Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Crush
( 原来我很爱你 / Yuan Lai Wo Hen Ai Ni / So I Love You Very Much)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hi everyone! It’s time for a new review! I hope everyone’s enjoying the spooky season so far and finding ways to keep themselves warm and comfortable. I’m still very busy with my studies, but it’s nice to spend my free moments watching series, even if it takes me longer to finish something than before. This one was also recommended to me, although I don’t remember by whom, haha. I just know I put it on my list because someone mentioned it to me, and I probably wouldn’t have discovered it if it hadn’t been for that, so here we are. I am excited to share my views on this show as I have several things to say about it, both in a positive and in a more critical way. All in all, I enjoyed it, it was definitely one of the qualitatively better Chinese dramas I’ve seen so far. Besides the portrayal of a handicapped lead character, I also really liked the interwoven theme of music and how it can truly bring people together.

Crush is a iQiyi Chinese drama series with 24 episodes of about 45 minutes each. It tells the love story of Sang Wu Yan (played by Wan Peng) and Su Nian Qin (played by Lin Yan Jun/Evan Lin). At the beginning of the story, Sang Wu Yan is a psychology major who simultaneously works part-time at a radio broadcasting station, as she has a separate love for music and radio-making. She’s always listening to her favorite broadcasting channels on her phone and keeps track of new releases, particularly from her favorite ‘mystery’ songwriter and composer Yi Jin. She initially lives with her college- and roommate Cheng Yin (Chen Mei Yi) in the city Xiamen, whereas her hometown is called Tongcheng (I’m just mentioning this here because these two cities will be referred to hereafter as well as she goes back and forth between them a couple of times).
When we first meet Wu Yan, she’s in a bit of an awkward situation with two of her best friends, Wei Hao (Li Jia Hao) and Xu Qian (Niu Yu Kun). Wu Yan and Wei Hao basically grew up together and at some point, even when they weren’t officially ‘dating’, Wu Yan had kind of expected to end up with him. As for Xu Qian, Wu Yan met her in school and became friends with her through their shared love for the radio, and Wei Hao later joined their little group. Shortly before the start of the story, Wu Yan has busted Wei Hao and Xu Qian making out, and although the two have been trying to make amends with her, Wu Yan has been avoiding them both for a while.
On the other hand, there’s Su Nian Qin, a young man who is visually impaired and doesn’t seem to have any family to support him, yet he lives quite comfortably in a big house. We find out quite soon that Nian Qin is actually the mystery composer Yi Jin, of whom Wu Yan is such a fan. Because of the trauma regarding his childhood (his mother passing away in a car accident right in front of him -while he couldn’t see- and his father turning his back on him and dumping him at a care home), Nian Qin has closed himself off from other people almost completely, with the sole exception of his agent/relative Yu Xiao Lu (Li Jia Qi). When his father suddenly reaches out to him after years, he wants nothing to do with him, and what makes it even more awkward is that his stepmother is not only Nian Qin’s age, but they actually used to be friends and classmates (stuff be messy). Xiao Lu is actually the sister of this stepmother, but for some reason he’s okay with having her around as his caretaker/manager. He has no intention of revealing that he is Yi Jin either because he doesn’t want to be in the spotlight. He’s gotten used to living in the dark, not seeing anyone and not being seen in return.
One day, Wu Yan takes a break outside the radio station building and sits on a park bench listening to the most recent Yi Jin release, singing along completely out of tune (since she’s tone deaf, a fun detail), before realizing that there’s a very handsome young man sitting on the bench next to her – and she falls for Nian Qin at first sight. They meet again at the radio station, where she first realizes he’s blind because of his walking stick, but she misses the opportunity to find out that he’s Yi Jin. However, it doesn’t take long for Wu Yan to figure it out as she ends up doing an internship at a special education school where Nian Qin just happens to substitute for someone as well, teaching the visually impaired children how to read braille. When she hears him play the piano in the music room, Wu Yan quickly connects the dots. Even though Nian Qin is quite annoyed by her persistent nature at first – because when she starts pursuing him she doesn’t beat around the bush – he comes to appreciate her presence more and more. Very gradually, Wu Yan manages to work her way into Nian Qin’s heart and when the latter finally acknowledges his own feelings for her, the two start a really sweet relationship.

Just to clarify, Nian Qin is not completely blind. He can distinguish shapes and movements when they happen right in front of him, but he can’t make out sharp details. Whether it’s light or dark also doesn’t seem to affect his sight much. In any case, it’s not like he can’t ‘sense’ Wu Yan’s presence whatsoever. He still has all his other (amplified) senses to know that she’s near, like through her scent and voice. Wu Yan, in turn, tries to be as considerate as possible in dealing with her boyfriend’s impairment without making him seem like some patient in need of constant care. While she’s initially the kind of person who keeps asking if he needs help with something, she becomes so used to his handicap that it sometimes even seems like she forgets he can’t see well altogether. In any case, she shows that she wants to understand him, for example in trying to walk around her own apartment blindfolded to feel what it must be like for him. Even when they get married in the end, I thought it was a really touching decision of her to walk down the aisle with her eyes closed, even though Nian Qin’s eyesight was already restored by that point. I just mean to say, she really tries to understand her boyfriend and all of his issues as best she can to support him as well as possible.

