General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Love and Redemption (琉璃美人煞)

Love and Redemption (琉璃; also known by its original title 琉璃美人煞, Liu Li Mei Ren Sha) is a 2020 Chinese television series in the xianxia (immortal-hero fantasy) and romance genres, adapted from Shi Si Lang's (十四郎) novel of the same name. Directed by Yin Tao and Mai Guanzhi and starring Cheng Yi, Yuan Bingyan, Liu Xueyi, and Zhang Yuxi, it ran for 59 episodes on Youku and Mango TV from August 6 to October 1, 2020, and became one of the year's most-watched Chinese web dramas.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	琉璃美人煞 (Liu Li Mei Ren Sha); broadcast title shortened to 琉璃 (Liu Li) at premiere¹^•³
Source	Novel 琉璃美人煞 by Shi Si Lang, completed in 2008 and published by Zhejiang Wenyi Press in 2019⁴
Run	59 episodes, Youku and Mango TV, August 6 to October 1, 2020, air time 20:00¹
Lead cast	Cheng Yi as Yu Sifeng, Yuan Bingyan as Chu Xuanji, Liu Xueyi as Hao Chen, Zhang Yuxi as Chu Linglong¹^•⁵
Platform record	Youku in-site heat value reached 9988, breaking the platform's record; Douban score rose from 7.1 at premiere to 7.5²
Viewership	24.2 billion (双平台) episode views and over 60 billion Weibo topic reads by the finale⁶
Awards	Best Director (Yin Tao) and Best Television Producer (Zhong Jun Yan) at the 2020 7th Hengdian Film and TV Festival (Wenrong Awards)¹

Spoilers

Premise and plot

The story is built on a reincarnation premise. According to the legend that opens the series, the God of War saved the heavens a thousand years earlier in a deadly battle against Luo Hou Ji Du, a powerful warrior of the Demon Tribe; both fell from the heavens and vanished. A thousand years later, a baby was born without her six senses, said to be the reincarnation of the God of War.¹

That child is Chu Xuanji (褚璇玑), the second daughter of Chu Lei, leader of the Shaoyang Sect. Lazy and inept at martial arts, she is sent to the Ming Xia cave to reflect after barging into a forbidden sealed realm, where she meets Yu Sifeng (禹司凤), the head disciple of Lize Palace, and the two befriend each other. Sifeng falls for Xuanji despite the harsh consequences, since students of Lize Palace are prohibited from falling in love; he wears a mask because of a curse that can only be broken if he finds true love.⁷ Four years later the two meet again and, together with Xuanji's elder sister Chu Linglong and fellow disciple Zhong Minyan, travel the jianghu (the martial-arts world of wandering heroes and sects) fighting demons while Xuanji seeks to recover her missing senses.¹^•⁸

Ten lifetimes. The romance spans ten incarnations, a structure the drama makes explicit. In the first nine lifetimes, Sifeng is either killed by Xuanji's hand or dies for her, and in each one Xuanji places a drop of blood at the corner of his eye before he dies; in the tenth life that mark becomes the tear mole Sifeng carries. The drama concentrates its suffering on the male lead, a departure from earlier xianxia romances that typically tormented both leads or the heroine.⁹ In the novel, the two leads fall in love only in the tenth life, while the drama portrays Sifeng as having loved her silently through all ten.¹⁰ The story closes with the villain brought to justice, the three realms restored to peace, and Xuanji and Sifeng, after repeated misunderstandings and hardships, attaining their love.¹¹

Production

The series was produced by H&R Century Pictures (Huanrui), Youku, Wanda Media, Innovation Media Power, and Zhuo Jian Ji Jia. The screenwriters were Liu Fang, Li Hui Min, Cheng Yu, and Wang Wei, with Tan Xuan composing the music and Li Bing Nan as action director.¹ Filming began in February 2019 and wrapped in August 2019;¹² Yuan Bingyan described the 162-day shoot as the longest production period of her career up to then.¹³

The source novel draws heavily on classical Chinese texts. A 2021 scholarly commentary notes that its material comes mostly from the Shan Hai Jing, Sou Shen Ji, and I Ching, with citations the critic judged rigorous, and that unlike the usual xianxia formula of sacrificing the self for the world, the novel makes human feeling (人之情) the spirit running through the whole work.⁴

Broadcast and reception

A troubled premiere. The series had been promoted under the title 琉璃美人煞, but on the day of broadcast it was suddenly renamed 琉璃, which commentators said cost the show recognizability and hurt early viewership. A separate dispute broke out between Youku and Mango TV over streaming rights on premiere day; Mango TV, which had publicized the series heavily, briefly lost access before the two platforms settled within hours.³^•¹⁴

Commercial performance. Expectations were initially low: the leads were not top-tier stars, and Huanrui was contending with debt defaults and management turmoil. After the August 6 premiere, however, the show climbed steadily, topping Vlinkage's daily web-drama index, Weibo's drama chart, Maoyan's heat chart, and Douban's popular TV list, with its Douban score rising from 7.1 to 7.5 within weeks.⁹ By late in the run, Youku's in-site heat value had reached 9988, a platform record, and the show ranked first on Vlinkage's web-drama index for 27 consecutive days, first on Beacon's heat list for 20 days, and first on Datawin's market-share list for 16 days.²^•¹⁵ The finale counted 24.2 billion views across the two platforms and more than 60 billion Weibo topic reads; the three main hashtags (琉璃, 电视剧琉璃, and 琉璃美人煞) together totaled 102.3 billion reads.⁶^•¹⁵ Audience data from Entgroup put the female share of viewers at 82 percent, concentrated under age 35.¹⁴

Television run and awards. On February 19, 2021, the series aired on Jiangsu TV, where even as a rerun its ratings repeatedly exceeded 2 and it held a place in the golden-hour top three.¹³ At the 2020 7th Hengdian Film and TV Festival of China (Wenrong Awards), Yin Tao won Best Director and Zhong Jun Yan won Best Television Producer; the series also placed among the top ten TV dramas at the 16th Chinese American TV Festival in November 2020.¹^•¹⁶

Critical response. Reviews were divided. Supporters praised the pacing, the sweet interactions between the leads, and production values including costumes and makeup in the house style of Huanrui; critics pointed to uneven special effects, abrupt character turns such as the antagonist Wutong's, and background music that sometimes clashed with the period setting.¹⁷ The Qilu Evening News judged that the series followed the standard xianxia formula of artifact-hunting, romance, and monster-fighting, with some hackneyed plot devices, yet still held viewers, and singled out its fresh effect of the male lead drawing talismans in midair and its Chinese-flavored design.¹⁰ Commentary in The Paper placed the series in a lineage of "beautiful, strong, and tragic" (美强惨) male leads, calling Sifeng a successor to Runyu from Ashes of Love, with the character's suffering becoming a trending topic in its own right.⁹

Legacy

The series is credited with raising the profile of its leads: Cheng Yi, who had debuted a decade earlier and remained moderately known until his 2016 role in Noble Aspirations, became a sought-after actor after playing Sifeng, and Yuan Bingyan likewise gained wide attention.¹³ A Wenhui Daily retrospective cited Loving (琉璃) as evidence that a successful adaptation can be built on an old web novel, noting that the 2020 hit was based on a text completed in 2008.¹⁸ The drama also drove sales of hanfu, traditional Chinese clothing, to the point of making social news.²

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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