Those Days

Shen Mingzhu has barely registered her marriage to Feng Jianqi (冯建奇), played by Fu Xinbo (付辛博), when he dies. She decides to keep the child. Soon after, a family arrives that has been looking for her: her birth parents. She was adopted, so the adoptive parents who raised her are part of the picture too.

Mingzhu is soon surrounded by three households, each insisting it is acting out of love. Her mother-in-law, He Lihua (何丽华), played by Yue Hong (岳红), sees the unborn child as the family's future. Her birth mother, Yu Jingxiang (喻静香), played by Xu Di (许娣), wants to make up for lost years. Her adoptive mother, Yue Xiu'e (岳秀娥), played by Lin Xiaojie (林晓杰), points to twenty years of raising her.

Jiang Xin (蒋欣) plays Xu Zhixia (许知夏), the older sister who arrives with the birth family, and Huang Minghao (黄明昊) plays Shen Minghui (沈明辉), the younger brother. As the opening episodes go on, the family's money problems come into view, and Mingzhu steps in to deal with them.

The story is set in a small southern city. It was filmed in Tonglu County, Zhejiang, including the old village of Shen'ao and the Tongjun Mountain area.

The series is adapted from the novel You Xi (有喜, "to be expecting") by Qingyang Wanxi (清扬婉兮). Its working title was Shi Yue Ren Sheng (十月人生, "ten months of life"). Shen Yan (沈严) was chief director, Shen Yang (沈阳) directed, and Lan Xiaoxi (蓝小汐) wrote the script. Tencent Video announced the project in June 2023, and filming ran from September to December 2024.

The title Si Xi (四喜) means "four joys." At the start of filming, the producers presented the series as a story of women's "second growth" (二次成长), a coming-of-age that happens after adulthood has already begun. Lan Xiaoxi also wrote Yi Lu Chao Yang (一路朝阳).