Blossoms in Adversity

Hua Zhi (花芷, played by Zhang Jingyi, 张婧仪) is a young lady of a once-comfortable house. When it is raided and the men are exiled, she stops keeping her head down and takes charge, steering the women through hunger and danger. Along the way she wins over Gu Yanxi (顾晏惜, Hu Yitian, 胡一天), a feared official, who comes to be known to the household as the friendly "Mr. Yan" (晏先生).

The women around her are drawn as individuals rather than as a backdrop. A review in China Arts Daily lists the grandmother, the mothers, the eldest and second daughters and the concubine among the characters, and says the series gives the family a fuller portrait than the book does.

The drama is adapted from the web novel of the same name by Kong Liu (空留). The screenwriters are He Fang (何妨), Cao Tingyue (曹听月) and Zhang Weiwei (张炜炜).

The biggest change from the book is that Hua Zhi is no longer a time traveller. China Arts Daily, in a piece reposted by the China Writers' Association site on June 4, 2024, says the novel's heroine arrives from another era, while the series removes that device and sets the whole story in the past. The reviewer thinks that costs some of the sense of triumph but allows more attention to themes such as women's awareness of their own position. The same piece criticises the heroine's thinking as too modern and some plot turns as out of step with the period.

The same piece adds that readers of the novel complained the story had been changed beyond recognition, while the series was praised for giving its supporting cast real scenes.