In A Class of Her Own (云上恋歌)

Premise

Xue Wenxi (雪文曦) comes from an impoverished family and supports it by copying and writing books while disguised as a man. During a business transaction she meets Feng Chengjun (风承骏), the son of a governor, who admires her talent and secretly arranges matters so that she has no choice but to enroll in the Yun Shang Academy (云上学堂). Because the school accepts only male students, she continues the disguise under her brother's name, Wenbin, and lives carefully to guard her secret.¹

At the academy she becomes close with two fellow students: the rebellious, unrestrained Yu Lexuan (雨乐暄), a business-minded young nobleman, and the cold, aloof Lei Zexin (雷泽信), a martially skilled troublemaker. The four lead characters together become known as the "Yun Shang Quartet" (云上四杰). As they overcome hurdles together, they influence and mature alongside one another; Wenxi eventually is exposed as a woman and she and Feng Chengjun fall in love, while the group becomes entangled in conflicts passed down from the older generation.^{1 • 3}

Cast and characters

Ju Jing Yi plays Xue Wenxi, switching between a gentle young woman and her bookish male persona; reviewers noted that she played the disguise as tomboyish rather than fully masculine, which kept the character distinct within the male cast.^{3 • 4} Song Weilong plays Feng Chengjun, a scholarly, principled governor's son; Bi Wenjun plays Yu Lexuan; and Wang Ruichang plays Lei Zexin, who appears in the drama under the name Lei Ao and is drawn into investigating the case of his late elder brother, executed years earlier as a criminal.^{3 • 4}

The supporting cast includes Chen Yilong as Han Zhengzhi, Zhu Shengyi as Mu Xiaoman, Zhang Xin as Han Shumin, Zhang Shuangli as the academy principal Feng Xinwu, Wang Jinsong as Governor Feng Jichang, and Wang Ce as Lord Han Zhengliang.⁴

Story development and ending

The identity reveal is spread across the final episodes rather than concentrated in one scene. Feng Chengjun learns Wen Xi is a woman in Episode 31, when he overhears her kidnapper threatening to expose her gender, but he pretends not to know until Episode 35, when he must treat her injuries. Mu Xiaoman learns the truth in the same episode; Wen Xi discovers only near the end of Episode 36 that Le Xuan and Lei Ao have known all along.⁴

The finale gives Wen Xi and Cheng Jun a brief wedding scene, while leaving her without a government post despite her graduation, so the ending is described by one reviewer as realistic with a happy tinge rather than a full resolution of the drama's theme of educational equality.⁴ Wen Xi's father, Xue Dingkun, is shown to have been a teacher who advocated schooling for girls and the poor; Lei Ao, who loves Wen Xi but keeps his feelings to himself, and Le Xuan remain companions at the end.⁴