Eternal Love (三生三世十里桃花) review

laelene Post in general blog, reviews，Tags: chinese dramas, reviews, tv shows

29 April 2021

This was one of the most memorable shows I watched, which really got me into the whole xianxia genre of shows. I enjoyed the magic and the multiple lives concept that allowed us to experience various worlds. A lot of this felt vaguely familiar, since it closely follows many Chinese beliefs about immortals up in the heavens. I think back on parts of the show often and I will definitely want to rewatch it at some point.

I first became obsessed with Zhang Bin Bin (Vin Zhang) coming out of this and eventually watched a bunch of his other costume dramas too. He was my first actor crush from the shows, with many more to follow lol. He was the reason I made a “Gimme More” list of actors I want to see more of.

Major thanks to Drama Slot for the episode summary I referenced for my own summary.

Total episodes: 58, about 40 min each (watched it on Netflix but you can find it on Viki)

Listen to the OST on Spotify (my fav song is Liang Liang 凉凉=cold/cool “Bracing the Chill“)

Title in Chinese is San Sheng San Shi Shi Li Tao Hua 三生三世十里桃花:
San = three, sheng = life/lives, san = three again, shi = world, the next shi = ten, li = mile, tao = peach, hua = flower. So three lives, three worlds, 10 miles of peach blossoms. This is referencing what happens in the show and a location in it that is a peach tree paradise.

Warning: possible spoilers ahead!

I rated this one a 10/10.

I loved so much about this show. For me it got really interesting around episode 10 and then just kept going with more and more craziness. I guess I really didn’t know what I was getting into at the start of my cdrama journey haha.

I was captivated by Ye Hua’s utter devotion to Su Su/Bai Qian and all the pain he underwent throughout the whole process. Poor kid did not have it easy, with duty and betrayal and loss.

What I didn’t like about Bai Qian’s character is that she had basically no attachment to her child. She was very selfish in that aspect and was more focused on herself or Ye Hua. This is one of the reasons I don’t think I want kids, because I’m concerned I might be like that.

This one made it on a whopping 13 of my lists:

Tropes/themes in this show:

jealous female love rival who thinks she deserves the male lead
male love rival who fights to win the female lead
main leads who need to stay away from and/or be mean to each other to protect each other
side character who also falls in love with main lead, but can never be with them and ends up finding their own happiness with someone else (ok the second part I think isn’t true…)
main lead who needs to do something completely against their character to accomplish a larger goal; in the mean time they alienate their loved ones and have a falling out
main lead who sacrifices him/herself to save the other
arranged marriage that turns out to be with the person they fell in love with in a different context
main female dresses as a man and another woman falls in love with her
main females dresses as a man and lives amongst them without being discovered
someone decides the only way to protect themselves and their loved ones is by gaining power (usually a throne)

Show Summary:

There’s a naughty little fox who is the daughter of the fox king, Bai Zhu. They are the Nine-Tailed White Fox Tribe. She gets sent to a famous mountain, Kunlun, to cultivate and stay out of trouble. The god who takes her there magically disguises her as a boy since the master only takes male disciples. The master is Mo Yuan, God of War, and he can see through the disguise, but still accepts her because a precious magic fan chose her (so that means something good right?). The god who took her there gives her the name Si Yin. She and another guy show up at the same time and she becomes the last, 17th disciple.

After maaaaaaaaaaaaany many years (20,000 apparently), Si Yin is known to be Mo Yuan’s favorite disciple. This is the part of the story that didn’t really get me the first time — I see the dedication he has to her but I don’t feel it. And why exactly does he like her? Maybe when I rewatch, I’ll notice more.

There’s a goddess who is in love with Mo Yuan and is jealous so she kidnaps Si Yin, but of course Mo Yuan saves his disciple. He then fights and basically breaks ties with the goddess, chasing her off the mountain.

One of the fox’s cousins gets sent to the mountain to escape an arranged marriage, her name is Xuan Nu.

On the mountain, there is a golden lotus in a pond, which Mo Yuan takes care of. It was given to him by his father and he’s supposed to care for it until it can take human form.

