About Love

Xiaoxi is careful and pessimistic about love. Her work has taught her that almost nobody is immune, so she keeps her own heart at a distance. Then she takes on a new target, Xiaobei (小贝, played by Liu Yuning, 刘宇宁), a level-headed finance professional who seems to pass every test she builds, fourteen of them in the comic that inspired the series. He is the kind of man who simply does not respond to temptation.

What follows is a relationship that begins as an assignment. The official synopsis frames it as mutual repair: his steadiness helps her loosen her distrust, and her company helps him let go of an earlier wound. The supporting cast widens the picture with other couples, including a married pair played by Jiang Xin (蒋欣) and Gu Jiacheng (谷嘉诚), so the series is also about how different people handle suspicion and doubt.

The drama is adapted from the popular web comic Chan Nü (蝉女, "cicada woman") by Gong Yuan Gan (宫缘干). In the comic, the line "love is as thin as a cicada's wing" gives the title its meaning, and the job itself echoes the proverb about the mantis stalking a cicada while a sparrow waits behind: the appraiser plays the cicada, and the wife who hired her is the sparrow.

Marie Claire Taiwan reports that the comic passed one billion views on the Kuaikan platform and that its volumes averaged 8.0 to 8.5 on Douban Books. It also notes that some readers found the original "morally off", since many characters knowingly take part in affairs, and that the adaptation reportedly cut much of that material. Yang Lei (杨磊) is credited as director by HK01, which also lists the main cast and the "love appraiser" premise.