Chinese Drama 2023
Beauty of Resilience (Chinese Drama Review & Summary
Hua Rong poster
- Genre: Historical Costume Drama Fiction, Romance, Fantasy
- Release Date: 1 June 2023
- Origin: China; Adapted from a novel by Lin Jia Cheng
- Cdrama: 36 Episodes
- Network: iQiyi13
Cast
- Ju Jing Yi as Wei Zhi / Si Ma Wang Yue / Mo Hou/ “Phoenix”
- Fiction Guo as Yan Yue / Chen Yan / Mo Zun
- Liu Dong Qin as Wizard of Wu Tribe / Mu Nan/Demon lord
- Lu Ting Yu as Yi Er
- Ma Yue as Wei Ling Yue
- Huang Hai Bing [Heavenly Emperor]
- Jin Qiao Qiao – [Heavenly Empress]
- Kou Zhen Hai as Jing Xiu / Mu Lao
- Zhang Zhi Hao as Ou Ya
- Song Xin Ran as Lan Su
- Nie Zi Hao as Ming Lang
- Jiang Shan as Wei Jing Yue
- Shi Yue Ling as Mother Wei
- Lin Feng Song as Yan Luo
- He Yi Chen – [Royal Advisor]
- Sun Zi Hang as Qing Huan
- Yoko Zhang as Wei Hong
- Zhang Da Bao as Lang Shao
- Zhang Jia Xin as Xiao Jin
- He You Ning as Se Ning
- Guo Yang as Chi Nu
- Qiu Ding Jie as Wu Mu
- Hu Kun as Liu Chang
- Miao Yu as Sima Chao Yang
Quick Precis
Rebirth in three lifetimes? An immortal came searching for the one with from Phoenix bloodline who was prophesied to destroy the three realms.
Snippets:
2 June 2021: The booting ceremony was held today.
Episode 1
Prologue: In the beginning of the world, the Immortal Realm, Human Realm and the Demon Realm were also formed.
Independent of the three realms was a phoenix. It was a divine beast born from heaven and earth. It attained enlightenment but it just disappeared.
….
At the Minister of Rites in Dayu, Wei Zhi woke up to start her work. She was a housemaid, indentured to the Weis until she turns 16.
Wei Zhi, despite being diligent with her work is not popular because she is a bit of a jinx.
The Wei family has two daughters. The elder one, Wei Ling Yue, is quite reasonable but the younger daughter was spoilt and rather nasty.
Anyway, Wei Zhi’s mother came to the Wei Mansion to ask Wei Zhi to go back home with her. Now that she was 16, she had arranged for her to get married. The man is older and ailing but he has money. They needed the money because her younger brother is growing up.
Wei Zhi run off from her nasty mother and went to beg Lady Lingyue to help her.
Lingyue told the mother that as Wei Zhi has turned sixteen she had to attend the coming of age ceremony as mandated by law. So the mother can’t take Wei Zhi until she had done the ceremony and she is still contracted to work for the Wei for another 3 months.
The day of the ceremony came.
Yan Yue, the son of the immortal was watching the teens on their way to the ceremony. He noticed that a girl (Wei Zhi) could see him when he should be invisible.
Anyway the ceremony involved the teens looking into the Immortal Revealing Mirror to measure to root to immortality.
The teens were divided into 18 in each group.
The first group passed the mirror with no complications.
The next group where Wei Zhi was one of them had a different experience because out of the mirror came out the fire phoenix. As they could not ascertain who had the immortal bone from the 18, they decided that all the 18 should enter Egret Academy to learn cultivation.
Meanwhile, at the Demon Realm, the Wizard of the Wu Tribe was ecstatic as the Hua Rong flower finally bloomed.
At the Egret Academy, Yan Yue became their master.
Poor annoying Wei Zhi is bullied by Wei Jing Yue.
Yan Yue noticed that there is really something special about Wei Zhi, She can open a door he put a shield on.
Episode 2
Wizard Wu had good wifi and managed to install a CCTV. He can see what was happening at the Heavenly Realm.🤣🤣🤣
Yan Yue is the trainer but he was being watched by the higher up because he has a history of being overly helpful. He was reminded that he was not to interfere with the humans as they need to make independent decisions and actions.
Yan Yue was puzzled why he kept seeing a future image of Wei Zhi.
Wei Zhi had a back story of a betrothal to Minglan when they were children before her family fell into disrepute or something.
Meanwhile, Wei Lingyue was crushing on Yan Yue.
At the initial training at the Egret Academy, it was presumed that it is one between Lingyue and Minglan who is the phoenix as they are the two who excel in their training.
\Wei Zhi went to town to buy stationery. She met a rather flustered Yan Yue at the doorway of a brothel.
Yan Yue had come to save his young hopeless cousin, Yi Er.
Episode 3
Poor Wei Zhi was rather behind with cultivation. She can’t master teleportation.
Yan Yue teleported them into a very tall tree and told her to study the book until she learned it. She can then teleport herself down. He then disappeared.