Si Yin likes to sneak off the mountain and she convinces one of her disciple brothers, the 9th one – Ling Yu, to go with her (as they often do). They get captured by the Ghost Tribe Lord, Qing Cang, on their way. He’s plotting a rebellion against the Celestial Tribe and apparently forcing Ling Yu to be his godson is going to help.

Ghost Tribe’s second prince, Li Jing, and princess, Yan Zhi, are both pretty nice folks unlike their dad and they both take a liking to Si Yin. I guess Li Jing can tell Si Yin is a woman. I don’t understand the naming convention of this tribe, I guess there are no family names? Or Qing Cang and Yan Zhi’s names actually supposed to be Li Qing Cang and Li Yan Zhi? Or they aren’t actually biologically related? Both siblings at some point help Si Yin escape. Also I love their looks, not only are both actors beautiful but I love the little face things they have that make them look a little animalistic.

Ultimately it’s Mo Yuan who comes, fights Qing Cang, and brings back his two disciples. Si Yin was supposed to undergo a trial that is lightning bolts (common thing for immortals in their cultivation, apparently), but Mo Yuan takes them for her. Why? Because she’s not ready? What’s the point of him doing it, why does she still get credit?

Up at the Celestial Tribe, the Heavenly Lord is like the emperor and is concerned about Qing Cang’s growing power and ambition. One of his advisors is the very old and powerful (yet never aging) Donghua Dijun, who apparently is as old as time and isn’t interested in running the court so he lets Heavenly Lord rule. They figure they should replace Qing Cang with someone more cooperative, like Li Jing. Over at the Fox Tribe (they live in Qing Qiu), the fox king’s granddaughter is born and named Bai Fengjiu. She gets her own show with Eternal Love of Dream.

Li Jing got in trouble for helping Si Yin but his sister helps him escape and he eventually goes to Kunlun mountain to confess his feelings to Si Yin. They won’t let him on the grounds and he fights with the senior disciple, Die Feng. Eventually he finds a cave nearby to stay at. He starts courting Si Yin, but Xuan Nu is jealous and wants to be with him, so she makes herself look like Si Yin to seduce Li Jing. Si Yin catches them together and gets upset. Li Jing highly regrets it but it’s too late. He goes back to Ghost Tribe and Xuan Nu follows him.

Qing Cang is furious with Li Jing but Xuan Nu saves him by offering to help Qing Cang in his war as long as she can marry Li Jing. So they get married and Li Jing is miserable. Xuan Nu ends up getting beaten and sent back to Kunlun as a declaration of war.

The battle starts and Ling Yu (9th disciple) is gravely injured. Li Jing protects Si Yin against his brother the first prince of Ghost Tribe, Li Yuan. Si Yin’s 4th brother Bai Zhen swoops in to save her and Ling Yu but Ling Yu still dies from his injuries. Mo Yuan ultimately has to use a magic bell to capture Qing Cang, then sacrifice his soul to seal Qing Cang in the bell.

Si Yin is absolutely devastated and clings on to her master’s final words: wait for me to return. She refuses to believe he’s dead dead. She takes his lifeless body and uses blood from her heart to preserve him. It’s a special power that the Fox Tribe’s blood has.

Li Jing has taken over the Ghost Tribe and locked up his brother Li Yuan (but I think he made everyone believe Li Yuan was dead). Si Yin learns that they have a jade that can preserve bodies, so she goes to ask Li Jing for it but he says it was lost. Xuan Nu shows up with the jade, which makes Si Yin mad he lied to her. He was jealous of Mo Yuan. Now he’s mad at Xuan Nu.

A childless couple from Celestial Tribe (the eldest prince and his wife, I believe) was sent to Kunlun and they encounter the golden lotus, which ends up floating into the wife’s body and giving them a child (or I guess more accurately, a pregnancy). When the baby is born, a very auspicious sign shows up in the sky. He is named Ye Hua.

Si Yin returns to her home in Qing Qiu (where the nine-tailed foxes live) and goes back to being Bai Qian. That’s who she really is and she was a princess of the Fox Tribe before she went to Kunlun and lived as a male disciple. 70,000 years pass and this is when Mo Yuan’s seal on the bell is going to wear off. Ye Hua has grown up and he’s either the crown prince or at least the de facto one. Why his dad isn’t next in line may have been addressed but I don’t recall. He looks just like Mo Yuan and people start commenting on it here and there when they meet him. Is he a reincarnation? A clone?

