No Boundary / Yu Zhao Ling 玉昭令 Season 1 & 2 [2021]

sugarplum892 · September 5, 2020

No Boundary / Yu Zhao Ling 玉昭令

Chinese title: Yu Zhao Ling 玉昭令
English title: No Boundary, The Storm of the World

Genre: Suspense, Historical, Mystery, Romance, Fantasy

Episodes: 32

Director: Steve Cheng

Broadcasting Network: iQIYI

Broadcast Period: March 30th, 2021

Cast:

Guan Hong as Zhan Yan
Zhang Yi Shang as Duanmu Cui
Wang Yi Fei as Hong Ying
Gu Zi Cheng as Wengu Weiyu
Yang Ze as Shangguan Ce
Hei Ze as Zhao Wu
Wang Yi Nuo as Zhao Ling

Synopsis:

High immortal Duanmu Cui took the initiative to manage the heretical forces in the mortal world. She is decisive and domineering, but after meeting Zhan Yan, a guy who appears cold but is warm-hearted, at Qifeng city, she becomes confused about his feelings for him and starts to develop worries. From bickering rivals to becoming partners in justice, the two began to fall in love. But a greater conspiracy awaits them. (Credit)

Helpful Links

Weibo l Baidu

Tofu · March 6, 2021

Airing Schedule

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Trailer

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OSTs

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Tofu · March 6, 2021

Character Posters:

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Tofu · March 26, 2021

More stuff released, please air soon!

Tofu · March 29, 2021

Yay!! It's premiering on March 30th! :jinbtsyes:

Tofu · March 29, 2021

New posters released:

Tofu · March 29, 2021

The drama will be available on iQIYI for everyone, no restrictions! That's probably the best news for anyone that does not live in Asia! I would assume that this is a drama tied to iQIYI since the beginning, it will have English subs -- hopefully good ones and not auto translated ones but we will find out tomorrow! =)

Tofu · March 30, 2021

New trailer released for the premiere today. =)

Tofu · March 30, 2021

New posters and I also updated the second post with the airing schedule. This week it'll air on Tuesday/Wednesday and then afterwards, it'll be Monday-Wednesday. The number of episodes were dropped from 40 to 32 too! I love when there are less episodes. Haha!

By the way, the novel that this drama is based on is by the same author as the novel Rattan is based on too. =)

Tofu · March 30, 2021

I watched the first episode and so far it was good. Zhao Yan and Duanmu Cui are going to bicker a lot in this drama. :eeeee:

Tofu · March 31, 2021

I'm a little more than halfway through episode 2 and the visual is definitely good -- all the characters are beautiful as well too. I don't know exactly how I feel about it just yet. I'll have to watch a few more episodes before I decide if I'm going to continue watching or will be putting it on hold.

These are some new character posters that came out recently:

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Photos of the set -- again, very beautiful.

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Today on Weibo when they were doing the countdown to the release, these were the photos for 3 hours, 2 hours, and 1 hour.

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Tofu · March 31, 2021

Wow -- more photos!

NiteWalker · March 31, 2021

what the stories about lols.....need a partner?

NiteWalker · April 1, 2021

No Boundary is on Top 10 in Mar/31 rating chart

Tofu · April 1, 2021

22 hours ago, NiteWalker said:

what the stories about lols.....need a partner?

Only if you like xianxia dramas and have spare time! :laugh:

I'm on episode four or five and so far it's been good. Duanmu Cui and Zhan Yan joined forces to investigate the crimes that's happening in the city. Zhan Yan is a mortal whereas Duanmu is an immortal. A lot of the crimes that's happening are because of demons. The demon clan had been trapped in the ninth hell but slowly, some of them have been able to get out.

Their first criminal/demon was a lady who was absorbing soul so she continue to stay young and also to turn her lover into an immortal too (I really hope I understood this correctly because I watched these episodes pretty early in the morning). I felt really bad for the lady because when her lover found out that she's actually an old lady, he turned his back on her. Is appearance that important? :nervous: I also recognized the guy that played the lover, he was in The Romance of Tiger and Rose. He played Su Mo in that drama.

