Spoilers - ask questions and find answers

Who is Bai Xiao Sheng and what is his role? Why is he doing all these things?

 AlexisTasartir:

Who is Bai Xiaosheng? What is his backstory? What is his motive? Will he be TIan Yao's enemy?

Drama-only character

 AlexisTasartir:

NO!!! I hoped to know something about him... But that means that he is even more interesting... 

His whole subplot seems to be a drama-only addition, the only things we sort of know about him is that he seems to be a bit of a mishmash between Bai Xiaolu (similar names) and Huan Xiaoyan (despite her apparently being in the drama herself)??? beyond that we don't know

 katsumi_liqueur:

I didn't know about the 40-episode rule. WTF!

Aiyooolah...it's mind boggling yes.....

 jaginsing:

I don't know how they've adapted the neidan/scale in the drama (it might be in the trailers, but not yet in the episodes). The whole neidan aspect doesn't come into the novel until quite late....

So I read a comment somewhere I can’t remember where or somebody said that at the very beginning, it’s mentioned very briefly and quickly like I think they said they had to like go back and reread in order to catch it that the heart scale and his soul are combined into one , and that’s why her Shifu sealed it

 valleyofthelost:

That scene isn't in the novel, in the novel Tian Yao is like "whatever" about taking his heart protection scale back. What he REALLY wanted back from her was his neidan, which Yan Hui also had, and is what the last major conflict of the novel is over. He gets his heart protection scale back at literally the last proper chapter of the novel, when Yan Hui dies from giving him back his neidan of her own free will, and she leaves the heart protection scale behind for him. it's symbolism because she IS his heart protection scale.

Does he force her to give back his neidan?

 yenshu:

Does Tian yao ever hurt/betray the FL apart from the beginning stabbings to get the dragon bone?

No, and thats whats kind irritating about the drama. Aside from the stabbing in the novel, the only other thing that Tian Yao really kept from Yan hui was that she had his neidan, and he wanted her to practice demonic cultivation to stimulate it before taking it back. He abandoned that plan though because he fell for Yan Hui and the neidan was keeping her alive.

The trust this couple has for each other is pretty tight so its aggravating they're violating that for elevated drama angst.

 liarsh:

To be fair, we don't know how it will play out in the drama and that the trust will broken.

It's more that....the novel actually has a very high level of internal consistency. The additional "angst factor" (perhaps because of the visual medium) just feels unnecessary because the novel, while a slow burn, really is good enough without the scriptwriter additions....probably doesn't make sense, but that's what Valley is getting at, I think.