Small Town Remedy: Would Anyone Dump Xiao Zhan's Doctor?

Spoiler note for the novel: this piece mentions one plot point from the book. The drama may not follow it.

Small Town Remedy (小城良方) premieres on 21 October. CCTV-8 shows two episodes a night; on iQIYI, VIP members get four on the first night and two a day after that. Overseas availability has not been announced. The lead is Xiao Zhan, who plays Liu Zhengliang, and the official synopsis calls him a genius doctor who hits a low point and is forced to go back to his hometown to start from zero.

The show is adapted from the novel Fei Dao (飞刀, "Flying Knife") by Liu Sanshu. On 16 October the author told China News Service (中新网) what he made of the trailer.

His first reaction was that it was "very good". The characters and mood matched what he had pictured, or better, and the casting fit the book. He felt Xiao Zhan captured an ordinary office worker's look. His only complaint was about looks: "The male lead I wrote is definitely not that handsome."

In the novel, as the interview describes him, Liu Zhengliang comes from a small city in northeast China. He is cheerful, disciplined and a fast learner, and he becomes a neurosurgeon at a top hospital in a big city. Back at a small-town hospital he keeps helping patients who are short of money, sure he can still save lives in the emergency department. In the author's words: "He believes you should do this job with a clear conscience."

Here is the question the author could not answer. In the book, Liu's girlfriend ends the relationship. Hearing Xiao Zhan was cast, the author worried for the screenwriter: how do you make viewers believe a woman would dump a man this handsome, clever and decent? "I can't think of an answer," he said, adding that he was curious and looking forward to seeing the solution.

Expectations differ. Some Weibo users said the trailer looked funny. A reader of the book wrote in February that the novel is not a comedy and that Liu has a hard time. Only the episodes will show which is closer.

Sources: China News Service interview with Liu Sanshu, 16 October 2026, via Weibo; official Small Town Remedy synopsis, 18 October 2025; official Weibo airing calendar, 20 October 2026; Weibo user comments (February 2026 and after the trailer), which represent only their authors.