Season 2 of Lost You Forever drops you straight into the tragic, painful, full of yearning madness that is the brutal world of Dahuang. It brings with it the same excellent cinematography, gorgeous sets, beautiful dialogues and haunting music score that was the signature in its first season.

However, this season is more raw, more bleak and more unkind to your heart as it follows the journey of our broken characters and their futile love. Ultimately, it is a story of what could have been, what never will be and what remains.

✔️What could have been - Xiang Liu - The glorious dragon of all our hearts

At times, watching this season, it felt like this was Xiang Liu’s world and we were all just living in it. The nine headed dragon has to be one of the most complex, deeply layered and nuanced characters on Chinese television. With his life shaped in torture, the shackles of a lifelong oath dragging down his very being and undying loyalty to a doomed army hanging over him like a cloud, Xiang Liu is the most devastating unsung anti-hero I have ever seen.

Even though he started his journey with borderline villainy, he is soon revealed to be sacrificial, noble and selfless in a way that is both self-punishing and painful. His love for Xiao Yao is real, thoughtful, tender and pure even as he tries to bury it under constant denial. He builds her up in a way no other man has ever done. With tough love, unexpected tenderness, hidden affection and needed ruthlessness, he makes her the kind of woman who she has always wanted to be.

Someone who can rely on herself, who belongs and who is strong and unafraid. Ultimately, he is the one who understands her on a soul deep level - he is her teacher, her best friend, her soulmate and also the man she can never have. Always there to pick her up when she needs it most, always there to save her when nobody else can.

To the very end, his goal remains to do what is best for her even if it plunges him into infamy or rips his own heart out. He wears the mask of her worst tormentor when in reality, he is the guardian angel who makes it possible for her to have everything she has ever wanted. His love, unlike others, comes with no conditions. The only condition he has is her happiness.

Tan Jian Ci’s acting was phenomenal here. He was capable of displaying so much emotion in a matter of minutes. His fearless, vicious, demanding, deeply sacrificial, stubbornly duty bound, frustratingly complex, unflinching, vulnerable, SEXY ASS SIN portrayal of a dragon with a golden heart, that is so broken that he knows nothing else, completely wrecks your heart.

At the same time, his duality shines through in the form of Fangfeng Bei - a carefree, playful, witty, flirtatious casanova that is even more painful to watch because it dangles the possibility of how different things could have been in another life for both us and Xiao Yao.

The “what if” here is so strong. What if Xiang Liu was just Fangfeng Bei - a man who could love without restraint, live without burden and could accompany Xiao Yao for the world to see? What if he gave them a chance? What if? What if? What if? It’s enough to drive you insane.

It’s like Xiang Liu had an unspoken connection with my eyes. Every time he came on screen, my eyes cried tears of blood. I felt like a live wire of hurt as I saw him kill all the longing in his heart, stomp on the love he thought himself unworthy of and march towards an end that was as devastating, unstoppable and glorious as the man with all these jagged edges himself.

It’s almost sadistic the way the author of this drama lets us know the depth of his love, the tenderness of his heart and the ultimate compassion behind his sacrifice. It’s an unbearable doomed secret that hangs between us and Xiang Liu. The one we want to scream at the world and the one he wants to bury. And bury, he does.

A serpent with the sweetest sting, a dragon with a fire that burns only himself, a man with a heart that is boundless - Xiang Liu will forever live in my heart as one of the most memorable and formidable characters I have come across in ages.

✔️What will never be - Cang Xuan - The wolf who tore the sheep's clothing

From the very start, Cang Xuan has shown to be a man capable of absolute mercilessness if he is pushed towards it. A strategist who can do away with all personal feelings for the end goal. He has forever been a cornered wolf, clawing and manipulating his way to power so he can protect the one he loves. He has worn the cloak of civility, he has made compromises for the throne, he has hidden his anger under the guise of a smile - all so he could be the man who calls the shots.

Now, he has it all and yet, his head hangs low under the weight of the crown he fought to put there. His love for Xiao Yao has been the oldest and coldest friend he knows - his underlying motivation for everything. What he feels for her has simmered and bubbled under his skin since they were children. After all, she’s the only person in his life who he trusts without question. The only woman who has been with him through thick and thin.