So yeah, the story is about Wu Yan and Nian Qin meeting, falling in love and getting together, with Nian Qin’s visual impairment as the central theme, followed closely by their shared love for music. I loved the love language that was created between them, how she would guide him through the house in order to (re)decorate, hold his hands to trace her face or tried to show him the warmth effect of light on his skin, how she got him to feel the texture of leaves and enjoyed the sound of rain with him. In terms of music, Nian Qin would never let an opportunity slide to tease Wu Yan about her tone-deafness, he would teach her how to play the piano, they would exchange music playlists, etc. The sweet moments of their relationship were illustrated really beautifully in ways to show how much they accepted each other, flaws and all, but never made each other feel bad about their respective shortcomings.
The relationship between the two builds up for about 10 episodes before things start going awry, they face some serious turbulence and break up. Then there’s a 3-year time leap into the future where they meet again. By then, Nian Qin has gotten his eyesight fixed, patched things up with his dad’s family and is now the CEO of his father’s business. As I thought Nian Qin’s visual impairment would be the main theme of the show, I found this transformation quite surprising, also because it made it seem like Nian Qin was the only one who had to ‘get his life back together’ after the break-up, even though his impairment and ambiguous family ties allegedly ‘weren’t an issue’ when he and Wu Yan first got together.
Anyhow, after meeting again like this Nian Qin and Wu Yan eventually get together again, and then suddenly no one has any remarks anymore. They start anew without any other ‘inconveniences’, they get married, and the show ends with Wu Yan getting pregnant and ultimately with them taking a walk as a happy little family. All’s well that ends well.

HOWEVER. Before it gets to that point, there’s a lot of problematic stuff that happens and I need to devote a paragraph to this because it was the most frustrating part of the show for me. It wasn’t even the typical love triangle/rival kind of drama, which in hindsight might have even been less stressful, lol. Honestly I was kind of scared that this would happen because it seemed llike Wu Yan’s senior at the radio broadcasting agency had a thing for Nian Qin and even became jealous of their relationship to the point where she even started to treat Wu Yan in a petty way at work, but then suddenly she was happy for them and nothing of the sort happened afterwards (I’m not counting that Peng Rui Xing guy because he didn’t even come close to becoming a love rival). No, I’m talking about the break-up arc, which takes from about episode 10 to 16. Up until this point, I was really enjoying the show, the story, the build-up of the romance between the two leads and the element of music, but then this happened and I’m still not entirely sure what went down or how it happened, but here goes my analysis.

First of all I need to introduce Wu Yan’s parents, and especially her mom. Cheng Jia Ying (played by Ma Li) is all too eager to see her daughter get married, and whenever things don’t go her way in this (for example in the situation with Wei Hao), she’s the first to blame Wu Yan for messing things up. She’s more critical than her husband in regards to who her daughter should end up with, so naturally when she hears her daughter’s new boyfriend is both ‘blind’ and ‘an orphan’ (both not entirely true but this is just how her prejudicial mind registers it) she’s beside herself with disdain. She refuses to even meet Nian Qin in person and throws a tantrum in trying to get Wu Yan to break up with him and move back home.
All in all, I found Wu Yan’s mother very childish. She kept treating Wu Yan like a little child while she was literally an adult, living by herself, taking care of her own life. I get that you’d want to ensure that your child is in good hands when she engages in a romantic relationship, and that the external factors of Nian Qin’s visual impairment and background may have been a reason to worry, but I found it really unfair of her to not even meet with him and just base her entire opinion of him on a couple of prejudices. Her narrow-mindedness is only confirmed when she’s introduced to Nian Qin when the two get together again three years later, when his sight is restored and he’s a CEO, because then she’s suddenly the happiest mother-in-law in the world.
About Wu Yan’s father, he doesn’t appear as much as her mother, and he sadly passes away halfway through the story, but even though he was constantly made out to have the same views as his wife on his daughter’s relationship, he actually shows that he’s much more open-minded than Wu Yan’s mother. When Wu Yan visits him at the hospital and he asks about her boyfriend, she immediately brings up the facts that he’s visually impaired and grew up in a care home, but is then interrupted by her father asking, ‘yeah, but do you love him? that’s the most important thing’ and I was like FINALLY someone who sees reason🙏🏻THANK YOU DAD🙏🏻 So yeah, although his wife was going around telling everyone, including Nian Qin, that she and her husband BOTH disapproved of their relationship, in the end this was only attributed to her own pettiness. Nian Qin never even got to meet Wu Yan’s father in the end, which was quite sad.

