# Miss Crow And Mr Lizard (乌鸦小姐与蜥蜴先生)
**Miss Crow and Mr. Lizard** (乌鸦小姐与蜥蜴先生) is a 2021 Chinese urban romantic fantasy television series directed by Wu Qiang and starring [Ren Jialun](https://www.edgepedia.org/ren-jialun) and [Xing Fei](https://www.edgepedia.org/xing-fei), in which an architect kept alive by a mechanical heart that discharges electricity when his emotions rise falls for his chronically unlucky new assistant.[1](https://www.cpophome.com/miss-crow-with-mr-lizard-ren-jialun-xing-fei/) The 36-episode series aired on [Tencent Video](https://www.edgepedia.org/tencent-video) from April 26 to May 17, 2021, with new episodes Monday through Wednesday at 8:00 pm.[2](https://www.thetvdb.com/series/400007-)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | 乌鸦小姐与蜥蜴先生 (Wu Ya Xiao Jie Yu Xi Yi Xian Sheng)[3](https://janghaven.com/topic/665-miss-crow-with-mr-lizard-%E4%B9%8C%E9%B8%A6%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90%E4%B8%8E%E8%9C%A5%E8%9C%B4%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F-2021/) |
| Run | April 26 to May 17, 2021, Tencent Video; 36 episodes of about 45 minutes[2](https://www.thetvdb.com/series/400007-) |
| Leads | Ren Jialun as Gu Chuan ("Mr. Lizard"); Xing Fei as Jiang Xiaoning ("Miss Crow")[4](https://www.justwatch.com/in/tv-show/miss-crow-with-mr-lizard) |
| Creative team | Director Wu Qiang; screenwriters Yang Nan, Yang Meiwei, and Liu Chang; producer Teng Zhenzi[1](https://www.cpophome.com/miss-crow-with-mr-lizard-ren-jialun-xing-fei/) |
| Production | Tencent Penguin Pictures, T.H Entertainment, and Maoyan Entertainment; an original script with no underlying IP[1](https://www.cpophome.com/miss-crow-with-mr-lizard-ren-jialun-xing-fei/) • [5](https://cj.sina.com.cn/articles/view/1704024994/65915ba202700vx7k) |
| Central premise | A mechanical heart that forbids strong emotion and discharges electricity when the heart rate exceeds 100[6](https://m.thepaper.cn/baijiahao_13105853) |
| Reception | No. 1 on the Yunhe network drama chart with a peak 10.67% market share; Douban rating steady around 7.0[7](https://www.sohu.com/a/466355411_120848598) |
## Spoilers
### Premise and the animal metaphors
The story begins with a car accident in the year Gu Chuan graduates from university. His heart is severely damaged, and surgeons save him by implanting a mechanical heart. The device keeps him alive but imposes strict limits: he cannot exercise intensely, drink alcohol, get angry, or be caught in the rain, and when his heart rate passes 100 he discharges electricity, so ordinary people cannot approach him. He must also charge himself daily like an electronic device, and the machine's operating noise can keep him awake at night.[6](https://m.thepaper.cn/baijiahao_13105853) • [8](https://www.chinanews.com/yl/2021/05-12/9475395.shtml) A wristwatch signals his condition to the audience: the screen stays blue while his heart rate is below 100 and turns red, with a different flashing pattern, above it.[9](https://k.sina.cn/article_3840084769_e4e30b2101900ze1q.html?from=ent&subch=oent)
Ten years later Gu Chuan and his friend Xu Chengran (Liu Ruilin) run the successful "Chuan" architecture design studio. Colleagues see a design genius and a cold-blooded "Mr. Lizard," a name that reflects both the lizard's cold-blooded symbolism and his emotional confinement.[2](https://thetvdb.com/series/400007-) • [8](https://www.chinanews.com/yl/2021/05-12/9475395.shtml) Believing his heart is failing, he plans to finish a wish list, whose last item is winning a design award, and then end his life; he has even bought his own grave in advance.[8](https://www.chinanews.com/yl/2021/05-12/9475395.shtml) • [10](https://www.sohu.com/a/465499501_674735)
