{year}=2025{episode}=EP.13{type}=TV{ongoing}
Review
Lighter and Princess or L&P is adapted from a popular novel. "Lighter" describes the light that the male protagonist has, while "Princess" is the nickname given to the female protagonist by the male lead. The story is narrated by Zhu Yun (Zhang Jingyi) of their encounter starting from the college year of 2012. The story spans 7 to 8 years with 4 years in college, 3 years in adulthood (not shown in the details) and the current year 2019. L & P also means "luck and power" in the story.
In college, Zhu Yun is an innocent girl, but she is not naive. She is intelligent, but not afraid to ask questions and admit mistakes. She is obedient and responsible, both at home and at school. She is the perfect daughter that her parents want—an obedient child who never lies or disobeys her parents. Having said that, Zhu Yun then starts to lie and hide from her mother who is the judge. I wish Zhu Yun would stand up to her mother and give her an ultimatum: "Accept us or lose a daughter." Zhang Jingyi gives a perfect performance here as the uncertain Zhu Yun. The actor's charming appearance and gestures make her very believable and lovable.
In love stories, the perfect woman has to meet the opposite character. Here, Zhu Yun meets Li Xun (Chen Feiyu), who is aggressive, arrogant, silent, smart, confident, and unacceptable. Li Xun is a character who is misunderstood a lot. Not only the people around him, but also many viewers do not understand him, so they condemn him.
Here, I would like to mention some of the criticisms from viewers about Li Xun. Many viewers complained that Li Xun was a bad person. Li Xun was definitely not a bad person. He looked down on people not because they were women, but because they were average. The people he looked down on were usually people who had achieved high positions through connections, whether they had powerful relatives or they bribed their way in. These people had no substance. This is a common phenomenon that happens all over the world. People buy their credentials and praise themselves as experts, sit in high positions, receive high salaries and benefits, claim all kinds of credit, while real people who do real work receive little compensation and no recognition. This is what Li Xun looked down on. He looked down on people who had no substance but still no truth, in order to try to improve themselves further. And in order to improve, he laughed at those who read and memorized from textbooks. For him, improvement means getting his hands dirty, making mistakes, and learning from his mistakes. The opposite is his attitude towards Ren Di. He likes Ren Di because he feels that she is genuine, following her passion, even against her father’s will. He helps her in every way he can: financial support, a place for her to live, and extra points from his coding club.
Despite Li Xun’s appearance and behavior, Li Xun is a decent and kind person who loves his mother and sister deeply and cares about all his friends, even when he himself is in a critical situation. He is compassionate but does not despise what others think of him. Only Zhu Yun knows how he thinks, stands with him, and stands up for him wholeheartedly.
Both Zhu Yun and Li Xun are classmates in computer programming. However, Li Xun is better than his class because he is a computer nerd and a brilliant programmer, but he does not use this skill for hidden crimes. He makes everyone feel embarrassed because they seem like children to him with their superficial knowledge of the course. Everyone hates him for his ugliness and loves him for his brilliance. Li Xun doesn’t follow the rules; he finds that people generally only care about how things look on the surface and not the substance inside, so he calls them fake. I like the way he looks at everyone, in a classic way. Li Xun is a person with attitude, and for me, that’s Chen Feiyu’s natural look. Chen Feiyu fits Li Xun’s character so seamlessly, as if the character was written for her. In real life, if your boyfriend has this kind of attitude, I sympathize with you, but in romance, this kind of personality captures the audience’s imagination. I love this character so much.