Bai Qian has been keeping Mo Yuan’s body in a cave at her tribe, she’s taken over as Queen of Qing Qiu and now she’s considered an auntie (aka not a spring chicken anymore). She was betrothed to Sang Ji, the second son of the Heavenly Lord, and Ye Hua’s uncle, but she’s not very interested in even meeting him. Again with the lack of family names… did they just never mention a possible shared surname for Ye Hua and Sang Ji? He goes to Qing Qiu but she doesn’t come out and he meets and falls in love with Shao Xin, Bai Qian’s maid instead. Ultimately, the couple gets exiled and Bai Qian’s engagement is shifted to Ye Hua to maintain the alliance between the tribes. Su Jin, a girl who was adopted by the royal family after her entire tribe was annihilated, grew up with Ye Hua and is not happy about this engagement.

Meanwhile, at this point Fengjiu has grown up into a spritely young girl and she is saved by Dijun in a chance encounter. She probably falls in love instantly. He’s a beautiful man with a white mane and an aloof personality. She decides she needs to repay his kindness so she eventually tracks him down up in Celestial Tribe and goes to be a maid at his palace.

Mo Yuan had told Bai Qian how to seal the bell before he sacrificed his soul, so now Bai Qian goes to try to reseal the bell. She battles it out with Qing Cang, who has been gathering power inside the bell all these years. He is able to send her down to the mortal realm with her memories wiped. So somewhere around here is when things started to get interesting for me. I didn’t care as much about the Kunlun/Mo Yuan/Si Yin storyline and once we transitioned away, I liked the show a lot more.

As a mortal, Bai Qian is living in a remote hut she happened upon in the middle of the forest. She randomly comes across what appears to be an injured snake, which she takes him to nurse. She’s living sort of like a Snow White at this point, with random animals that she cares for. Turns out this “snake” is actually Ye Hua’s dragon form shrunk down. He got injured fighting a beast he was supposed to tame. There are some funny scenes where Bai Qian is talking at the snake and he’s getting offended or being rude to her, but she can’t understand what he’s hissing about. He eventually falls for her and comes back in human form pretending to be injured. They spend time together as she nurses him back and she falls for him too. As a mortal, she doesn’t have a name, so he names her Su Su. I hate this name and cringed every time they used it haha. It just sounds so unoriginal and a little childish.

Su Jin weasels her way into becoming the Heavenly Lord’s (Ye Hua’s grandpa) consort. She’s plotting to become Ye Hua’s consort, which is her real goal.

Su Su and Ye Hua’s relationship develops, they get married and live a quiet peaceful life, but he has to leave her one day and he’s gone for 6 months! This is the craziness of time warp between the heavenly and mortal realms, each day the heavens is a year on earth. He had to handle some business in the heavens, which took a couple of hours… and the mortals lost half a year. He has to think of a way to bring her to the heavenly realm but avoid the mistakes of his uncle Sang Ji who had nearly lost his life trying to be with the woman he loved.

His plan is to fake his death and go be with her in the mortal world. He gives her a copper mirror that they can talk through (basically a walkie talkie set) and then returns to his duties. The Mermaid Clan has been plotting a rebellion that he needs to quell. During the battle, his copper mirror falls and Su Jin finds it, thus finding out about Su Su. Su Su is desperate to find Ye Hua so she breaks through the protective barrier he set up to hide her and is discovered by the Celestial Tribe. They were going to kill her but when they find out she is pregnant with Ye Hua’s child, they imprison her.

Over in Ghost Tribe, Yan Zhi finds her oldest brother was being held captive so she helps save him. She wants her brothers to make up but they won’t and Li Yuan plots his own rebellion. Xuan Nu is pregnant with Li Jing’s child and he finally warms up to her a little bit. When she finds out the child has no heartbeat, she hides it from him and desperately seeks a solution.

