Lost You Forever

The setting is the Great Wilds (大荒, Dahuang), where humans, gods and demons live side by side and three states keep an uneasy balance: Xiyan (西炎), Chenrong (辰荣) and Haoling (皓翎). Xiao Yao (小夭), played by Yang Zi, is a Haoling princess who has spent a hundred years in hardship and lost both her rank and her face. She now lives in Qingshui Town (清水镇) as the physician Wen Xiaoliu (玟小六), with nowhere to go and no one to rely on.

Three men enter her life. She saves the dying Tushan Jing (涂山璟, Deng Wei), heir of the Qingqiu clan, and the two grow close living side by side. She crosses paths with Xiang Liu (相柳, Tan Jianci), a nine-headed demon who becomes an unlikely confidant. And Cang Xuan (玱玹, Zhang Wanyi), a prince of Xiyan who was her childhood companion before he went to Haoling as a hostage, travels the Wilds looking for her. When the two finally meet, neither recognizes the other.

The Great Wilds is an invented mythic world with no historical date. It is adapted from the novel Chang Xiang Si by Tong Hua (桐华), first published in 2013 and revised for a 2019 reprint, which belongs to her "Shan Jing Hai Ji" (山经海纪) series. Tong Hua wrote the screenplay herself and said she kept the original storyline, adjusting only some elements. Qin Zhen (秦峥) was chief director, and Tencent Video produced the series with Xinglian Pictures (星莲影视).

Filming began at Hengdian on March 28, 2022, and lasted more than half a year. The crew built Qingshui Town as a real set, and the three states were given distinct costume, color and architectural styles. The underwater scenes were shot on dry land, using wire rigs and lighting tested in a water tank, then refined with visual effects. Producer Tang Panjing compared the series to a costume version of Sense and Sensibility.