Jiang Xiaoning lost both parents in a car accident as a child and lives with her aunt and her grandmother, who has Alzheimer's disease. Her run of misfortune earns her the "Miss Crow" label, the crow standing for bad luck: she held 27 jobs, and each employer's business closed within a month of her joining. She remains optimistic, supports her family, and studies architecture on her own after dropping out.[8](https://www.chinanews.com/yl/2021/05-12/9475395.shtml) • [11](https://wetv.vip/zh-cn/play/ml6bvkvadpbxypa) The two meet by chance, become boss and assistant, and the show frames their meeting as fate: only she can touch him without being shocked.[8](https://www.chinanews.com/yl/2021/05-12/9475395.shtml) As they grow closer, Gu Chuan recovers the passion for life he had lost, and helping Xiaoning finish her studies and pursue her dream gives him a new sense of self.[11](https://wetv.vip/zh-cn/play/ml6bvkvadpbxypa)
## Origin and production
The idea dates to 2017. Producer Teng Zhenzi of T.H Entertainment was scouting locations in Mexico for *The Brightest Star in the Sky* when traffic stopped beside a dead lizard with a crow standing guard over it. She read the scene as a crow protecting the lizard rather than preying on it, and decided her next project would be a story about guardianship.[9](https://k.sina.cn/article_3840084769_e4e30b2101900ze1q.html?from=ent&subch=oent) The concept and title were fixed in 2017 and never changed through development and broadcast.[7](https://www.sohu.com/a/466355411_120848598)
The idea found its story when the screenwriter Yang Nan delivered an outline of roughly 1,500 words about a man with a mechanical heart who falls in love but cannot. Script preparation began at the end of 2018, and the first five episodes were rewritten about five times as the team worked to make the fanciful premise internally consistent.[9](https://k.sina.cn/article_3840084769_e4e30b2101900ze1q.html?from=ent&subch=oent) Teng Zhenzi said the team researched real-world mechanical heart cases and coordinated the heart's design drawings, special effects, sound design, and the watch's heart-rate readout so that the numbers matched the pain other characters felt on contact.[7](https://www.sohu.com/a/466355411_120848598) Director Wu Qiang also reworked the set dressing: the script's charging chair became an egg-shaped charging bed in a white room, which he wanted to give Gu Chuan a sense of safety and ritual.[9](https://k.sina.cn/article_3840084769_e4e30b2101900ze1q.html?from=ent&subch=oent)
Teng Zhenzi has described the show as a deliberate attempt to innovate within the crowded "sweet pet" (tianchong) romance genre by borrowing fantasy elements from Korean dramas and grounding them in realistic storytelling, with Tencent's support on content and production.[7](https://www.sohu.com/a/466355411_120848598) The male screenwriter [Liu Chang](https://www.edgepedia.org/liu-chang), who had not worked in the genre before, was brought in to supply logic, realism, and longer comedic sequences rather than more romance.[9](https://k.sina.cn/article_3840084769_e4e30b2101900ze1q.html?from=ent&subch=oent)
## Broadcast and reception
The series premiered on Tencent Video on April 26, 2021, with two episodes released each Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 8:00 pm, members seeing them first.[2](https://www.thetvdb.com/series/400007-) • [12](https://pdf.dfcfw.com/pdf/H3_AP202104271488111101_1.pdf) Its start was modest: day-one plays barely exceeded 40 million and fell over the next two days to just above 20 million, and early commentary criticized Ren Jialun's decision to perform in his own voice rather than use a dubbing actor.[13](https://k.sina.cn/article_1737018574_6788ccce00100stic.html?from=ent&subch=star)