Their second case was really sad. A lot of people were getting trapped by the mirror spirit. When we learned more about this spirit, he wanted to attain this level of power to become a mortal because he fell in love with Meng Die, a blind girl. Whenever someone used this peach blush powder, that's how he found his prey. He took over a few bodies and when he did, he would help Meng Die -- eventually falling in love with her. The demon king (I think that's who he is) told the mirror spirt that if he stole a hairpin (this hairpin ended up being part of a drawing that the demon king wants), he will help him become a mortal. Duanmu Cui asked him why he just didn't practice his craft for 1000 years because after that he could become a mortal. He said that a human doesn't live for more than 100 years, Meng Die would died before he attained that. It turns out that he was probably a year away from reaching this but because of his greed, he committed too many sins and thus needed to be destroyed. When he died, he asked Duanmu Cui to promise that she'll give his eyes to Meng Die. Duanmu Cui did just that. When Meng Die woke up to find out that he's no longer there, she was so sad and wanted to take her eyes out. Duanmu Cui told her that if she did that, the mirror spirit would be really heartbroken. :letalQQ:

In this same episode, we also learned that something happened to Zhan Yan's parents. It's not clear what but part of the mirror spirit's power is trapping the people in their illusion -- basically their dreams and desires. His desires seemed to have been to be with his parents again to the point where he couldn't get himself out of it (he needed to get out of the illusion otherwise he was going to rot to death). Zhan Yan did eventually get himself out of it and woke up.

This is the scene of Zhan Yan going back to have his mother's food.

Apologies if I remembered some of these details wrong! I watched a lot of the episodes as I was getting ready for work in the morning. :pandascared:

Here are some moments between Duanmu Cui and Zhan Yan that I thought was cute.

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NiteWalker · April 1, 2021

1 minute ago, Tofu said:

I'm on episode four or five and so far it's been good. Duanmu Cui and Zhan Yan joined forces to investigate the crimes that's happening in the city. Zhan Yan is a mortal whereas Duanmu is an immortal. A lot of the crimes that's happening are because of demons. The demon clan had been trapped in the ninth hell but slowly, some of them have been able to get out.

seems interesting lols....i see again...i need something that doesnt required much brain work....im still all over YAMH for now lols

Tofu · April 1, 2021

25 minutes ago, NiteWalker said:

seems interesting lols....i see again...i need something that doesnt required much brain work....im still all over YAMH for now lols

Haha! I'm ok watching this drama series by myself, if you don't have time! Together, we are probably not good at promoting China Charms. We both have our likes/dislikes and sometimes that means we're not watching the most popular C-Drama series. :eeeee:

Duanmu Cui and Zhan Yan getting up close and personal. :GengarAww:

NiteWalker · April 1, 2021

20 minutes ago, Tofu said:

Haha! I'm ok watching this drama series by myself, if you don't have time! Together, we are probably not good at promoting China Charms. We both have our likes/dislikes and sometimes that means we're not watching the most popular C-Drama series.

i think we work charm when we're together sometimes hahahhaa....

u didnt watch the Harem show that i was watching....its not a bad watch to be honest lols....just not your sort of drama since it involved alot of scheming and also politics which wasnt mine either...i only watch it for SongYun lols

Tofu · April 1, 2021

@NiteWalker - I think You Are My Hero is the first drama we watched together where one of us didn't drop out halfway through the series. :eeeee:

The demon in the first case:

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The Mirror Spirit and Meng Die from the second case:

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Yu Zhao Ling's weibo posted photos of the details of some of the clothes worn by the actors:

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I'm not sure what the context of this, but it seems like they may have surpass a certain amount of views on iQIYI so they celebrated this by posting this photo. The only thing that I cared about was just how incredibly cute the cartoon characters of them are. Haha!

I posted this on Twitter, but will share it here too. The cat is so cute!

NiteWalker · April 1, 2021

3 minutes ago, Tofu said:

I'm not sure what the context of this, but it seems like they may have surpass a certain amount of views on iQIYI so they celebrated this by posting this photo. The only thing that I cared about was just how incredibly cute the cartoon characters of them are. Haha!

yes most probably 6million views if not wrong....

Tofu · April 3, 2021

I finished watching all the episodes aired this week and I'm going to continue watching this. I really enjoyed this drama a lot more than I thought I would. I find Darren Chen and Zhang Yi Shang absolutely adorable as Zhan Yan and Duanmu Cui, plus I'm all about xianxia dramas. :eeeee:

Before I get into the things I'm curious about, a couple of things about the three types of people presented in this dramas:

Demons - The demon clan is currently trapped in the Ninth Hell. This is due to a war they started and lost many years ago. Not much is known at this point on why there was a war. Some demons were able to escape and have been causing trouble in the mortal world. The demons has special powers but unless they have cultivated their skills, they are not as strong as an immortal.
Immortals - This is what Duanmu Cui is. She's an immortal who lived in Penglai but was sent to live in the mortal world as punishment. I can't remember if they said anything about why she was punished. Anyone that's a immortal has special powers and Duanmu, being at the top, is a very powerful person.
Mortals - Just another word for humans, no special powers. Zhan Yan does have special abilities, so far I haven't see anyone else but him with these. He can fly and when he uses his sword, it's extremely powerful. I mean it could just be because he's a skilled fighter and not that he has anything special too.