However, Cang Xuan has been suppressed for far too long, been forced to muzzle his fangs for too long and this season, slowly his veneer of politeness has started to chip. His desperation and his need for her has started to congeal into an obsession that is as self-destructive as it is selfish.

Slowly, you see him unravel as his need to keep her next to him, his festered bitterness and his damaged soul that has been deprived of love for way too fucking long threatens to propel him off a cliff where there is no coming back from.

Cang Xuan is a deeply unfortunate, tragic hero and Zhang Wanyi’s delicate portrayal made this flawed, broken and wholly human character always easy to empathize with. On one hand he can be beyond ruthless and decisive for the things he wants and on the other hand he oozes this childlike fear and insecurity when he faces Xiao Yao. He is king to all but at her feet alone and it’s eating away at him that she cannot see it.

He cannot get the love he is starved for, so he feeds himself with more and more power - it keeps him full yet malnourished. Until, he is nothing but a famished wolf, yearning for a love that is always at the tips of his fingertips and yet millions of miles away.

While, I definitely feel like the drama declawed him in the last few episodes, and stuffed his wolf back into the sheep’s clothing, there is also some reprieve in seeing this character come into his own and make peace with his ambitions while ultimately choosing a path that keeps his conscience clean and his hands bloodless.

✔️What remains - Tushan Jing - Weak spineless noodle who is the only option available

One of my biggest gripes with this drama was the way they executed Tushan Jing’s character. He is spineless and cowardly to the point of being intolerable. Always weeping and coughing on the side, always waiting for other people to clean his messes, always the least interesting person in the room - the only thing Jing has going for him is the ten or so episodes of the first season where he endeared himself to viewers as the pure and untainted Shi Qi.

Since then, all his actions are just explained in dialogues. The show wants you to like him just because the script says so. He is good just because the script says so. Deng Wei is the weakest link of the cast and fails to manage to bring forth even a hint of a second layer to his character.

It’s almost like the drama makers hate him because he’s given the least impactful screen time and even when he isn’t he wastes his moments with the same redundant facial expressions we have seen from episode 1. He is never Xiao Yao’s equal and is more of an adopted pet than a partner. All he does is get sick, cries and causes Xiao Yao to mother him.

He is a very useless character overall - bland, uncomplicated and a man who would always be on a lower level than his woman. Which is also why, it’s the most understandable why Xiao Yao would be attracted to him given the rough life she has had and why he is the only real option available to her. So, while I understood his appeal to Xiao Yao, it still didn’t mean I had to like him as a character and I couldn’t help but yawn every time his scenes came on screen because of how much of a snoozefest they were.

✔️Xiao Yao - The Queen of Broken Hearts

Xiao Yao - one of my favorite female leads ever - really took some hits this season. She was at times frustratingly indecisive, forever hung up on a man when that’s never been her character, stupidly self-blaming and had some moments that were downright naive. That said, Yang Zi’s excellent portrayal made her impossible to dislike for me. Her acting is one of the best I have seen by any C-drama heroine in my entire life.

Xiao Yao is a woman who wears her past and troubled childhood like a cloak. It’s always there, lingering at the back of her mind. She is a product of her upbringing and abandonment is a word that rules her deepest phobias. That is why, even when you dislike the decisions she makes, they fall in line with her character. You understand why she does what she does and you can’t begrudge her that.

Her underlying strength never vanishes even at her lowest; she is clever and scheming when she has to be, and she never loses sight of her passion that lies in healing people. While I do believe her life revolved around the men more than I would like, Xiao Yao is still one of my favorite characters.

There's something so nurturing in her that speaks to the broken men she comes across, something so wounded that reaches out to others with similar wounds, that there is never a question as to why she is the one all these men are pining after. That said, as compassionate as she is, Xiao Yao’s wrath is a cold, cold dish and when served, it freezes the other person to near death.

