were not at all happy occasions for him, of which Xiao Yao failed to realise with the hint Cang Xuan gave to her requesting her to not give him any wedding gifts or congratulate him. We like that Cang Xuan gives the ruomu flower hair ornament to Xiao Yao, which his mother had handed to him to give to the person he loved, and Xiao Yao knew the significance of her receiving this ruomu flower hair ornament from him.
We felt Cang Xuan is the guy who had the least likely chance of his feelings being accepted by Xiao Yao. Whereas Xiao Yao was willing to kiss or be kissed by Ye Shiqi/Tushan Jing and Xiang Liu, as well as maybe willing to marry Xiang Liu, it felt like this might not be the case for Cang Xuan. Before and even after Cang Xuan became King of Xiyan, we felt Xiao Yao would always see Cang Xuan as her childhood friend who she saw as an older brother who is very important to her and that’s it.
Though Cang Xuan couldn’t marry the person he loved, the person at his side as one of the queens is Nian. Nian has been at war and has led an army to victory. She will be very helpful to Cang Xuan. We’re very happy Nian is beside him. If there were episodes following the end, we think we’d find the relationship development for these two pretty sweet.
Ye Shiqi/Tushan Jing is so cute. We love it every time he says, “Hao,” and that cute smile follows. We can see Ye Shiqi is the person who should be with Xiao Yao. What she wants is not to be abandoned. Ye Shiqi has never abandoned Xiao Yao. He’s always worried and he always waits for Xiao Yao until she returned; and if he doesn’t find her returning, he goes to find her (and saves her if she’s in danger). Xiao Yao is his everything. We saw this when Xiao Yao was assassinated. Ye Shiqi was so grieved that he chose to die with her instead of choosing to break the formation that he and Xiao Yao were in which he could do easily (we were told) and remain alive, but he didn’t.
Though we wished for a happy ending for Xiang Liu which did make us want a different ending, we felt the ending was the correct ending and it had concluded everything nicely. Xiao Yao got to return to the carefree, trouble-free, and stable life that she liked in Qingshui Town. Ye Shiqi no longer needed to be Tushan Jing who had to be the chief of his Qingqiu Tushan clan. He’s able to be by Xiao Yao’s side, accompanying her in travelling around and helping her compile the medical record books.
Even though Cang Xuan and Xiang Liu didn’t have a happy ending with Xiao Yao, we like that they are with her in some way. Cang Xuan’s with Xiao Yao through his ruomu flower hair ornament which Xiao Yao wears in her hair, and Xiang Liu’s with Xiao Yao through the doll that Nian handed to Xiao Yao before she went on her travels with Ye Shiqi. Let’s not forget Xiang Liu’s blood which is flowing inside of Xiao Yao which has given her the ability to breathe and talk underwater like how Xiang Liu was able to.
With that doll which belonged to Xiang Liu but Nian told Xiao Yao it was a second wedding gift from her, we wonder if Xiao Yao will one day find out that the gift was actually one from Xiang Liu. It would be nice if she found the poison orb which she gave to him inside that doll. Xiang Liu had inscribed a message on that poison orb. It makes us happy to think that Xiao Yao might one day find it and have one last message from him.
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