I can no longer avoid talking about the part that frustrated me the most. The part where things just went from bad to worse to worst, not just in terms of events and incidents, but also when it comes to the deteriorating communication between Wu Yan and Nian Qin. I’ll try to go through the events and the effects they have on the couple as briefly as possible.
The first incenting incident is when Wu Yan’s mother comes to visit her daughter in Xiamen, but refuses to meet with Nian Qin. Wu Yan has told Nian Qin she’s bringing someone over to introduce to him, and Xiao Lu then tells him this is probably her mom since she saw the two women get into a car together, so naturally Nian Qin is quite excited and anxious to meet his girlfriend’s mother for the first time.
However, the next moment he can’t reach Wu Yan for the entire day. She only picks up his calls once or twice to tell him, ‘not now, I’m busy’ without giving him any indication of what she’s busy with or where she is. Like, I get that she was fighting with her mom, but this actually involved him as well, it involved their relationship, so I felt like she should’ve at least kept him in the loop about the situation in general, and not just (literally) keep him in the dark. The next day, she returns home without bringing anyone else, and when Nian Qin asks her about the visitor she said she’d bring, she just makes up an excuse like, ‘oh yeah no something came up’. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think this is considered to be proper communication. I actually found it quite selfish of her to just pretend nothing had happened, and all the more because she basically took advantage of the fact that Nian Qin couldn’t see or find out what was happening for himself.
Secondly, and this is a tragic part, but the same night Wu Yan’s mom returns home to Tongcheng and starts ranting to her husband about how irresponsible their daughter is, Wu Yan’s father collapses due to a brain hemorrhage and is taken to the hospital with urgency. In response to this, Wu Yan’s mother decides NOT TO TELL WU YAN. As in, she actually hides from her own daughter that her father is in the hospital in critical condition, and she even lies to her, making up reasons why he can’t come to the phone (he’s on a business trip, he’s already asleep, etc.). And then when Wu Yan eventually finds out through some random relative who’s like, ‘oh by the way I heard about your father, is he okay?’ (because yeah, who wouldn’t expect a daughter to know about her own father’s condition?), Wu Yan’s mother even has the audacity to still pin it on Wu Yan. It’s not even because she didn’t tell her what had happened, no, even if she’d told her, Wu Yan would’ve only cared about her own love life rather than taking care of her parents. How dare you even say that as a mother to your child? Had Wu Yan known about this from the start, she would’ve immediately travelled back to Tongcheng, so her mother was just making up excuses to guilt-trip her daughter into coming back home and breaking up with Nian Qin.
This part kind of overlaps with another part which causes more friction in the relationship between Wu Yan and Nian Qin. Actually, the two have already decided they want to get married, and Nian Qin has even made an appointment with his (estranged) family to introduce Wu Yan to his father. Unfortunately, the news about Wu Yan’s father’s condition reaches her a day before this appointment, and she immediately decides to go back to Tongcheng, which I can’t blame her for. However, in her panicked state, she completely forgets to consider Nian Qin’s feelings. I feel like everything would’ve been alright if she’d just told Nian Qin what she’d heard and I have no doubt that he would’ve immediately let her go back home, in fact he would’ve probably insisted to go with her. Instead, she literally just runs off – when Xiao Lu asks her, ‘what about meeting Nian Qin’s father tomorrow?’ she literally says, ‘that’s not important right now’ (I mean, kinda harsh?) and she just returns home to pack her stuff while Nian Qin is standing right next to her, getting all anxious about why she’s suddenly leaving, and she still doesn’t tell him ANYTHING. In fact, she gets mad at him for trying to stop her from leaving, calling him selfish before storming off. Girl, how is he supposed to understand why you suddenly have to leave if you don’t explain a single damn thing to him? I couldn’t blame him for trying to stop her, because he (naturally) misunderstood the situation. This was an example where it seemed like Wu Yan just forgot about his visual impairment. She got mad at him for not grasping the situation while he literally couldn’t see and she didn’t tell him anything. Instead of talking with him about the situation at hand and letting him in on her troubles so that they could figure something out together, she just left him standing there and then proceeded to text Xiao Lu about what happened. She takes the time to send his agent a proper text explaining what has happened to her father, but she doesn’t even bother telling her boyfriend about it in person. What the actual heck.
In the meantime, Nian Qin also receives a phone call from Wu Yan’s mom, where she tells him how she and her husband (who’s literally incapacitated at that moment) both disapprove of their relationship – he has to hear about this whole ongoing conflict between Wu Yan and her mom through his girlfriend’s mom. Naturally, this only strengthens his anxiety in that he’s not good enough for Wu Yan’s family. Simultaneously, his own father (who’s waiting for a liver donor) also takes a turn for the worse and in his already stressful situation of dealing with Wu Yan, Nian Qin is forced to get in contact with the family he’s been trying to avoid for years.
After taking care of her dad for a short while and being assured by him that everything is fine, Wu Yan briefly goes back to Xiamen to make up with Nian Qin, but then she overhears him talking about how he feels like he’s a burden to her family. I don’t exactly remember what he said but it was taken out of context and it sounded like he was criticizing her parents or something, so she gets angry at him again, AGAIN without properly talking to him to figure out the misunderstanding. She immediately returns to Tongcheng after this failed attempt at reconciliation (which was completely on her, in my opinion), and while she gets drunk on a bench that night, sadly her father passes away.

So yeah, it’s a whole rollercoaster of unfortunate events that leads to the crumbling of Wu Yan and Nian Qin’s relationship. My frustrations were a bit divided, because in terms of Wu Yan VS. her mom I was definitely on Team Wu Yan. Her mom kept her in the dark about her father’s condition yet still found ways to lay the blame on her, and she even pushed her away rather than unite in their grief after the father’s passing. The fact that she couldn’t get past her own pride and pettiness even in situations like this was just unbelievable to me and I felt really sorry for Wu Yan.
On the other hand, in terms of Wu Yan VS. Nian Qin, I was Team Nian Qin all the way. The only reason Nian Qin isn’t able to communicate properly is because Wu Yan just leaves him behind grasping at straws as to what she’s thinking. I just couldn’t understand why she would do this to him after being so persistent in pursuing him in the first place. She literally keeps him in the dark and doesn’t even consider his feelings in all of it. Heck, Nian Qin only finds out Wu Yan’s father passed away when she freaking broadcasts the story on the radio for everyone to hear, three years later. She never tells him anything personally, and I hated that he had to find out that way. Because as soon as he finds out her father passed away while she was back in Xiamen to visit him, he starts blaming himself for keeping Wu Yan from being with her dad the moment he passed. Everything just led to annoying and unnecessary feelings of guilt and it was really frustrating to watch. Despite the fact that they were doing so well in terms of communicating when it came to Wu Yan adapting to Nian Qin’s needs as a visual impaired person, when it came to tackling serious situations like this together, it seemed that they really weren’t that solid as a couple at all.

