12 romantasy C-dramas that make reality look rather dull

Li Susu (Bai Lu), a disciple of the Xiaoyao Sect, knows exactly how the world ends. Tantai Jin (Luo Yunxi), a prince despised by his own family, will eventually become the Devil God and unleash catastrophe. With no other option, Li Susu travels 500 years into the past and takes over the body of Ye Xiwu, Tantai Jin's wife, determined to stop him before he discovers his full demonic power.

However, the man she expects to become a monster is not quite the monster she imagined. Tantai Jin has spent his life being abused, manipulated and treated as expendable, and Li Susu begins to see the person underneath the prophecy. Their relationship develops while she is trying to prevent the future she has already witnessed, creating a romance where falling in love could be the very thing that makes saving the world impossible. With multiple incarnations, divine weapons, competing realms and a hero who exists somewhere between victim and potential destroyer, it is xianxia melodrama at full volume.

Bai Qian (Yang Mi), the youngest daughter of the Fox Emperor of Qing Qiu, is already a powerful immortal when the story begins. After helping to reseal the demon king Qing Cang, however, she loses her magical powers, memories and appearance and falls into the mortal realm. There she meets Ye Hua (Mark Chao), a heavenly prince sent to the human world who later falls in love with her.

Their mortal romance becomes the beginning of a much larger story involving the heavenly realm, the ghost clan, old rivalries and identities neither of them fully understands. When Bai Qian’s memories return, so does the knowledge of their relationship before she became mortal. The drama then expands into the kind of sweeping xianxia romance in which a love affair can stretch across centuries, reincarnations and several realms, with every reunion carrying the weight of everything that happened before.

Jin Mi (Yang Zi) grows up in seclusion as the daughter of the Flower Deity, protected by a magical pill that prevents her from experiencing romantic love. Her sheltered existence changes when she meets Xu Feng (Deng Lun), the Fire Deity and son of the Heavenly Emperor. This unlikely friendship develops into something Jin Mi cannot understand because she has never experienced the emotion herself.

The situation becomes even more complicated when Xu Feng’s brother Run Yu (Luo Yunxi) falls for her too. Jin Mi is pulled between the two brothers as their rivalry grows increasingly bitter, while politics among the heavenly, floral and demon realms turn their personal conflict into something much larger. Her realisation of love is intertwined with revelations about her family, her past and the magical forces that shaped her from birth, giving the romance a suitably enormous xianxia backdrop.

Shen Li (Zhao Liying) is not waiting for anyone to rescue her. A powerful general of the demon realm, she is fleeing an unwanted marriage when she is injured and transformed into a small phoenix-like creature. She ends up in the care of Xing Zhi (Lin Gengxin), a seemingly ordinary mortal who buys her from a market and takes her home.

Naturally, as with most romantasy C-dramas, Xing Zhi is anything but ordinary. As Shen Li recovers, the pair develop a teasing, combative relationship while she remains unaware of his true identity and enormous power. Their romance becomes entangled with a conflict involving the three realms and the ancient forces threatening their world. Shen Li’s confidence and physical strength give the drama a particularly satisfying dynamic: she is already a formidable figure before the love story begins, and the romance develops through mutual respect rather than turning her into somebody softer.

Xiang Yun (Yang Chaoyue), a fairy working in the Marriage Pavilion, and Chu Kong (Ding Yuxi), a disciple of the Star Lord of Mouri, have an unfortunate first meeting that involves a broken magical fan and a very important red thread of fate. Their quarrel causes chaos in the marriages of the three realms, earning them a punishment from the Jade Emperor: seven lifetimes in the mortal world together.

Each lifetime gives the pair a new identity, new circumstances and a new obstacle to overcome. They might be lovers, enemies or strangers, but their connection keeps pulling them back towards each other. The format allows the drama to move between very different settings and romantic dynamics while gradually revealing that their supposedly accidental encounters are tied to a much older story. Underneath the reincarnation gimmick is a simple question: if two people keep finding each other across seven lives, can fate really be fought?

Xiao Yao (Yang Zi) grows up as a member of the royal family of Xiyan before being separated from the people she loves and enduring years of hardship. Centuries later, she has lost both her royal identity and her original appearance. Living under the name Wen Xiaoliu, she disguises herself as a man and runs a small clinic in Qingshui Town.

