General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Be With You (我有一个朋友)

Be With You (我有一个朋友) is a 2023 Chinese costume wuxia comedy web series produced by Mango TV, written and directed by Bi Xinye (毕鑫业), and starring Xie Xingyang, Su Mengdi, Wang Hanwen, Pan Yuetong, Zhao Ziqi, Tong Jiahao, Wu Fei, Fang Pinqi, and Shao Ruyi, with Huang Sirui in a special appearance and Wu Yuze in a guest role.¹ It premiered on Mango TV on 6 September 2023 and ran for 24 episodes.²

Key fact	Detail
Original title / English title	我有一个朋友 / Be With You¹
Format	24-episode costume wuxia comedy, Mandarin, mainland China²
Creator	Written and directed by Bi Xinye; produced by Mango TV with Mango Film and Sun Jichenting¹
Premiere	6 September 2023, 18:00, Mango TV (exclusive)³
Reception	Douban 8.6/10 from 122,469 raters (as of 28 December 2025)¹
Viewership	300 million cumulative views by May 2024¹
Award	"Series of the Year" at the 2023 Zongyi Bao Annual Influence awards, 25 December 2023¹

Spoilers

Plot

The story follows Meng Sanxi (梦三息, played by Xie Xingyang), a once-famous martial hero who loses all his skills overnight and becomes a fugitive hunted by both righteous and evil forces. Seeking an antidote to restore his martial arts and to clear the name of his murdered friend Bei Xiaohai (北啸海), he flees to Muyun Town (木云城), where he meets three drifters.⁴

Each of the three companions carries a separate quest that points toward the same city. Yan Sifang (岩四方, Wang Hanwen), a well-known smith, alchemist, and mechanism master, is pursued by a sect and wants revenge for his slaughtered village. Ye Wuzhi (叶五枝, Su Mengdi), a disciple of the Qingjing Sect, comes to Muyun Town to avenge her murdered senior brother at the hands of the underworld sect Sanqi Dao (三七道).⁵ To live in the city, the four take jobs at a general store called the Nameless Department Store (无名百货) run by Ji Mingzhao (纪明昭, Pan Yuetong), and their relationships move from mutual suspicion to deep trust.⁴

Legend holds that Muyun City hides many jianghu (the wandering martial-arts underworld society of wuxia fiction) forces, the best known being the merchant Liang family, the Liu family, and the underworld sect Sanqi Dao.²

Production

The series began filming at Xiangshan Film City on 28 March 2022 and wrapped on 25 May 2022.¹ Members of the 0713 Re-employment Boy Band, including Chen Chusheng, Su Xing, Lu Hu, Wang Yuexin, Wang Zhengliang, and Zhang Yuan, made guest appearances.¹ The opening theme is "Wo Hen Zhongyao" (《我很重要》), sung by Xie Xingyang, and the closing theme is the title song "Wo You Yige Pengyou," composed and sung by Wang Hanwen.¹

Release and reception

Mango TV released six episodes to members and one to non-members on premiere day, updating daily for nine days; from 11 September, members received two episodes on Mondays and one from Tuesday to Thursday.¹ The series opened to a Douban score of 8.6, and by May 2024 had accumulated 300 million views.⁶^•¹ A special episode, "A Day of Not Wanting to Work" (番外篇：不想上班的一天), was later released on Mango TV.⁴

Critical response. Reviewers noted that the series deconstructs the traditional wuxia world of Jin Yong and Gu Long through comedy: its heroes are not dignified, they run from fights, their money runs out, and jianghu codes collapse the moment officials appear.⁷ Bi Xinye uses the costume setting to stage modern situations and dialogue, producing dislocated comedy through lines about proving one's identity, membership-card traps, and bosses feeding employees "KPI wraps."¹ Commentators compared its structure to My Own Swordsman, with the action moved from an inn to a department store, packaging wuxia chivalry together with modern-life humor.⁸ The Paper's review described the story as openly admitting that "life is not easy" and offering the gentle fairy tale of Muyun City to anyone who refuses to truly despair.¹

Not all reviews were positive. Some Douban reviewers criticized the season for ending without resolving its central mysteries, treating the finale as a prologue to later seasons.⁹

Context in Bi Xinye's career

Bi Xinye was already known for My Huckleberry Friends (《一起同过窗》), whose first season scored 9.1 on Douban and topped mainland dramas of 2016.⁷ Be With You continues his comedy style in a completely different setting, and he chose a deliberately difficult path: writing and directing himself, casting little-known actors, and telling the story as a multi-season series.⁶ The first season concluded for Mango TV members on 28 September 2023, but the story was left unfinished.¹⁰

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › Chinese wuxia and martial-arts serials

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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