Ye Hua awakes from his injuries to learn Su Su was captured. He has to pretend to be indifferent to Su Su to protect her life, but he privately visits her when he can. Su Jin does all sorts of crooked things to prey on Su Su the poor mortal and she misleads her into thinking Ye Hua doesn’t really care about her. She even frames Su Su for pushing her into a dangerous portal when she jumped in herself. Su Jin comes out blind and Su Su is punished by giving her eyesight to Su Jin. Ye Hua decides to do it himself to try to minimize the horror but Su Su is traumatized. Looking back, I didn’t like how weak and pathetic Su Su was.

Meanwhile, in another part of the Celestial Tribe, Fengjiu and Dijun have had some time together and he has had to save her a few more times lol. She’ll never get her debt repaid. She ends up hanging out at his place in her fox form and basically being his pet. He might know what’s really going on but he seems to enjoy playing along.

Li Jing doesn’t want to kill his brother because it will only make their father stronger. Yan Zhi can’t handle seeing her brothers like this so she retreats to live in peace in the mortal realm. Xuan Nu basically gives birth to a stillborn but she won’t give up and treats the baby like a normal one.

Su Su gives birth to a son and names him A’Li (as in separation). Shortly thereafter, she jumps into the portal that Su Jin went into before. Normally for mortals, you die, but she falls back into her immortal world. Ye Hua jumps in after her and is heavily injured. This whole time, there was also the standing engagement to Bai Qian that both sides were putting off (the Fox Tribe because Bai Qian was missing and Ye Hua because he was already in love).

Fengjiu is told to leave the Celestial Tribe because she was causing too many problems for Dijun. Bai Qian returns to her immortal form after this trial as a mortal and decides to drink a forgetfulness potion to drown away the depressing memories. She retains sensitivity to light due to her eye injury as a mortal.

Ye Hua is only saved by the Soul Gathering Lamp, a precious item from Su Jin’s tribe. She is rewarded for getting it by becoming his consort but he’s cold to her. He is desperate to try to find Su Su or bring her back to life. He tries using the Soul Gathering Lamp but it’s not enough. 300 years later, he’s just as tortured and still trying. A’Li is a toddler and his father dotes on him while pining for his mother. Fengjiu steals the lamp to try to bring back Mo Yuan for her aunt (Bai Qian). Ye Hua is devastated thinking he can’t bring back Su Su anymore.

Dijun secretly decides to do a mortal trial to allow Fengjiu to have a romance with him, since his immortal being is incapable of love. She is told that to repay his kindness, she can accompany him on his trial. He’s the emperor and she’s one of his concubines. I don’t think he looks very good in this character, so I didn’t really care of this part of the story. Man he really rocks that white hair look.

The Eastern Sea king is having a banquet to celebrate his new son and a bunch of important immortals are to attend. On the way there, Ye Hua catches Bai Qian falling out of a tree and recognizes Su Su but she vanishes. Before the banquet, they finally meet when she runs into A’Li. She lends him her fan and he accidentally triggers the magical power so it blows away all the light covers. Her sensitivity to light is triggered and a white sash covers her eyes to protect them. It’s just like what she used as a mortal after her sight was taken. A’Li immediately recognizes her as his mother from the painting he grew up with and Ye Hua approaches her but of course she’s all “yo stranger don’t touch me.”

Later he runs into her again in the garden and notices clues that convince him she’s Su Su. A’Li is a great clingy child here, ensuring the two get a chance to be around each other. Bai Qian cutely nicknames him something like “sticky rice ball” because of it. Then Ye Hua straight up leaves A’Li at Qing Qiu and then moves in under the excuse that they are engaged lol. At one point, she takes A’Li on a little outing to the mortal world and gets in a little trouble. Ye Hua shows up to save her and later he kisses her dressed as a man (as time freezes?) and he’s not shy at all about his love.

Su Jin frames Sang Ji’s teenage son Yuan Zhen for molesting her and he gets punished with a trial in the mortal world. He shows up as Dijun’s son in that trial. Shao Xin begs Bai Qian to step in and help her son because his fate is a terrible one in this mortal life. Bai Qian agrees to go spend time in the mortal realm and becomes his master.

While she’s gone, Xuan Nu shows up in Qing Qiu, finds Mo Yuan’s body, and decides to take and A’Li with her. She’s looking for any way to restore her son… who has been a body in a crib all this time? When Bai Qian comes back from the mortal realm, she goes to the Ghost Tribe to battle it out with Xuan Nu. Ye Hua has to come in to save her.