Her quiet existence changes when she saves Tu Shan Jing (Deng Wei), the heir of a powerful fox clan. She also encounters Xiang Liu (Tan Jianci), a nine-headed snake demon and military strategist whose interest in her begins with the unusual properties of her blood. Meanwhile, her cousin Cang Xuan (Zhang Wanyi) is searching for her. What follows is part fantasy romance, part royal intrigue and part identity mystery, with Xiao Yao's relationships shaped by the political histories and personal sacrifices surrounding all four characters.

Tian Yao (Hou Minghao) is an ancient dragon who survives after the woman he loved betrays him, strips away his dragon bones and seals them in different locations. Years later, he discovers Yan Hui (Zhou Ye), a young woman whose body carries a protective seal capable of helping him recover what was stolen. He initially sees her as a means to an end. She has other ideas.

The pair set out to recover Tian Yao’s missing body parts, dragging them into conflicts involving demons, cultivation sects and powerful supernatural forces along the way. Yan Hui’s independence repeatedly frustrates Tian Yao’s plans, while his increasingly protective behaviour complicates their original bargain. The romance grows out of an alliance between two people who have both been betrayed by others, with their journey gradually changing what they are willing to risk for one another.

Sima Jiao (Chen Feiyu), an immortal master with extraordinary powers, unexpectedly chooses Liao Tingyan (Wang Yinglu) to become his assistant. Their relationship begins uneasily: he is suspicious of her, while she has little idea why someone so powerful would take an interest in her. As they spend more time together, however, she becomes increasingly important to his struggle with the seal placed on him.

Their story expands beyond the immortal world into the demon realm and the human world, with Liao Tingyan learning that her apparently ordinary existence is connected to forces much larger than she realised. Sima Jiao, meanwhile, has spent centuries shaped by betrayal and isolation. Their growing attachment gives the drama its emotional centre as the two navigate a world where love and danger are increasingly difficult to separate.

Chen Xiaoqian (Zhao Lusi) has spent months writing a historical drama about two powerful women and their complicated romances. Just as her script is about to go into production, she falls unconscious and wakes up inside her own story. Problem: she is not the heroine. She is Chen Qianqian, the Third Princess, a supporting character whose death is supposed to happen early in the story.

Knowing exactly what is meant to happen, Chen Xiaoqian starts rewriting the plot from inside it, desperately trying to keep her character alive. Her plans become increasingly complicated once she crosses paths with Han Shuo (Ding Yuxi), the male lead she originally wrote as a calculating prince. She knows his motivations, his future and the story's intended ending — or at least she thinks she does. As the characters begin deviating from her script, Chen Xiaoqian discovers that the fictional world she created has become harder to control, while her carefully planned relationship between Han Shuo and the original heroine takes an unexpected turn.

See more: 10 C-dramas rooted in real history

Nan Xing (Shen Yue) loves writing stories and has a particular fondness for villains. After making a wish, she gets considerably more than she bargained for when Xiao Wudi (Chen Zheyuan), the cunning antagonist from one of her own novels, appears in the modern world. He promptly negotiates his way into an apartment next door, leaving Nan Xing to deal with a fictional character who knows far too much about the person who created him.

Xiao Wudi is used to being the villain, not somebody’s romantic interest, and his attempts to navigate modern life create plenty of trouble. Nan Xing initially wants him gone, while he is perfectly happy to exploit the situation to secure a comfortable existence. Their antagonism evolves into attraction as they spend more time together, giving the drama a playful spin on the familiar fantasy of falling for a character from a book.

Entertainment reporter Yu Sheng Sheng (Liang Jie) and boy-band star Yu Yi (Zhang Xincheng) have little reason to expect their lives to intersect in any meaningful way until a bizarre accident causes them to swap bodies. Suddenly, each has to navigate the other’s career, family and daily life while figuring out how to reverse the incident.

Its body-swap premise gives these types of romantasy C-dramas an unusual intimacy: Yu Sheng Sheng and Yu Yi have to navigate each other’s careers, families and friendships before they can even begin to understand one another. What starts as a supernatural inconvenience slowly becomes the mechanism through which two strangers learn how to see each other.

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