MANILA, Philippines — A strong female lead who does the saving and a couple fierce in battle and in love currently has many drama lovers obsessed with it, breaking streaming views and catapulting its lead stars, Zhang Linghe and Tian Xiwei, into global fame.
Anyone who is into drama knows this: “Pursuit of Jade” is the most-talked about show right now, with its scenes and lines becoming memes. This is a feat in a drama landscape dominated by shows from South Korea.
Linghe, the actor who went viral for his catwalk earlier this year, is the fallen noble who is saved from death’s door one snowy night by a butcher girl with extraordinary strength named Fan Changyu (Xiwei).
“Pursuit of Jade,” also known as “Chasing Jade,” is adapted from the web novel “Zhu Yu” by Tuan Zi Lai Xi. It premiered on streaming platforms available in the Philippines last March 6.
On iQiyi, it continues to hold the top spot since its premiere, while on Netflix Philippines, it hovered in the top 7 to top 10 spots as the only C-drama in the list until the finale episode was dropped last Monday, March 30. Netflix’s March 16 to 22, 2026 data showed that “Pursuit of Jade” ranked eighth in the Top 10 non-English shows on its global list.
Beyond the superficial
Regular C-dramas are notoriously long, some at 36 or 40 episodes. This is the reason why the rise of Chinese microdramas/vertical shorts are eating up a sizable portion of the drama-watching public.
Until “Pursuit of Jade” dropped in early March.
Before its airing, Linghe’s “lethal facecard” (the man is absolutely gorgeous especially in this drama!) is expected to sustain the show due to a captured market, mostly his loyal fans and longtime admirers.
Xiwei, on the other hand, is relatively unknown to most drama watchers, especially to those who have yet to dive in to the world of C-dramas.
Linghe and Xiwei, however, proved that they are beyond their good screen presence as “Pursuit of Jade” unwittingly clawed into the hearts and minds of viewers getting numbed with the usual drama fare.
Beautifully told and shot
Handsome actors and pretty actresses are the standards of many romance dramas, often shot in scenic locations that set the mood for love and romance.
But only a few dramas are shot like poetry in motion, and “Pursuit of Jade” is helmed by a romantic at his core.
Director Zeng Qing Jie makes the falling of the snow, the gentle breeze of wind on the hair and a single tear rolling down the face of Linghe as necessary actors in his show.
His eye for detail is not limited to making a visual composition like an artist painting his favorite idyllic hometown such as the fictional town of Lin’an, but Zeng captures the body’s physical reaction to love, pain, sadness and rejection in detail.
Actors will find great joy in working with a director like Zeng who highlights a smirk, creased brows, dead eyes, clenched jaws and fists — little details or microexpressions that are often left uncaptured and unseen in many dramatic moments.
'They are the character'
Zeng’s main leads, Linghe and Xiwei, played well into his love for conveying emotions without uttering the words.
Linghe showed that he his more than his swoon-worthy looks as he plays the dual role of a man who slowly falls in love with his unlikely savior to the man of great renown torn between his duty and his unwavering love for his fake wife whom he married as a matrilocal husband.
The actor made viewers even more in love with the scholarly Yan Zheng when he threw soft glances and longing stares at the oblivious Changyu, and with the battle-hardened Xie Zheng when he would give deadly stares at Changyu’s growing list of admirers.
Xiwei, meanwhile, made Changyu, a character well-written and defined, unforgettable that she made it impossible to envision other actresses to portray her.
Strong female leads have been introduced in recent years, but Xiwei portrayed both toughness and gentleness in a character that could easily go angsty and brutal all just to match the energy of the heroic male lead throughout the series.
As the titular jade, "Pursuit of Jade" shows how Changyu rises to prominence from a simple butcher from Lin’an to a deadly beauty, whose very name strikes fear among her enemies. She becomes a legend in the show, that this writer would not mind watching a special show that details her adventure as the legendary warrior beauty.
Xiwei’s most attractive features are a cute dimple and her eyes, often described, even by Linghe, as “full of stars.”
In light moments, her eyes light up, but when her character is called to war, Xiwei not only impresses with her agility in her fight stunts, but most importantly, she makes her character human. While most characters display dominance on the battlefield, Changyu is the exact opposite, showing sadness for every life taken by her blade.