Let me just take a quick breather here to talk about Wei Hao and Xu Qian, because they are quite important supporting characters who also have their own storyline in-between the whole Wu Yan VS. Nian Qin drama. Despite the fact that we’re initially led to believe Wei Hao cheated on Wu Yan by kissing Xu Qian – at least that’s how it seemed to me at first – it turns out that there really wasn’t any kind of romantic relationship between Wu Yan and Wei Hao, and it’s more like Wu Yan feels betrayed by suddenly finding herself ‘left out’ while her two best friends developed feelings for each other. Once this feeling subsides, and they all prove that they’re not willing to let something like this ruin their friendship, they all manage to come around and make amends and continue to be good friends throughout the story.
I thought it was nice how they were all involved in music in some way: while Wu Yan may have been tone deaf and settled for working at a radio broadcasting station, Wei Hao and Xu Qian were part of their university’s band Momo, with Wei Hao on the guitar and Xu Qian as the vocalist (unlike Wu Yan she is a really good singer). One part of the story is about the band getting a chance to sign under the label of the broadcasting agency Wu Yan works at, but Xu Qian is under too much pressure from her family to settle for a musican’s life and is determined to stick to an office job, although she realizes she doesn’t enjoy working at the radio station as much as Wu Yan does. It even plays a part in her relationship with Wei Hao at some point, because he is much less ambitious than her. He’s not the type for an office job, the musician life suits him much better and that troubles Xu Qian a bit, even though she wouldn’t want him to change who he is for the world. In any case, they manage to make it work and Wei Hao also ends up working for a big company, one that is eventually taken over by Nian Qin as the new CEO. After the 3-year time leap, Wei Hao and Xu Qian have gotten married and there are some cute scenes where Wei Hao is seen picking Xu Qian up after work and other instances where the two consistently have each other’s back, so that’s very sweet.

So yeah, then there’s the 3-year time leap in which Nian Qin decides to fix his sight after all (I am convinced he did this for Wu Yan no matter what other reasons he may have had) and takes up his father’s business as the new CEO, also taking over the company Wei Hao works at. In the meantime, Wu Yan is approaching her graduation and besides working as a broadcaster she also works (or volunteers?) at a center for children with a special needs; she’s put in charge of a little boy with autism at some point. When they meet again, Nian Qin seems to have become an entirely different person – he’s suddenly extremely assertive (and sometimes even quite agressive) in trying to win Wu Yan’s affection and when they finally get back together he also becomes more clingy than ever, occasionally even to Wu Yan’s own aversion. I could understand it from his point of view though – after feeling so isolated during his visual impairment, now that he could see again he probably just wanted to make sure he had as much control over everything that was important to him as possible, and Wu Yan had become his entire world. He would drop work meetings whenever he sensed he needed to be by her side, his devotion was definitely remarkable. That’s not to say it didn’t get a bit annoying or even restrictive at some point.
Honestly, as much as I admired Nian Qin’s devotion when it came to Wu Yan, at some point towards the ending, particularly after they got married, I was a bit put off by him trying to make a typical housewife out of her. The routine of her having to greet him when he came home, the forehead kisses and the arm rubs, the fact that he didn’t even want her to go shopping when she got pregnant and the fact that he wanted her to treat him the same way as she treated her autistic child patient, blowing on his food for him and stuff all really gave me the ick. I couldn’t even get mad at Wu Yan when she was talking with Xiao Lu and she went, ‘so unless we get divorced I’ll have to deal with his behavior for the rest of my life?’, lol. I mean, of course she wasn’t really planning on divorcing him, but it still made me go like, yeah girl, you’re stuck with him now!🤷🏻‍♀️I think it’s safe to say that this drama fits the classic trope of ‘she fell first but he fell harder’ to a fault.

There’s one more thing I want to comment on in terms of the relationship dynamic between Wu Yan and Nian Qin, especially because it changed so much with Nian Qin’s transformation after the 3-year time leap. In the first part, where Nian Qin is still visually impaired, he is a very passive person. Of course, he’s learned not to make sudden movements and he’s careful with walking, but also in his expressions, he seems to be kind of numb and emotionless. His first transformation happens when he and Wu Yan first get together, when he still has the handicap. He starts smiling and laughing more, and gets a more mischievous streak. After regaining his eyesight completely, it’s like nothing is holding him back anymore, and he kind of bulldozer-corners Wu Yan in his attempts to get her back. The first few times when he initiates a kiss with her it’s also quite forceful, and Wu Yan even pushes him away. In contrast, while Wu Yan made the most effort in pursuing Nian Qin in the first place, as soon as he opens up to her more and starts initiating physical intimacy, she tends to become quite tsundere (giving him ‘behave yourself’ side glances etc.) and in their mutually consented kissing scenes, she’s definitely the receiver rather than the kisser – and I’d kind of hoped and expected more than that. As much as I loved the little nose rubs, forehead kisses and hugs, I was hoping there might be some more passion or even one proper make-out scene, but alas. We never even see them get intimate in a way that suggests they slept together, although they must have after they got married. Because of the ‘dryness’ of their intimate scenes I was actually a bit surprised when the first morning sickness scene came. I mean, it was predictable in the sense that they’d JUST talked about having kids the previous night and now suddenly she was pregnant, but since there had never been any indication of an intimate scene where this may have happened, it was also a bit surprising. In any case, I just wanted to note that I found the changing dynamic of the leads as they engaged in their relationship interesting, but I also wished it would’ve been a bit more mutually passionate once they finally got together and nothing was holding them back anymore.

