If you think Song Wei Long’s The Eternal Fragrance streaming over Viu is an easy watch like Shine on Me (2025), his popular comeback series, you have another think coming. It’s a struggle to finish the first episode of the 33-episode historical-fantasy drama, because it moves at near-glacial pace.
Watching it reminded me of how it was reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, wherein steely determination got me through the slow first 100 pages.
Similarly, you need steadfast commitment to handle the initial tedium of Eternal Fragrance and reach Episode 6, where there’s some action though it fades quickly. You carry on because, reaching Episode 10, there’s action but it wanes again. You keep going until Episode 22, where the action finally goes into full gear, way to the end. It has the twists and turns, including the backstory, of Wei Long’s Jekyll and Hyde character.
Ju Jing Yi is Jiang Li Fei, the jianmu, in The Eternal Fragrance. (Image from @youkuofficial)
But despite the ho-hum pacing, there are good parts such as the amusing parallelisms. Lei Xiu Yuan (Wei Long) and Jiang Li Fei (Ju Jing Yi), in their latest reincarnations, meet at Chufeng Academy, ancient China’s version of the British Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Master cultivators in the academy hone their students’ cultivation skills, like Hogwarts’ powerful wizards. If wizard-students are sorted out into houses in Hogwarts, cultivator-students are chosen as sect members after graduating from the academy.
The cultivator-students’ support for the injured Xiu Yuan as he battles the demonic energy—Eternal Fragrance’s “dementors”—is an homage to Harry Potter. Xiu Yuan’s classmates do the heavy fighting, channeling their powers through hand gestures, not wands.
Song Wei Long is demon Lord Yecha. (Image from @youkuofficial and @songsongswl)
Hindu and Chinese mythological allusions are evident. Demon Lord Yaksha/Yecha (Xiu Yuan’s alter ego) safeguards Li Fei, which conforms to the Hindu mythology description of the lord as protector of nature. Jianmu (Li Fei’s counterpart) is the World Tree in ancient Chinese mythology standing in the center of the universe like the Yggdrasil in Norse mythology. Jianmu, in Eternal Fragrance, is the Divine Tree that grants ultimate power to any creature.
Rakshasa is a malevolent spirit in Hindu mythology, and the word translates to Luo Sha in Chinese. In Eternal Fragrance, she’s Xiu Yuan’s loyal demon aide disguised as Luo Sha, Chufeng Academy cultivator, who despises Li Fei and chagrined at Xiu Yuan for prioritizing her over their demon clan.
Xiu Yuan and Li Fei defy fate. (Image from @youkuofficial)
Xiu Yuan’s flashbacks and dilemma are interesting. Xiu Yuan wants Li Fei only for her spiritual power— represented by Ri Yan, a nine-tailed fox— to save his dying brother, but things get complicated when Li Fei saves him from near death.
Their evolving feelings are equally absorbing, with Xiu Yuan deep in love and guilt for Li Fei, and, despite her constant rejection, protects her. Li Fei seethes at Xiu Yuan’s betrayal and avoids him, but is nonetheless immensely drawn to him. Xiu Yuan sums up her feelings thus: “Love comes out of nowhere and just keeps growing deeper.”
Comparatively, Wei Long’s historical-romance Youth Glory (2025) has the viewers’ attention from the start because it opens with an action scene. Wei Long’s swashbuckler character, Jiang Xu, swoops in to rescue a noble’s daughter from brigands, only to disappear as fast as he appeared. Mystery reels in the viewers: Who was the excellent swordsman who rescued the woman? Why did he leave right away?
Interest in Eternal Fragrance would have been stirred, and retained, if it had a similar approach. Wei Long enters as stoic cultivator Xiu Yuan when he should have appeared—like he does in Episode 22—as Lord Yaksha/Yecha, his golden eyes blazing behind a golden half mask, dressed in midnight-black robe with gold accents, destroying Zong Qian. Making Episode 22 a flashback in Episode 1 would have ignited curiosity and interest in viewers.
Instead, Episode 1 opens with Li Fei—originally called Little Dummy—a disciple searching for her master, who’d mysteriously disappeared, and whose trickeries to get into Chufeng Academy were as dry as dust. Her depiction as a blundering disciple is a misstep in building up to her character of a formidable cultivator murdered centuries ago by “immortals in the East Sea” desiring her power.