To help Dijun succeed in his trial, he needs to experience all the bitterness of mortal life, including heartbreak. Fengjiu has to do this to him, oh boy.

Ye Hua learns about Bai Qian’s past as Si Yin and her relationship with Mo Yuan. He sees the resemblance they have. Later, he sees Bai Qian entering a lake and uses his magic to drag her out kiss her, almost to reassure himself. He’s traumatized from when Su Su jumped in the portal.

Ye Hua convinced Bai Qian to go to the Celestial Tribe with him and lets her live in the palace where Su Su used to be. Su Jin is super jealous and causes some ruckus.

The eldest prince of the Western Sea has been unconscious for awhile and Zhe Yan (the immortal who took Bai Qian to Kunlun at the beginning) finally figures out it is because Mo Yuan’s soul has been reassembling there. Bai Qian and Ye Hua both go there and Ye Hua tries to force a kiss. It’s aggressive. She needs the Soul Gathering Lamp and he has brought it for her, but he really wants her to love him. To repay him, she lets him carry her to bed and they spend the night together. Does she like him or is she just tolerating?

Ye Hua then goes on a dangerous trip to get a magical plant to help restore Mo Yuan. He’s jealous of what Bai Qian might feel for Mo Yuan but still willing to give her what she wants. His arm gets ripped off by one of the beasts guarding the plant cave but he gets what he needs.

Xuan Nu had found Zhi Yan in the mortal world and they went to try to get some of the plant too. Xuan Nu dies in the process and Zhi Yan has to go to great efforts to make the elixir that ultimately saves her nephew and brings him to life.

Mo Yuan is revived and he explains who Ye Hua is. He was that golden lotus, which was actually his twin brother. Ok, definitely not what I was expecting, I thought they’d be more of the same soul split up or something. There was trouble during the birth and their father had to use half his cultivation to preserve the second child in lotus form. When Mo Yuan’s soul dissipated, Ye Hua the lotus was restored and able to become a human fetus. Now he finds that his twin is with the love of his life… sad. He accepts it though and does his best to wish them well.

Ye Hua had to undergo a trial as a mortal and Su Jin sends a Su Su creation to him to convince Bai Qian that he only loves Su Su and not her. Bai Qian does start to question, so she drinks. She accidentally knocks over the Soul Gathering Lamp and breaks it, which releases fragments of her soul. She remembers her life as Su Su and goes to get revenge on Su Jin, getting her eyes back. Su Jin tries to complain to Heavenly Lord and Dijun, but her lies and terrible crimes are exposed. She is banished to guard the bell and is given fish eyes with poor vision so she’s sort of blind.

Qing Cang’s spirit gets released and he kills his son to gain more power. A giant battle ensues and Ye Hua now has to sacrifice himself to seal the bell and defeat Qing Cang. He dies in Bai Qian’s arms and she is devastated. She had been questioning whether he loved her or just pitied her but now she just wants to keep his body. His family demand it back and they eventually get it and put it in basically the Celestial Tribe’s cemetery.

Bai Qian often dreams of him and sits at a little tombstone she erected for him. She passes on her queenship to Fengjiu, who didn’t want it because she was heartbroken she couldn’t be with Dijun, but finally relented. Bai Qian has been wandering the world. A’Li shows up and has her come with him to visit Ye Hua’s grave. She falls asleep there and dreams of him again.

After she leaves, there is energy around the coffin and Ye Hua is alive again. The cemetery was a great place for healing his primordial spirit. He had spent all the powers of his dad, which were in him from when he was a lotus and when he defeated the beasts guarding the magical plant. He rushes to go find Bai Qian in the peach tree woods. I completely forgot to note these magical woods with ever-blossoming peach trees. It’s the immortal Zhe Yan’s retreat where he often hangs out with Bai Qian’s 4th brother Bai Zhen. Bai Qian would often go there to hide and get away from the world. That was where she fell out of the tree and she and Ye Hua first met as immortals. It holds very special meaning to her. She thinks she’s dreaming again but Ye Hua assures her this time she is not.