Wei Jing Yue saw her on top of the tree. Again, being so nasty, she used a slingshot to shoot down Wei Zhi’s book.
Poor Wei Zhi got more frightened. The students decided to leave her alone after Wei Ling Yue teleported to her to bring Wei Zhi book back to her.
The demon lord was thwarted when Yan Yue noticed that one of the students was used as a satellite dish, transporting images back to the demon realm.
Yan Yue cast away the spell on the student but in his fury the demon lord sent a strong ecto mist which made Wei Zhi fall from her perch on the tree.
She was saved by Yan Yue.
Wei Ling Yue saw them but before she can get jealous, she saw Wei Zhi give Yan Yue a resounding slap for his cruelty of leaving her on top of the tree. She said she could have died.
Episode 4
It was another day in the classroom at Egret Academy. Once again, Wei Zhi failed to perform another activity. She failed to cultivate and make something appear. Everyone one was doing ok but Wei Ling Yue was lauded by her classmate because more and more it looks like she was the Phoenix when she produced an authentic fire phoenix feather.
Suddenly Wei Zhi was possessed by a demonic force and went to grab Wei Ling Yue by the throat. Everyone tried to stop her but somehow Yan Yue was powerless as he was having a heart attack🤣🤣.
But in the end, he did manage to free Wei Ling Yue from the hands of Wei zhi. Wei Zhi collapsed in his arms.
He used most of his qi to remove the demonic energy on Wei Zhi which meant he was as weak as a kitten.
He did something that alarm the immortal guards at the mount of a cave mountain where Yan Yue as Red Sun had his primordial energy stored.
The immortal emperor saw what was happening and told Qing Huan that they can’t stop the Red Sun entanglement with the Pheonix because they are fated to have a deep connection
Meanwhile, Wei Zhi finally woke up and found Yan Yue in the bathtub but unresponsive as he was on an outer body mission in the mountain cave.
She dragged him out of the bath and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation which was seen by a peeping Wei Ling Yue.
Wei Zhi was about to blow into his mouth once again but Yan Yue was back to his body. They were both rather embarrassed so Wei Zhi left as soon as she can.
The next day, Wei Zhi was bullied and shunned by her classmates because they think she was a jinx and might try to kill them as well.
Even the usually kind Ming Lang was keeping away from her. Ming Lang had fallen for Wei Lng Yue.
After the attack on Wei Ling Yue, Yan Yue asked her to move to another villa which was protected by an invisible shield where only humans can enter while demons are barred.
Episode 5
Wei Ling Yue’s father heard what happened to her so he turned up and commanded her and her sister to leave with him but Ling Yue refused. In the end, their irate father left alone.
The Demon Lord personally went to Egret Academy to kidnap Wei Ling Yue who he thought must be the Pheonix.
Wei Zhi was there and protected Ling Yue as much as she could. She was being throttled and suspended on air. The demon taunted her that no one cares for her, not one soul came to save her. But then Yan Yue turned up and the demon had to accept defeat.
The demon was especially angry because when he got back to his cave he was told that the Huarong had simply vanished.
After searching for it, he found it wilted next to the annoying Yi’er, the cousin of Yan Yue.
Meanwhile, a demon prince had been pestering Wei Zhi. The demon prince Ou Ya seemed to have fallen in love with her.
Wei Zhi was running away from him when she met Yan Yue who gave her medication and some elexir wine to help her relax.
She was in a very scenic pagoda by the pond, drinking alone when she started dancing gracefully and beautiful.
Yan Yue saw her and could not help but be drawn to her. His shoulder ended up as her pillow as she fell asleep on him drunkenly.
They are so cute. Fiction Guo was is gorgeous and Jingyi of course is etherealy beautiful.
Episode 6
there is always a super annoying character in a drama like this. `It was the kitchen goddess, Yi Er who seemed thoughtlessly determined to start a war between a war and immortals. She was the one who went to the demon lair and stole the Hua Rong flower. Now the demon lord got her and has her imprisoned.
The immortals noticed that she was absent and started looking for her.
Meanwhile, the 18 students are busy revising for the MidAutumn examination.
The students can invite their parents to a banquet after the exam but Wei Zhi told the kindly dean that she does not think her mother could come.
But still, she went home to tell her mother about it. Her mother looked at her with fury and locked her up in the warehouse. Her mother said that she was going to marry her off.
Her young brother was upset for her.
Meanwhile, the Dean turned up. The dean had been curious about Wei Zhi since he saw her wearing a jade bracelet which was a Gu heirloom.
Mr Gu was the Dean’s friend.
Wei Zhi mother’s related the story of why she was compelled to hate Wei Zhi. Apparently, the villagers looked at Wei Zhi who was then called Feng Zhi with such suspicion because she was a strange girl. They called her a witch and when there was a drought, they blamed Feng Zhi. They then requested the Emperor to make Feng Zhi a sacrifice to the god of rain.
Her grandpa protected her to death and her father who turned up was deemed a rebel and was killed as well. From then on, her mother detested her. And when the mother found out that she was pregnant, Feng Zhi became more like a stranger.