General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Destiny of White Snake (天乩之白蛇传说)

The Destiny of White Snake (天乩之白蛇传说; Tian Ji Zhi Bai She Chuan Shuo) is a 2018 Chinese television series adapted from the folk tale The Legend of the White Snake, telling a past-life and present-life romance between the small white snake Bai Yaoyao and the physician Xu Xuan¹. It was produced by Huanrui Century, directed by Yin Tao and Liu Guohui, and streamed exclusively on iQiyi from July 9, 2018¹. Two weeks into its run the platform removed it for content adjustment, and a 2021 report states it has not returned to the service²^•³.

Key fact	Detail
Original title	天乩之白蛇传说 (Tian Ji Zhi Bai She Chuan Shuo)⁴
Broadcast	iQiyi, premiered July 9, 2018; removed from the platform July 23, 2018¹^•²
Episodes	60 per production reporting; 61 listed by DramaWiki and TheTVDB¹^•⁴
Main cast	Yang Zi (Bai Yaoyao), Ren Jialun (Xu Xuan), Mao Zijun (Qi Xiao), Li Man (Xiao Qing); Carina Lau and Angie Chiu in special appearances¹
Rights deal	iQiyi paid 330 million yuan for exclusive online rights, about 5.5 million yuan per episode¹
Early viewership	210 million total views by the evening of July 11, 2018¹
Ratings	Douban 6.2/10 from 86,202 users (March 2024); IMDb 6.8/10 from 50 users⁵

Spoilers

Premise and plot

The series retells the Legend of the White Snake, one of China's four great folk love stories, as a xianxia (immortal-hero) fantasy with reincarnation and tragic-romance elements¹^•⁶. In the first life, Zi Xuan, a cultivator on Mount Jiuxi, falls in love with the young white snake Bai Yaoyao as she first takes human form. After separation by death, Zi Xuan reincarnates as Xu Xuan, master of the Medicinal Valley, who meets Bai Yaoyao at the Peach Blossom Festival and eventually marries her⁷.

The central tragedy follows the legend's classic beats with new framing. To save Xu Xuan's life, Bai Yaoyao steals a divine herb and violates heavenly law; after he recovers, Xu Xuan regains his past-life memories and sets out to rescue her⁷. Xu Xuan's junior colleague Leng Ning, jealous of Bai Yaoyao, unleashes a flood dragon that ravages the human world. For her own redemption Bai Yaoyao allows herself to be sealed beneath Leifeng Pagoda by Qi Xiao; Xu Xuan, heartbroken, renounces the world and enters a Buddhist monastery. Twenty years later Bai Yaoyao emerges from the pagoda, the karmic debt between the couple is resolved, and Qi Xiao takes monastic vows⁸.

A second couple runs through the series: the green snake Xiao Qing and the demon catcher Qi Xiao, the character who corresponds to the monk Fahai of the traditional tale⁸.

Adaptation choices

Renamed leads, retained set pieces. Screenwriter Han Peizhen said in a 2018 interview that she approached the project not as a remake but as a new interpretation, returning to classical texts for fresh angles. The male lead's name changed from Xu Xian to Xu Xuan and the white snake from Bai Suzhen to Bai Yaoyao, while classic scenes such as the snake taking human form, the meeting at West Lake, the revelation of the snake's true form after drinking realgar wine, and the suppression beneath Leifeng Pagoda were kept and retold from new angles with contemporary values worked in⁹.

The most-discussed change concerns Fahai. In the traditional story he is the morally ambiguous enforcer who separates the couple; here his past life was Xu Xuan's drinking companion, and in the present life he is entangled romantically with Xiao Qing¹⁰. A Sina commentary criticized this softening, arguing that the adaptation blurred the story's traditional boundaries between human, demon, good, and evil, and reduced the tale to a fast-moving romance².

Director Yin Tao framed the changes as deliberate: the team wanted viewers familiar with the legend to be unable to guess the next plot point, and he described Bai Yaoyao's pursuit of self-strengthening and autonomy as carrying modern women's values, while Ren Jialun's dual role as the two incarnations Zi Xuan and Xu Xuan, identical in face but different in temperament, was meant to reflect two modes of male devotion¹¹.

Production and release

The drama was announced with a cast combining popular young actors, Yang Zi, Ren Jialun, Mao Zijun, and Li Man, with the film star Carina Lau and Angie Chiu, the Bai Suzhen of the classic 1992 series New Legend of Madame White Snake, in special roles¹. According to a Huanrui Century disclosure of October 2017, the company signed a 618 million yuan contract with iQiyi, of which 330 million yuan covered the exclusive online rights to this series, about 5.5 million yuan per episode¹. iQiyi released all episodes at once for members, a distribution model it was applying to several 2018 titles¹.

The series premiered on July 9, 2018, and reached 210 million total views by the evening of July 11, a performance the trade press called unremarkable¹. A companion manhua (comic) adaptation was released simultaneously on major comic platforms as part of a "film-comic linkage" strategy aimed at younger, two-dimensional-culture audiences¹².

Reception and removal

Critical response divided along audience lines. Some viewers found Yang Zi's dubbing and Ren Jialun's line delivery too idol-drama in flavor for a classic property, and felt the reincarnation plot moved too quickly in its early episodes for audiences attached to the original tale¹. Younger viewers who did not measure it against the source treated it as a fantasy idol drama comparable to The Journey of Flower and Eternal Love, and its traffic rose accordingly¹. A People's Daily Online review judged that the series kept the Legend of the White Snake as its blueprint while adding fantasy and tragic-romance elements and fresher characterizations, though the Guangzhou Daily criticized rough props and effects despite the innovative plot and casting⁵. Jiemian's media commentary noted that the series did not take the "copy-paste" route of some 2018 remakes, and credited its renewed storytelling with keeping pace with the times¹³.

Sudden removal. On July 23, 2018, the series disappeared from iQiyi. The platform stated that it had obtained a distribution license but that "its content needs adjustment" and it was being taken offline temporarily, with a return date to be announced¹⁴. The removal came days after the National Radio and Television Administration's July 10 notice tightening review of summer programming¹⁵. A 2021 report on a related lawsuit stated that the drama had never returned to the platform, with Huanrui Century bearing the loss³. As of March 2024, aggregated user ratings stood at 6.2 on Douban and 6.8 on IMDb⁵.

Place in the White Snake adaptation tradition

The Legend of the White Snake has been adapted repeatedly since the 1926 silent film, and each era reworks the characters to fit current tastes⁶. Within that lineage, The Destiny of White Snake is cited as an example of the 2018 wave of remakes that went far in adaptation, using the folk tale's core to tell a larger xianxia story rather than restaging the familiar plot¹⁶. A 2025 academic survey of the legend's screen adaptations lists it among the recent works starring popular young idols alongside veteran actors, noting the large production and publicity it commanded and the social effects, expected and unexpected, that followed¹⁷.

References

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