Tadaah!

Ok, it wasn't easy to get to, we had to get to the train station at the other end of the city, then take a high speed train to Pan'an. We could only get standing tickets, but needs must. Pan'an was a desolate waste land with a giant empty train station and other than that, nothing. We had no idea where to go from there, but we asked an ayi with a taxi car if she could take us and she drove us all the way to the baizhangtan ticket office. She then said she would wait for us to come back from the mountain and drive us back to Pan'an. And she did! What a nice lady (and yes, we paid her).

Then we got tickets for the little trolley to take us up because it was a two hour hike just to get to the bottom of the scenic area. Whatever you do, hold on tight! It was a crazy ride.

Then we still had to climb up to cloud recesses itself.

BUT IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT

Just to be where the magic happened....

This is the bridge where they filmed the scene of everyone joining to go fight the waterborne abyss in cayi town:

The view from the top of the waterfall:

This is the rock where wwx and lwj are toasting each other at the end of the show:

It 100% didn't look like a safe spot, I hope they were on cables.

And there was also a random turtle:

And of course THE waterfall. You can see the rock just on the right where yibo sat playing the guqin, but it was under water due to the rain. Also, the spray and wind and noise coming off that waterfall is next level. That thing is enormous. That must not have been easy to film.

I filmed a lot and at some point I will edit it all together and plonk it on YouTube. But I have to learn how to edit first 😅

Bonus scenic images:

After we got back, we finally made it to the west lake, this is where the chanel event took place where yibo wore the pink outfit with the pearls.

Hopefully, we'll see more of it later.

There is a reason why to the Chinese audience, WenZhou’s relationship is indisputably romantic. It’s because there are very specific visual cues used to show romance in wuxia, and WOH uses the exact same visual language on WenZhou. These tropes are blatantly recognizable from the wuxia/guzhuang dramas we all grew up watching.

1. Fated meeting in a peach blossom forest.

Although in this case, fate has a name and it is Wen Kexing.

2. Sucking poison from the other’s shoulder.

Worth mentioning that in the book, the wound was on Zhou Zishu’s arm. The drama deliberately took it up a notch and chose the more tropey version.

3. When the disguise (usually the female lead disguised as a man) is removed, the love interest can’t stop staring.

Later on (ep 13) there is a scene where Zhou Zishu is trying on a fake beard that looks exactly like the ones female leads use to disguise themselves.

4. Spinning together in mid-air during a fight, the love interest’s hands on the other’s waist. Slow motion. Eyes firmly locked together.

Usually male lead saving the female lead. For example, there is a very similar scene between Yang Guo and Xiao Longnv from Condor Heroes. In fact, if you’ve seen it, you’ll recognize similarities between the visual cues used for the two couples.

5. Martial siblings falling in love.

Yes, this is a common thing in wuxia. And no, it is not incest, nor does it make the dynamic any less romantic. What the hell. Martial siblings are often coded as romantic in wuxia, and there are actual examples in the show itself: Wen Kexing’s parents were shixiong/shimei and Gao Xiaolian eventually married her shixiong, Deng Kuan.

6. One of them getting kidnapped (usually the female lead) by their sect/family and the love interest swooping in dramatically to save them.

And yes, riding on the same horse.

7. One of them is from an evil/unorthodox sect and it causes problems for the couple. The person is hailed as a villain and the other one challenges all of jianghu to stand by their beloved.

Their confrontation with Ye Baiyi is also a good example: Zhou Zishu defending Wen Kexing despite him being the Ghost Valley Master and choosing to die with him instead letting Ye Baiyi kill him alone. Going against the jianghu is a common trial for lovers in wuxia. Yang Guo and Xiao Longnv went through something similar as well.

8. The male lead fixing the female lead’s hair and putting a hairpin on it. Then she looks at her reflection on bronze mirror. This usually happens the morning after the wedding night

This is a very blatant romance trope in guzhuang, so much that I instinctively went “they got married??” when I first saw it. A lot of us were surprised this even made it in. They even had a lingering shot of Zhou Zishu smiling at a bronze mirror!

9. Falling off a cliff together, or one falling and the other jumping in immediately to save them.

WOH gave us both versions. The first one was before they found Senior Long (which also gave us another common trope: the couple spending time in a cave while the other is injured/knocked out) and the cliff scene in the latter episodes where Zhou Zishu jumps in after Wen Kexing.

10. Dual Cultivation to save/heal the other.

Know who else cultivated in a cold place and also ended up as immortal lovers after going through trials and tribulations for each other? Yang Guo and Xiao Longnv again! (Yes, I am a big fan of Condor Heroes) arguably the most famous couple in wuxia. If you’ve seen the wucai bros reaction series, they all clapped and said “It’s just like in Condor Heroes! They are immortal lovers!”

How much longer 'til your luck runs out?

Show A needs to have a scene in a crowded street, while Show B needs to have an indoor scene with a crowded street visible through the window - they can use the same street and the same crowd.

The rest of the show turns into a farce as the two producers try to keep anyone else from working out what's going on. At one point, there's a near disaster because one of the directors wants to shoot from a different angle, which would put show A's camera crew in shot for show B.