General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Follow Your Heart (颜心记)

Follow Your Heart (颜心记) is a 2024 Chinese costume romance and suspense television series directed by Yu Zhongzhong and starring Luo Yunxi and Song Yi. Produced by iQIYI with Jinhe Film, its 40 episodes premiered exclusively on iQIYI on June 21, 2024.¹^•² The plot follows Jiang Xinbai, a cold and aloof prince and chief investigator with face blindness (prosopagnosia) who is determined to eliminate the drug "Kuicao" (癸草) from the world, and Yan Nanxing, a spirited female traveling doctor who transforms into a different appearance every month; the two meet while investigating a drug case in the river town of Heman, marry and separate several times, and eventually join forces to root out the drug's spread.¹^•³

Key fact	Detail
Native title / English title	颜心记 / Follow Your Heart³
Premiere	June 21, 2024, exclusively on iQIYI; 40 episodes¹^•⁴
Leads	Luo Yunxi as Jiang Xinbai (face-blind chief investigator and Prince of Yuejiang); Song Yi as Yan Nanxing (traveling doctor who transforms monthly)³
Director and production	Yu Zhongzhong (director of Love is Sweet); iQIYI and Jinhe Film; filmed at Hengdian from April 28 to August 24, 2023³^•¹
Genre	Costume, romance, mystery, light comedy³
Performance	iQIYI in-platform heat passed 8000 on the second day of broadcast and 8500 by June 30; Lighthouse-measured positive plays exceeded 200 million⁵
Award	Best Web Drama at the 20th Chinese-American TV Festival, November 2024⁶

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The series centers on a pair of mutually incompatible conditions that drive its comedy and its romance. Jiang Xinbai, the Prince of Yuejiang (越江郡王) and a chief constable of the capital's chief-catcher office (总捕衙司), suffers from prosopagnosia, so every face he sees is indistinct, and he has sworn to rid the world of the drug Kuicao.¹^•⁷ While secretly investigating the Kuicao case in Heman, he meets Yan Nanxing, an unconventional itinerant healer who transforms into a different person every month, on the night of each full moon.¹^•² Because he cannot remember faces and she cannot keep one, each is uniquely placed to accommodate the other, and the drama's stated theme is that appearance matters less than the connection of hearts.³^•⁷

Supporting cast. Chen Yao, Cheng Lei, Huang Riying, Gu Zicheng, and Guan Zijing play the main supporting roles, with Tang Zeng, Huang Xiaolei, Wen Zhengrong, He Zhonghua, and others in featured roles; veterans including King-Tan Yuen (苑琼丹) and Myolie Wu (胡杏儿) appear in guest and special roles.¹^•⁸

The scripts were credited to a writing team led by Hu Rong, with Jiang Jizheng and Xu Lengling serving as co-directors alongside Yu Zhongzhong.¹

Production

The drama was shot at Hengdian World Studios between April 28 and August 24, 2023, and carries the distribution permit (渝)网剧审字（2024）第001号.¹ One of its signature sequences, the first water-borne wedding held in the river town of Heman, was constructed from research into historical marriage customs: the production modeled the costumes, makeup, and rituals on Wuzhen traditions of the Jiangnan region, staged across five acts of departure, dressing, boarding, procession, and rites.¹ Reviewers noted that the beauty powder Yan Nanxing mixes, the Yurong powder, appears in the historical medical texts Qianjin Yaofang and Pujifang.⁵

Luo Yunxi sang the ending-credit song, "Heart Hanging" (心上悬).¹

Relationship to The Beauty Inside

Southern Weekly described the show as the "Chinese version of The Beauty Inside", saying its core premise rests on the Korean drama of that name, in which a person changes appearance at intervals; the newspaper reported that fans said the producers had bought the rights, but the production side did not respond to that claim.⁹ Chinese media coverage otherwise presented the setup, a face-blind detective paired with a woman who transforms monthly, as an original combination within the costume-drama genre.²

Reception and performance

Heat metrics. The series aired without advance promotion, appearing suddenly on iQIYI on June 21, 2024.² Its in-platform heat score passed 8000 on the second day and 8500 by June 30; it topped the Maoyan web-drama daily heat chart seven times, and Lighthouse data recorded more than 200 million positive plays.⁵ Off-platform, Douyin topic plays reached 2.53 billion and Weibo topic reads 1.34 billion with 22.63 million discussions.⁵ By late July it still ranked ninth on the Guduo all-platform weekly drama chart.¹⁰

Critical reception varied. China News Service framed the finale as establishing a new benchmark for the "sweet comedy" (甜喜剧) genre, crediting its mix of light comedy and case-solving.¹¹ Southern Weekly took a cooler view: despite holding first place on the platform's hot-drama chart, its first-day playback of 1.375 million averaged only 229,000 effective plays per episode across the six opening episodes, figures it called modest against other dramas in the same summer window, while still praising the visual craft and the large supporting cast of familiar character actors.⁹ Commentary in The Paper highlighted that its female characters carry their own careers and ambitions rather than serving as appendages to others, which the writer read as a progressive note in costume-drama values.⁵

Awards and overseas release. The drama won Best Web Drama at the 20th Chinese-American TV Festival in November 2024.⁶^•¹² It aired on the Korean platform TVING beginning October 9, 2024, and was broadcast in Japan on the Satellite Theater channel as 顔心記～シェイプ・オブ・ラブ～ from March 3, 2025.¹

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 › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles Cr to In

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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