Yang Zi’s phenomenal acting made me feel her loneliness, her pain, her anger and her hopelessness. She has always only ever wanted to have someone that would put her first and it’s impossible to forsake her for it.

Even if it pains me to say it, her ultimate decision is the most realistic and practical one among the very meager options. Cang Xuan’s love is shared by the throne he sits on and tainted by all the women he must marry for the sake of power.

Xiang Liu, who is without a doubt the one she would be with if she could, is imprisoned by a debt that will never be paid. A debt that has become his identity - it’s all he knows, all he has ever known and parting with it, means parting with himself.

So Jing - simple, unimpressive, easy to handle Jing - is the safest option for her heart. She doesn’t need saving because she can save herself. She doesn’t need fame because her lineage gives her enough of that. She doesn’t even need the epic, unforgettable love anymore because all the torture that she has faced over the years has beaten it out of her.

What she needs is just a partner, fully devoted and simply there, right next to her with no other responsibilities other than staying with her. In Jing, she sees the innocence that she herself has lost and preserving it, means preserving a part of herself.

By healing him, she heals herself and so she fights for him with such devotion because despite all the pain, he has brought her happiness that is simple- a simplicity she has forever craved for and I won’t hold that against her.

Because, despite the men you root for, this is ultimately Xiao Yao’s story about the love she lost, the love she never had and the love she gained. It’s a journey of how she met these men who changed the very trajectory of her life - who broke her some, who healed her some - and who left different kinds of impressions on her heart.

❌ Some Flaws this drama had:

I am not going to say this drama was perfect because I did find some flaws in it. For one, the plot did go in circles at times and the action/war scenes were poorly executed. There is a lot of telling rather than showing as well. Other times, there were unintentionally funny scenes that didn’t go with the tone of the drama. (Even if they were few and far between.)

However, the biggest flaw was the last few episodes. Rushed, messy and deviating from the original novel. It baffles me why the drama chose to make some of the choices it did in order to reduce the brutality and tragedy of the original novel. I think it made the story more audience friendly but it really felt like defanging a lion and turning it into a house cat.

The fates of these characters in the novel were there for a reason. They made sense because their personalities and actions led up to those conclusions. So, meddling with that, especially in the case of Cang Xuan, just made a lot of things feel underwhelming for me.

And yet, they decided to keep one of the most cruel fates in this story, just like it was in the novel, even when audiences prayed for some reprieve there. So, I am not sure what the point of those changes really was because I am sure the amount of scenes they modified, they ended up pissing off fans of each of the men.

✅ Final Thoughts:
So yes, while I had problems with this drama, it was still very much a story that pulled at all of my heartstrings. I felt so much empathy and so much grief for these flawed characters and I feel that overall, the writers did an excellent job weaving a narrative that was so compelling and so utterly agonizing.

There are some excellent supporting characters in this drama in the form of the bratty but endearing princess Nian, the wise Xiyan emperor and the lovable Haoling king. They all have moments that steal the show and allow you to look at the main protagonist’s actions with a different perspective.

Lost you forever is an extremely character driven slow burn story which is why I think this is best seen 2 episodes a day. You have to sip and feast on it like a mug of cozy hot cocoa instead of downing it like a tequila shot in one go because if you do that, you’ll be left coughing, sputtering and bored.

Ultimately, this is a story about love but love is not the end goal. These are complicated characters who all have their own motivations to do what they do. And, while they crave for a home, for companionship and for a future - they don’t necessarily base their choices around it. As a result, there are more or less no antagonists in this drama - just these complex people with their own internal struggles, fighting their own demons.

I had already read many excerpts from the novel, so I knew how most things were going to go and yet, when I saw it all come to life on screen, my feelings still got manipulated like I was a puppet on strings. I cried, I laughed, I stressed and I despaired. For that alone, I feel like for me, it was a drama worth watching and I cannot give it a lower score.

So, this is without a doubt one of my favorites and 100% Jeana recommended.

***

To Xiao Yao,

You don’t have to be alone anymore. May you have somewhere to go and have someone to rely on. Wishing you a lifetime of peace and happiness.

Xiang Liu