I’ve mostly talked about my criticisms now, but there were also plenty of things that I really liked about it and which contributed to my high rating. My first impression of the show was that it looked really good. I’m talking in terms of cinematography, the quality of how it was filmed and the transitions of scenes.
In terms of transition, there is one example I remember distinctly where Nian Qin started talking about his world and it started with a pitch-black screen, only for the camera to pan sideways and reveal that the black screen was actually the back of the piano he was sitting at – I thought that was a really genius transition since it wasn’t just about his world being ‘pitch-black’ but also how his world was that piano, his life consisted majorily of the music he composed.
Apart from that, the acting in general was really good and even the dubbing didn’t bother me that much, except for some minor moments in which someone was panting way too loudly while running down a corridor and when they added some background chatter with actual conversations which just made it sound noisy. The dubbing itself was quite subtle, and most of the time I didn’t even notice it was being dubbed, so that’s a good sign. I was also really happy with the subtitles on Dramacool for a change! Chinese series are often fansubbed in very broken English, but they actually did a pretty decent job here so it was easy to read the subtitles as well.
In terms of the story, one thing I liked in particular was the musical theme, not just the role that music played in the main characters’ lives, but also how they inserted the music into the scenes through depicting the lyrics on screen. In the end they even went so far as to use the songs from the soundtrack as the songs that were written by Yi Jin, probably also because Evan Lin sang a couple of them himself, but I thought that was a nice addition. For example, how Wu Yan’s father’s go-to karaoke song was a song that we’d already heard in the soundtrack before, and how the final song that Yi Jin writes for Wu Yan was the shows’ opening theme. Besides this practical adaptation of the music, I also liked the theme it brought with it – the way it brought everyone together. Honestly, if you think about it, all the main characters are brought together by music or their love for it. Wu Yan and Nian Qin meet through Wu Yan’s love for radio and music and the fact that she recognizes him as Yi Jin. Wei Hao and Xu Qian’s relationship deepens and is eventually sealed by the band they’re in (it’s at their final band stage that Wei Hao finally asks Xu Qian out). Wu Yan and Xu Qian also become friends through their shared love of radio broadcasts. It all ties together with the music theme and I’m glad they remained consistent in keeping the musical element in, although it did disappear into the background a little bit after Nian Qin ‘retired’ as Yi Jin and started working for his father’s company. It was nice that the show ended with him releasing one final song as Yi Jin and Wu Yan exclusively broadcasting it on her radio show.
What I also appreciated, and I’ve seen most reviews compliment the show on this, was the depiction of a visually impaired main character in a way that (ironically) makes the viewer see the world through his eyes all the better. I honestly related more to Nian Qin than to Wu Yan in the beginning, even though Wu Yan’s struggles were also very understandable. It made me think of other shows I’ve seen where a main character had some sort of handicap, like in Perfect World and The Beauty Inside, but I think this show did a really good job portraying an impairment without making it into something shameful or pathetic. They didn’t make Nian Qin a victim of his condition, he was just living his life as he’d always been and yeah, Wu Yan may have lighted something in him that ultimately made him decide to give surgery a chance, but if it hadn’t been for her he would’ve probably been content with going on living in his dark little world. I liked how it went further than just making him a handicapped character, and it put a lot of situations in perspective, for example the one with the photograph of his family that he didn’t even know was there. Despite being so comfortable in his restricted life, Nian Qin would still find out about cases where even the people closest to him took advantage of his disability. No matter how good Xiao Lu’s intentions were when she put the photograph there, she still did it behind his back and lied to him that it was just a painting because she knew he wouldn’t want it in his house. Despite my frustration regarding what went down between Wu Yan and Nian Qin during the break-up arc, I did find it interesting to see how someone who was visually impaired would fare during a situation like this, as for Nian Qin there was also the additional factor of being downgraded because of his handicap by his future in-laws. As painful as it was to watch sometimes, I still found it a quite powerful feature of the show. I also found it very touching how important the care home and the children at the special school were to Nian Qin exactly because he came from a similar background. His bond with the little blind girl Xiao Wei (Cong Shang) was also very sweet.
All in all I found the concept of the story very endearing, it initially really reminded me of Perfect World mostly because of the FL’s devotion to adapt to a life with a disabled partner. But it was still very unique in its kind and in hindsight I even think it dealt with different types of ‘handicaps’. It deals with psychological issues, grief and loss, as much as with forming connections and gaining understanding of other people’s thoughts and feelings. There was nothing exaggerated about it, it was messy at times but that messiness also added to the character of the story because life is messy, as is dealing with relationships.