Momentum built steadily afterward. According to the Yunhe data screen-share chart, the show climbed from 10th place on its premiere day to 1st, with a peak market share of 10.67%, and held a daily rank near the top 3 as of May 13, 2021.[7](https://www.sohu.com/a/466355411_120848598) By mid-May it led the Guuduo all-platform drama heat ranking, ahead of *Chuang 2021* among programs.[14](https://pdf.dfcfw.com/pdf/H3_AP202105171492227378_1.pdf%3F1657210334000.pdf) After its run, the production side reported more than 90 Weibo hot-search appearances, over 16 billion cumulative reads for the main hashtag, first place on both the Maoyan and Guuduo heat charts, and 1.7 billion total plays on Tencent Video.[15](https://k.sina.com.cn/article_7262521260_1b0e147ac001018p46.html) The Douban score held around 7.0, a figure the producer's interview called uncommon for a 36-episode original drama on a single platform.[7](https://www.sohu.com/a/466355411_120848598)
## Critical assessment
Reviewers split over how well the fantasy premise served the romance. A Qilu Evening News review carried by China News Service argued that the fantasy element was too thin: the mechanical heart was the only fantastic device, it mainly assisted the love plot, and the show remained, at bottom, a "domineering CEO and his little assistant" sweet romance full of familiar tropes such as accidental falls and fated hand-holding.[8](https://www.chinanews.com/yl/2021/05-12/9475395.shtml) The same review credited the leads' chemistry and noted that Jiang Xiaoning was written with more agency than the usual [Cinderella](https://www.edgepedia.org/cinderella), using wit rather than force to protect other women from a harasser.[8](https://www.chinanews.com/yl/2021/05-12/9475395.shtml)
A later Guuduo profile of Wu Qiang took the opposite view, arguing that unlike sweet romances that borrow a novelty shell for a weightless story, this one did not cut corners on characterization or the progression of the leads' feelings. It highlighted the show's restraint with kisses compared with genre norms, its 15 days at the top of the network drama chart, and its lasting presence in the rankings after the finale, and quoted Wu Qiang's framing of the show through Gu Chuan's line, "To be able to look up is happiness."[6](https://m.thepaper.cn/baijiahao_13105853) The finale, in which Gu Chuan wakes and walks toward Jiang Xiaoning, was described in the same coverage as a happy open ending.[15](https://k.sina.com.cn/article_7262521260_1b0e147ac001018p46.html)
## References
1. [Miss Crow with Mr. Lizard, CPOP HOME](https://www.cpophome.com/miss-crow-with-mr-lizard-ren-jialun-xing-fei/)
2. [乌鸦小姐与蜥蜴先生, TheTVDB.com](https://www.thetvdb.com/series/400007-)
3. [Miss Crow with Mr. Lizard 乌鸦小姐与蜥蜴先生 [2021], JangHaven](https://janghaven.com/topic/665-miss-crow-with-mr-lizard-%E4%B9%8C%E9%B8%A6%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90%E4%B8%8E%E8%9C%A5%E8%9C%B4%E5%85%88%E7%94%9F-2021/)
4. [Miss Crow with Mr. Lizard, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/in/tv-show/miss-crow-with-mr-lizard)
5. [制作人访谈录：天浩盛世周浩, Sina Finance](https://cj.sina.com.cn/articles/view/1704024994/65915ba202700vx7k)
6. [从表达喜剧爱情到探寻生命本色，传递娱乐导演吴强的戏作进阶之路, The Paper](https://m.thepaper.cn/baijiahao_13105853)
7. [《乌鸦小姐与蜥蜴先生》对甜宠剧的破与立：制片人滕真子专访, Sohu / Data ENT](https://www.sohu.com/a/466355411_120848598)
8. [《乌鸦小姐与蜥蜴先生》：奇幻与甜宠融合度不够, China News Service / Qilu Evening News](https://www.chinanews.com/yl/2021/05-12/9475395.shtml)
9. [在奇幻悬浮中找到"着陆点"，《乌鸦小姐与蜥蜴先生》的"真实"创作法, Sina Entertainment / Guuduo](https://k.sina.cn/article_3840084769_e4e30b2101900ze1q.html?from=ent&subch=oent)
10. [《乌鸦小姐与蜥蜴先生》："谁会接受一个随时没电的男友？", Sohu / Seeker](https://www.sohu.com/a/465499501_674735)
11. [乌鸦小姐与蜥蜴先生, WeTV](https://wetv.vip/zh-cn/play/ml6bvkvadpbxypa)
12. [西南证券影视传媒行业周报 (2021-04-26)](https://pdf.dfcfw.com/pdf/H3_AP202104271488111101_1.pdf)
13. [任嘉伦首部现代剧开播就扑街, Sina Entertainment](https://k.sina.cn/article_1737018574_6788ccce00100stic.html?from=ent&subch=star)
14. [2021年5月16日传媒行业周报](https://pdf.dfcfw.com/pdf/H3_AP202105171492227378_1.pdf%3F1657210334000.pdf)
15. [传递娱乐导演吴强：离地半尺的甜宠剧,是如何落地的? Sina News](https://k.sina.com.cn/article_7262521260_1b0e147ac001018p46.html)
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*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 Iv to My*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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