One thing that I thought was interesting was that, Duanmu Cui's brother said that he doesn't want her to fall in love. It's one of the reasons why Dr. Wengu is in the mortal world watching her. He made a comment that he doesn't want a repeat of what happened the last time she was in love. What happened last time? I know Duanmu Cui has flashbacks every so often but I don't think any of them has been related to being in love before.

Dr. Wengu's background is actually really interesting to me -- probably the most interesting because I want to see how he response to Duanmu Cui falling in love with Zhan Yan. As of right now, we know that he is from the demon clan as well as the dragon clan. Those born in the dragon clan are well respected in the demon world. Around episode 8, we learn that Dr. Wengu is actually the Demon King. His father died in the war, but instead of staying trapped in the Ninth Hell, he somehow became an immortal. I think this has something to do with the love he has for Duanmu Cui. Throughout the drama so far, the peach blossom lady and Dr. Wengu would talk about this. Based off the opening credits, it seems like he may return to his rightful place. Besides being half demon, Dr. Wengu may be a half mortal. The current leader of the Demon clan made a comment about the last Demon King (Dr. Wengu's father) having a son that's half mortal. Duanmu Cui knows he is half demon but does not know anything else.

Now...with that said, let's talk about what's happened so far in the drama? :btsjinok:

I realized that all the cases so far have been because of what these demons did for love. In this third case, we meet a gnat and his family. His wife is currently pregnant and to make sure she can carry their kids, he has to suck people's blood (what the gnat feast on). The Demon Clan's envoy gave him this formation to use when Duanmu Cui is near. It suppresses her powers and make her weak enough for him to kill. This formation also does not allow Dr. Wengu in when he tries to save her.

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The gnat and his family are actually pretty pitiful. All his wife wanted was to have their kids and live a happy life. She's pretty righteous and does not want to feast on any of the blood. She also gets upset every time she learns that her husband has killed another person. Eventually the husband does get killed and she has the kids (twins -- one boy and one girl). However because the blood were from all types of people (mortals, immortals, etc.) and the husband had committed great sins, the kids turned out to be evil. They go around poisoning everyone they see in the city (when they suck on the blood, they poison the people). Duanmu Cui tries to kill them but the wife is really heartbroken and tells her she should be punished instead. The wife blocks the attack and ends up dying with the kids too. Right before everyone vanish, the evil energy is no longer around the kids anymore. In this third case, the husband had attacked a pregnant lady. When the wife and children vanished, they turned into these light (like their spirit light?). We watch Duanmu Cui brings the light to the home of the pregnant lady they saved. This pregnant lady ends up having twins.

After solving this case, it really hit Duanmu Cui hard. The conversations between her and Zhan Yan was really sweet. He doesn't point out that she's crying but she still lies that there's just something in her eyes. He just tells her that if she wants to cry it all out, she can. The next day, they meet up and Duanmu Cui commented that in the mortal world, people move on from disaster very quickly. As they are walking through town, she noticed all the lanterns and made a comment about it. She says something along the lines of as an immortal, they do not have a place to call home, nothing to light their way and no one to return to. Zhan Yan's response to her was so heartwarming. See the spoiler tag for the clip (the second one).

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The fourth case is focused on Zhan Yan and his marriage. It seems like there is a demon possessing the girl that his godmother wants him to marry. I won't go too much into this because it's not resolved yet. What I do find adorable about this case is that it really allowed Zhan Yan and Duanmu Cui to slowly recognized that they have grew fond of each other. I hope we get a confession soon!

By the way, I love how shy Zhan Yan gets because of how direct Duanmu Cui can be. Duanmu Cui is also an opportunist -- she takes any opportunity she gets to get close to Zhan Yan. :laugh:

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Tofu · April 3, 2021

New trailer: https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:4621145882951684?from=old_pc_videoshow

This trailer gives a lot of insight to what to expect in the drama.

Tofu · April 3, 2021

New photos released on Weibo:

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I thought it was really nice of the drama to share more photos of the gnat family from the third case:

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Tofu · April 4, 2021

Photos of the couple from the second case -- the crime was unforgiveable but the story was actually very sweet. He's a mirror spirit and she is blind.