Finally, I want (and need) to talk about something that personally threw me off at the end of the show. As I was nearing the end I was already starting to think about how I was going to structure my review, and then this happened and it completely derailed my plans. I’m talking about the plot twist that’s revealed in the second-to-last episode, the one revealing the death of Cheng Yin.
I’ve mentioned her briefly before, but Cheng Yin is Wu Yan’s college- and roommate back in Xiamen, they live together before Wu Yan moves in with Nian Qin and they keep in touch even when Wu Yan moves back to her hometown Tongcheng. Cheng Yin is Wu Yan’s loyal friend and support system, she cares for Wu Yan in times of need, after she breaks up with Nian Qin and after her father passes away.
I have to say in advance that I completely missed any sign of what had actually happened, even though after rewatching episodes 15-20 I am still looking for a table to slap myself in the face with because it wa actually really obvious Still, I want to share some issues I have with this plot twist.
In summary, there’s an incident in episode 15 where, after Wu Yan and Cheng Yin return from a dinner/drinks get-together at Wei Hao and Xu Qian’s apartment (in the break-up arc when Wu Yan is briefly back in Xiamen), the two girls get stuck in an elevator. Cheng Yin apparently has severe claustrophobia and we see her in a lot of panic while Wu Yan tries to calm her down. The next moment, we see Wu Yan wake up in the hospital to Xu Qian beside her bed, and when she asks about Cheng Yin, Xu Qian just says that Wei Hao is checking on her, that’s it. Later that same episode, Wu Yan and Cheng Yin are depicted lying in Cheng Yin’s bed in their shared apartment, Cheng Yin has a band-aid on her forehead and Wu Yan is cuddling her, and tells her that she’s going to move back to Tongcheng because she has to be with her mom and wants to move away from Nian Qin.
After this, Cheng Yin still appears until episode 20, in scenes that take place in Wu Yan’s new apartment in Tongcheng. Again, I completely missed this, and in my defense, I found it hard to keep track of the many places Wu Yan went to (one moment she was living with Cheng Yin in Xiamen, then with her mom in Tongcheng, then on her own in Tongcheng, then with Nian Qin in some apartment or his house) so that’s probably why it didn’t connect with me instantly. Of course, there’s no way Cheng Yin would suddenly be living with Wu Yan in her apartment in Tongcheng, Wu Yan just moved away from her. Then again, even if I’d noticed this and thought it strange, I still don’t think I would’ve immediately made the connection that all of those conversations with Cheng Yin in her apartment merely happened in Wu Yan’s head. It still didn’t cause me to grasp that Cheng Yin actually didn’t even survive the lift accident.
In episode 21, there is one ‘clear’ sign that something is off, when Wu Yan and Nian Qin get into an elevator together which also gets stuck (seriously, malfunctioning elevators were a thing in this show). When Wu Yan recalls that she was in a similar situation with Cheng Yin before, she suddenly starts spacing out, unable to finish the story of what happened after that. Nian Qin is easily able to distract her by talking about other things. Then in the next episode, 22, when they’re back at Wu Yan’s mom’s place in Tongcheng, Nian Qin mentions to Wei Hao (who’s also come to visit with Xu Qian) that Wu Yan has gone to visit Cheng Yin, to which Wei Hao goes, ‘Bro, are you kidding? Cheng Yin died three years ago.’
Again, this made me go full MIND=BLOWN because I hadn’t noticed a single thing. After rewatching it and realizing all the scenes with Cheng Yin after the lift incident took place at Wu Yan’s place in Tongcheng where Cheng Yin couldn’t even be present, I feel like I just didn’t pay close enough attention, but there are still some things I want to say about this revelation.
Whether I missed it or not, it came completely out of the blue for me and I still think they could’ve made it clearer. In the scenes where Wu Yan is talking to Cheng Yin – or, as Wei Hao clarifies, an imaginary person she created with Cheng Yin’s mannerisms to fill up the void and minimize her alone time at her apartment – Cheng Yin is always just acting as her roommate, taking out the laundry, cleaning, eating Wu Yan’s food, or she’s just reading on the couch or something. Even in scenes where they’re not talking, she’s depicted just chilling in the background. What would’ve made it clearer to me from the start is if they’d for example made it look like Wu Yan was having a conversation with her, and then reveal that the room was actually empty after she leaves or something. Because it felt so familiar to have her faithful friend and roommate there, and no one else talked about what had actually happened either, leaving it unmentioned was what made me oblivious as well. I found the fact that no one ever even talked about what happened to Cheng Yin and we’re only told the truth matter-of-factly three years later kind of weird. I get that it must have been very traumatic for Wu Yan to lose her best friend so quickly after losing her father, and that that caused her to develop this kind of coping mechanism, but even after three years, it seemed like everyone was still avoiding confronting her with the truth. How was it that she was able to get over her father’s death and live with it, visit his grave and reminisce about him, but Cheng Yin had to be kept as a taboo out of fear to trigger her? I don’t really understand why they kept it so vague.
Furthermore, I just don’t really see the relevance in killing Cheng Yin off in the first place. It was a very dramatic plot twist to insert in the second-to-last episode, to suddenly spring this psychological issue Wu Yan apparently had been having for three years on us. Also, the fact that they used this issue as just another reason for Nian Qin to want to keep Wu Yan close – as if he didn’t already have enough reasons for that – kind of put me off. Nian Qin had by then already gone so far as to fake his own eyesight going bad again to keep Wu Yan from going back to Tongcheng (or Xiamen, I honestly couldn’t keep track anymore at this point). He was constantly trying to come up with ways to make sure Wu Yan would remain by his side, and after he found out about what really happened to Cheng Yin, he started sheltering Wu Yan even more, as if she was some feeble patient. He even started talking about how he was jealous of Cheng Yin and how he didn’t want to lose Wu Yan to her. After rewatching it I get that this probably came from the way Wei Hao explained that Wu Yan created the image of Cheng Yin at times when she was feeling lost so she didn’t have to be alone and I understand that Nian Qin became bent on becoming that person for her instead so she wouldn’t have to keep holding on to Cheng Yin’s memory, but still. I just wonder why killing Cheng Yin off in this way and then remain so subtle and vague about it until that final moment was necessary. They could’ve either made it more obvious from the start, or they could’ve just left it out, in my opinion.
One other thing is that, through this revelation, we are suddenly confronted with the realization that, for the entire 3-years later period, Wu Yan hasn’t actually been a very credible main character, as it’s not even established clearly whether she’s fully aware of her own mental state when she’s ‘talking’ with Cheng Yin. Whenever the memory of what happened seems to return she kind of goes blank, which does suggest she becomes aware of some sort of suppressed memory. Then again, we don’t get to know anything from Wu Yan’s perspective, which had been the norm from the beginning of the show, so you could say there’s a kind of sudden shift. From that point on we’re primarily shown how Nian Qin sees things and he starts acting according to what he believes Wu Yan needs, which is also subjective.
So yeah, this whole plot twist revelation only complicated for me what so far had been a very easy-to-follow story and I’m still not completely sure what to think of it. It definitely complicated my review-writing as I only realized it after going back to rewatch the Cheng Yin episodes of the second half to grasp what I’d missed.