Wei Long has everything down pat as demon lord—magnificent robes, gestures channeling his energy, and sinister mien
Wei Long has everything down pat as demon lord—magnificent robes, gestures channeling his energy, and sinister mien—except for the martial arts skills when he’s trained supposedly in wushu. Youthful Glory capitalizes on his wushu skills. The dullness is enhanced with the uninspired CGI slop of cultivators traveling on enlarged swords in a pseudo-second warrior yoga pose in midair. Teleportation would have been more dignified.
And the romances of other cultivators? They are extraneous, derailing Xiu Yuan and Li Fei’s story.
Eternal Fragrance introduces intriguing characters who are murderous or suffering. For Lanya, Li Fei, her classmate, is an adversary vis-á-vis Prince Tong Zhou, whom she loves but who desires Li Fei. Her intense jealousy provokes her to kill Li Fei when demons attack the academy. She pushes Li Fei out of the protective bubble Tong Zhou placed everyone in during the battle. Li Fei survives and Lanya is expelled for her “impure thoughts” and sent back by Tong Zhou to Yue kingdom.
Lanya is vindictive, siding with Zong Quan who massacred the Yue kingdom, killing Tong Zhou’s brother, the King. She lies to Tong Zhou about being coerced to support Zong Quan and, blinded by love, believes she has won Tong Zhou over when he says she’d be his eternal Empress.
Tong Zhou and Qin Yang Ling are cut from the same cloth. Tong Zhou’s cruelty stems from his unrequited love for Li Fei and resentment of Xiu Yuan. Li Fei rejects him for Xiu Yuan repeatedly, but he desperately hopes she’d reciprocate his romantic overtures. She doesn’t, leaving him unhinged. He murders his old academy friends for mentioning Xiu Yuan’s name. He abuses Miaoqing’s love, allowing her to disguise herself as Li Fei just to satisfy his ego, then ordering her to abort their child.
Tong Zhou exacts his revenge on Lanya by matching her deceit. He protects himself from the Heart-bound Gu she gave him, fettering them in life and death, and survives the parasite’s burning effect when he torches himself and Lanya.
Qin likes Li Fei and gives her his “flying ribbon,” a magical object for protection and ease of travel between mountains, as a love token after learning of her estrangement from Xiu Yuan. She accepts it innocently but gives it back after knowing his true intention, igniting his bitterness toward Xiu Yuan. It deepens when he, Wuyue Court’s senior disciple, one of the major cultivation sects, is made Xiu Yuan’s assistant in guarding and defending the court against demon attacks. The tipping point is when Xiu Yuan is awarded for his courage the Longyuan sword, a “coveted top-tier divine sword” that vanquishes demonic spirits.
Qin turns livid: He is demoted and outperformed by a novice, who “stole” his girl from him. He starts practicing dark magic, hoping to eclipse Xiu Yuan, who’d easily broken through the fifth level of cultivation. Instead, he turns evil, taking Li Fei’s spiritual energy (but fails) and killing a fellow sect member threatening to expose his shenanigans.
Miaoqing and Luo Sha are slavishly devoted to their “masters.” Miaoqing’s feelings of gratitude and love for Tong Zhou lead to her death. Luo Sha’s quincentennial loyalty to Xiu Yuan is met with derision and physical violence. One wonders: is Luo Sha’s loyalty just dogged devotion to a lord she believes has gone astray, or a one-sided love?
The technique is to watch it every other night and focus on Xiu Yuan and Li Fei’s story
That The Eternal Fragrance isn’t a series you binge-watch like Shine on Me isn’t a reason to not watch it. The technique is to watch it every other night and focus on Xiu Yuan and Li Fei’s story.
Indeed, it’s a slow watch but the drama’s themes of avarice, love, reincarnation, and revenge are no different from those of the other xianxia (“immortal heroes”). The flaw lies in the series production: Slow scenes could have been tightened; establishing scenes condensed; and pacing changed.
Script wise, some characters should’ve been deleted—It’s a series, after all, not a novel.
Patience is a virtue. Stay committed and you’ll discover how Wei Long dually portrays demon lord and grieving brother without histrionics.