Badasses
Another reason that “Pursuit of Jade” hooked its viewers, who are most likely females, is the absence of annoying third parties or third wheels. There is no female who schemes just to get the man; just women using their brains to good use.
The females also display a characteristic or two that are either mostly assigned to males or underused in dramas to describe a character of the sex: Changyu for brute strength, restaurant owner Yu Qianqian (Kong Xueer) for cunning and grand princess Qi Shu (Yu Zhong Li) for resolve.
Interesting fun fact: the 5-ft-6-inch tall Xiwei carried her co-star Linghe, who stands at 6 ft 3 in, on her back while walking a few steps in one of the crucial scenes of the show. Linghe shared that Xiwei is the only female star who was able to carry him on her back.
These female characters uplift their sex when they could have been easily written as the damsels-in-distress, casualties in the battefield, or pawns in a battle of strategies.
They are instead presented as their drama antithesis. It is a bonus that their screen pairings in the show have spawned their own fandoms.
The grand princess with her star-crossed lover Gongsun Yin (Li Qing), who is Xie Zheng’s best friend and war strategist. And weirdly enough but not surprising for those who are into dark romance, Qianqian’s love angle with the obsessive, silver-haired mad prince Sui Yuanqing, portrayed by Deng Kai.
Different kinds of love
The show juxtaposes two kinds of love: the genuine kind and the twisted one.
While most dark romances romanticize obsession, “Pursuit of Jade” sends the right kind of message.
Obsessive "love" only brings ruin — for every unfathomable action, dire consequences follow. Love cannot be forced; it needs to be cultivated.
On the other side of love, Xie Zheng and Changyu show love in its truest form.
Theirs was forged on equal footing. While most romances will have the man coming to save his lady love like a knight in shining armor, Changyu and Xie Zheng save each other many times in the show.
Neither is passive in showing that they are capable of taking care of each other, especially in the most crucial times. Both Changyu and Xie Zheng stood for their love even at the risk of being outcasted due to their different social classes and imminent death. Theirs was a love built on mutual respect for their individuality and independence, while remaining unwavering in the face of adversity.
It is this very foundation that makes their love story ideal and bittersweet for many viewers. This, perhaps, is the root cause of many viewers’ obsession for “Pursuit of Jade.”
This kind of romantic love — deep, loyal and unyielding — is rare to see unfolding on screen and even rarer to witness in real life.
In its desire to set a love story different from what has been told, “Pursuit of Jade” has become a fantasy of sorts for the romantics and jaded alike.
Palpable chemistry
With love as a central theme of the drama, it must be conveyed in such a way that viewers are made to believe that the characters are in deeply in love with each other.
Linghe is known to create good rapport and onscreen chemistry with his leading ladies, but many who have seen “Pursuit of Jade” said that his and Xiwei’s is his best pairing and comes off as naturally as if acting is not required.
Their oozing chemistry is quite palpable that it is quite a delight to watch them even when they are just standing beside each other. Fans cannot get enough of them that even after the drama has finished, many cannot still move on.
In fact, fan edits of Linghe and Xiwei, either as their characters or as themselves in some of the show’s behind-the-scene clips and interviews, abound on social media.
These are not only made by Chinese fans, but engagaments related to the actors and their screen pairing go beyond their native China, as far as Latin America, the United States, Europe, South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia, including the Philippines.
Linghe and Xiwei possess that one-of-a-kind chemistry that makes people remember even after many years.
Xie Zheng/Yan Zheng and Fan Changyu are bound to be a classic drama couple in the same breath as Jerry Yan and the late Barbie Hsu’s Dao Ming Su and Shancai from “Meteor Garden”’ fame and real-life couple Hyun Bin and Son Hye Jin’s Capt. Ri and Yoon Se-ri from the phenomenal K-drama “Crash Landing On You.”
This is a kind of chemistry that is is hard to replicate, like watching a generational talent outcompete his competitors in the arena.
It is needless to say that the undeniable chemistry of Linghe and Xiwei, complemented by director Zeng’s artistry, successfully pulled off the story of unwavering love, endearing “Pursuit of Jade” and C-drama to millions of fans worldwide.