Before moving on to my cast comments, I just want to make some final practical remarks, starting with (as I tend to do more lately) the title of the show. Apparently, this drama was based on a Chinese webtoon of the same name, which was literally translated as ‘So I Love You Very Much’, which is also the title of the song Yi Jin composes for Wu Yan after their break-up. I’m not sure how they got to the simplified title of ‘Crush’, because in my opinion it kind of diminishes the essence of the story, and unlike the original title it doesn’t even directly refer to one of Yi Jin’s song titles.
To make one more mention of the music used in this drama, I’m definitely downloading at least half of the soundtrack because the songs they used were really good. I liked how they made use of their talented cast’s musical talents and created opportunities to showcase these throughout the show. The underlying theme of radio broadcasting is always a soothing one, and I remember making a note about this in previous reviews like Radio Romance, but the way radio is being broadcasted in Asian dramas is just so different from where I’m from. It’s like they create this soothing vibe with poetic MCs in-between songs. When I turn on the radio at home, all I hear is people making stupid jokes and talking about nonsense that has nothing to do with the repetitive batch of popular songs they play throughout the day. So yeah, whenever radio broadcasting is depicted in Asian dramas I always like it, it’s really comforting to listen to it.

I think that’s all for what I wanted to talk about in terms of my analysis, so now I’m going to go over a few of the actors. As is common for me with Chinese dramas, I didn’t really know any of the actors, but I thought the acting in general was pretty good so I’ll just pick a couple of the main actors to comment on.

To be honest I thought I knew Wan Peng from something because she looks really familiar, but I don’t see anything I might know her from on her MDL list. Anyways, I liked her portrayal of Wu Yan overall. As I said, there were moments where I was extremely frustrated by how badly her character communicated and how long it took for her to reflect on how unreasonable and childish she’d been herself, but despite all of that she still managed to make Wu Yan a likable and relatable character. I also really liked her facial expressions, especially in the beginning. She definitely showed multiple sides to her acting and emotional range, and retained an equally bubbly and mature personality. Of course now that I’ve grasped the reality of the Cheng Yin incident I realize that she must’ve been portraying even more psychological layers than I was aware of, so that’s definitely something to remember. Besides her passivity in the kissing scenes, I generally liked her performance. I might see her in some dramas in the future, so I’m curious to what other qualities she has to show! Oh, and I also liked that she sang the opening theme, and then when the song was featured as Yi Jin’s final song in the final episode, it was a duet version between the two lead actors. I thought that was a cute detail in the soundtrack.

Apparently, Lin Yan Jun/Evan Lin only has this and one other drama from 2021 to his name to date! I can’t say I was surprised to learn that he was formerly an idol because he sings very well. All in all I think he acted pretty well in this show. It was fun to see his character’s transformation, and he definitely showed versatility in his expressions and emotional range. Despite the uneven dynamic in the intimate scenes I thought at least he put in some real effort in expressing his passionate feelings for Wu Yan, lol. I usually get a bit weirded out when formely passive characters suddenly become all lovey-dovey and clingy once they fall in love (I remember I also mentioned this in my review of Jugglers), but then again I guess love can really change a person and make them open up and act in ways they’d have otherwise. He definitely fell harder and in the end he occasionally went a bit too far for my taste, but I still sympathized with him. He really just wanted to become Wu Yan’s world as much as she’d become his. I wonder if he’ll do any more acting projects in the future, it seemed to suit him.

Li Jia Hao has such a friendly face, he just seems like a really nice person when you look at him, lol. I was really curious as to what kind of character Wei Hao would be, as we’re first introduced as Wu Yan’s ‘cheating boyfriend’, but when the nature of his relationship with Wu Yan is explained and we get to know him and see how sincere he is about Xu Qian, you can’t really see him as anything else than a really good friend and a nice guy. I liked that he and Xu Qian had their only little love story playing out in the background because they really became kind of like a pallet cleanser for me when stuff between the main leads got too dramatic. It was nice to also get a bit of character development from Wei Hao, and he proved that he was so much more than just a second male lead character. I feel like Chinese romantic dramas do this a lot, rather than having a love triangle they like to focus on two main couples and their respective storylines. At least it was like that with the past couple of Chinese dramas I’ve watched (eg. Put Your Head on My Shoulder and Flipped). In any case, I liked that Wei Hao remained a loyal friend to Wu Yan until the end, and I also liked that he didn’t get sucked into the main leads’ drama. Instead he just focussed on his own happiness with Xu Qian witout losing his purpose as an important supporting character. I’d definitely call him a ‘supporting’ rather than a ‘side’ character because he was an unmissable part of Wu Yan’s support system. I liked Li Jia Hao’s performance, especially in the later parts where he was talking with Nian Qin about Wu Yan but simultaneously trying not to be too harsh to him because he was also his boss, lol. He really made me laugh out loud a couple of times, too.

Niu Yu Kun has only done four dramas so far, and I see she’s also a model and a singer. I like that they made use of the musical talents of the actors for this drama, although I don’t think she was the actual singer of the song used for Momo’s promotion (which was an awesome song by the way). As soon as Xu Qian appeared and it became clear how much she wanted to talk to Wu Yan about what had happened with Wei Hao, I just felt knew she couldn’t be a bad person. From the start she was so bent on making amends with her friend, heck she was even willing to get rid of her feelings for Wei Hao if it meant fixing her friendship with Wu Yan, and that made her by definition a good person to me. I also liked that we got to see a bit about her family background and how she felt like she was being pushed to achieve something great, even though it went against her heart’s desire of making music with the band. I also liked to see that there was a bit of turbulence between her and Wei Hao throughout the story when it came to their future goals, and whether they still felt like they could fit their different lifestyles together, but I think it was a really big step of her to finally let go and even quit her office job at some point. She realized that being with Wei Hao and enjoying life with him was the most important to her and when she finally allowed herself to let go of the pressure from her family, it was clear how happy that made her. Just like Wei Hao she was also a very important part of Wu Yan’s support system. I actually think the two of them basically started caring for Wu Yan even more after the Cheng Yin thing (which I’m still denying really happened). Anyways, I think Niu Yu Kun did a good job portraying Xu Qian’s personality as a both rational and mature ever-loyal friend.

As with almost every main character I felt like I knew Ma Li from something, but I was wrong (again). She was really impactful as Wu Yan’s mom for reasons I’ve already explained well enough, haha. While I didn’t particularly like Wu Yan’s mother, even after she suddenly became super sweet to Nian Qin once his eyesight was better and he turned out to have an influential family🤔, I guess we just have to say that the character was insufferable because the actress did a good job💁🏻‍♀️. All I can say is that while I didn’t agree with anything she said to Wu Yan in most of the show (and I was pretty pissed at Wu Yan for repeating her mother’s words to Nian Qin when they broke up), I am glad that they at least found some solace in one another after the father passed away. I actually expected her to just shut Wu Yan out, but because Wu Yan chose to stick by her side and even actually broke up with Nian Qin, I think she should be very thankful for the sacrifices that her daughter made for her. I wonder if I’m going to see more of her as she’s done a lot of dramas, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see! For now I’ll just say she portrayed a very fierce mother(-in-law), haha.

I’m going to end with Cheng Yin, bless her soul. Like many of the main actors, Chen Mei Yi only has three dramas to her name so far, plus one that’s still in production. I immediately liked Cheng Yin because she was truly a voice of reason for Wu Yan. I really loved the friendship dynamic between Wu Yan and Cheng Yin, they had really fun conversations and I also loved how Wu Yan would call her ‘honey’ and stuff. Cheng Yin was Wu Yan’s back-up when she needed to get away from Nian Qin during the break-up arc, and then when she came back to Xiamen while her father was in critical condition and after he passed away. It seems all the more logical to me now why Wu Yan would picture Cheng Yin, her ever so faithful and supporting roommate, in the apartment with her, to call upon whenever she felt out of sorts. She remained Wu Yan’s voice of reason even after she was gone, and that was quite beautiful, in a way. As I said, Cheng Yin was one of my favorite supporting characters, I really liked her and also Chen Mei Yi’s portrayal of her.

Because I had to correct my final piece of criticism as I realized I completely missed out on the Cheng Yin situation, it took me a bit longer than planned to finish this review, haha. At least my frustrations about that final plot twist have made way for a wave of revelation and self-criticism for not noticing it earlier, lol. Anyways, I stand by my rating of this show. It was well-written, well-executed and well-acted. It looked really professional, the cinematography was good and the acting was very immersive. It deals with important themes stretching from handicaps and (psychological) trauma to dealing with loss, grief and connecting people, in particular through music. I personally think the final addition of Wu Yan’s psychological trauma and what happened to Cheng Yin could’ve either been left out or played out a little differently, because it just created a lot of last-minute complications and confusions for me. The show was enjoyable and engaging enough for me the way it was before that bomb was dropped, so that would probably be one critical point I’d give the show. Other than that, there were a lot of beautiful and soothing moments, the relationship between Wu Yan and Nian Qin built up really nicely and it was very touching to see how much they came to mean to each other, despite their respective flaws and shortcomings – and I’m not even primarily talking about Nian Qin’s impairment here.

For my next watch I am going to watch another ‘goldien oldie’ from 2014, which will probably have a lot of classic tropes, so I’ll have to prepare myself mentally for more frustrations, haha. Still, I’m excited and curious to finally check it out. Until then, keep yourselves warm and comfortable, and I’ll be back before you know it.😉

Bye-bee!
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