Are You the One-Drama vs Novel Comparison

Mistakenly assuming a story centered around the good old amnesia (our heroine’s) trope would be too predictable and thus boring, I went into this one with fairly low expectations and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The story IS pretty predictable but I enjoyed the humor and the good quick pacing of the storyline. Are You the One is one novel drama adaptation where I feel the drama did a good job on improving an already good story. The novel itself was a good story, but I feel the drama had better pacing and humor.

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

The drama got me interested in reading the novel. Here are a few things I noticed as I was reading that either the drama left out, changed, or had a little more explanation in the novel than we got in the drama.

• One small storyline the show left out that I thought really showcased how clever our heroine was early on in the story was how she managed to purchase two storefronts for a super cheap price. In the drama, we found out from Nanny Li’s very excited report to our hero that our heroine had purchased two storefronts at a bargain price but the show never elaborated on how exactly she did that. In the novel, there were two stores that were feuding with one another. Our heroine approached the store that was on the losing end of the feud and offered to buy the store. Knowing full well he would probably be forced to close his store soon anyway, the owner was quite pleased when our heroine told him that she was planning to open a store to sell coffins. Once she had successfully purchased the first store, our heroine then approached the second store owner as someone who had just recently moved into town and was looking for a storefront to buy. Thinking that once the store next to his reopened as a coffin store, and the negative effects it would have on his business and resale value of his store, the owner quickly decides to sell his store to the “clueless” stranger that’s new in town who no doubt has no knowledge of the coffin business that will open soon. (Anything to do with funerals and dead people is seen as unlucky and could impact one’s fortune even with a chance encounter, which is why an eatery right next to a coffin store would not do very well.)

• The drama showed that the reason our heroine believed our hero’s story about him being her husband was because her last memory of herself being on the way to marry a man named Cui Jiu AND the pouch hanging on our hero’s waist was the same one she had planned on giving her new-to-be husband. In the novel, we finds out that while it was customary for women to sew pouches for their fiancé or new husbands, not all women are skilled in the art of sewing and embroidery. When it comes time to sew these marriage pouches, these women might then go to a professional seamstress who would sell them a pouch. It just so happens that our heroine AND our hero’s fiancée both went to the same professional seamstress who assumed that since our heroine is marrying so far away from the imperial capital, it would be fine to sell the same patterned pouch to both women.
• In the drama, we saw that our heroine was accused by the evil female second lead that she had stolen a large amount of money from Zi Yu (the male second lead). In the novel, our heroine dreamed a memory where she was earnestly writing out a false account ledger and sending off carriages carrying large amounts of gold. The dream made our heroine wonder if she really did something bad but we as the reader find out from Zi Yu’s side of story that it was a ploy our heroine used to help him fish out who was stealing money from him. In his quest to take back the throne, Zi Yu had to rely on the support of those who were previously loyal to his father. While those court officials were serious about helping Zi Yu obtain the throne, they also didn’t see anything wrong in helping themselves to some of Zi Yu’s money. Realizing more than one person was stealing money from Zi Yu, our heroine came up with a plan to make it seem like she was embezzling money and told Zi Yu of her plan. As our heroine predicted, once it was known that she had “embezzled” money, all the other real thieves promptly added the amount they had stolen onto what our heroine supposedly had stolen so she could now be their scapegoat. Both Zi Yu and our heroine knew that it was fairly pointless to catch the people who were stealing from him since Zi Yu needed those people’s support to obtain the throne but our heroine’s plan would allow Zi Yu to ship his money off to a secret place, away from the where those stealing hands.
• The drama hinted that our heroine was planning to leave Zi Yu’s side anyway and that was what gave the evil second female the opportunity to send her man to kill our heroine. In the novel, we find out that while Zi Yu wanted to marry our heroine, there was fierce opposition from Zi Yu’s supporters because as much as they respect our heroine’s intelligence, they wanted Zi Yu to have an empress that would be politically beneficial to him. Knowing Zi Yu wasn’t in a position to ignore his supporters’ wishes, our heroine resolutely broke things off with him. On Zi Yu’s part, like in the drama, he was holding onto the hope that even if he had to let our heroine go temporarily he would be able to marry our heroine once he finally becomes the emperor.

• The real Cui Jiu was embarrassed when he found out our heroine had been kidnapped by mountain robbers. Wanting to avoid embarrassment in front of his family and friends, Cui Jiu promptly got the matchmaker to find him another woman from another merchant family in the Imperial Capital to come marry him. By the time our hero was curious enough to read the report on Ciu Jiu, the guy already had kids with a wife and two concubines, our heroine a long-forgotten memory to him.
• In the drama, Sun Yun Er (the evil lady) is the one who sent her man to kill our heroine. In the novel though, our heroine was very well respected in the mountain and resourceful so Sun Yun Er had to go to Prince Sui (the male second lead’s uncle I believe) to help her get rid of our heroine. Prince Su saw our heroine as an obstacle because she was always weary of his intentions and stopped the male second lead from involving himself too deeply in whatever Prince Su tried to get him to do.
• After hearing from Sun Yun Er that our heroine is still alive, Prince Su personally went to meet his old nemesis. Stunned that his nemesis turned out to be a beautiful woman, Prince Su promptly made the decision to find a chance to make our heroine his.
• Before our hero went off to what he thought would be a certain death on the battlefield, he wrote a bill of divorce for our heroine. Interestingly, instead of telling our heroine the truth, he decided to divorce her as “Ciu Jiu”. In the novel, our hero gave two reasons: 1. He hoped that our heroine would remember him as her loving husband instead of as a liar who tricked her. He also hoped that meant there would at least be one woman in this world who would think of him on certain sleepless nights and would cry while missing him. 2. He figured that being a widow was a better thing for our heroine instead of being a woman who was kidnapped by mountain robbers.
• When our heroine was attacked on her way to follow after our hero, it was men sent by Prince Su to kidnap her.
• Our two lead’s first kiss in the novel: The night our heroine caught up to our hero’s troops, our hero soon realized Mian Tang was feverish. After a whole year of seemingly endless medications, our heroine developed a dislike for drinking medicine so she kept talking nonstop to try to avoid it. Belatedly catching up to Mian Tang’s trickery, our hero promptly took a mouthful of the medication and fed it to her. Feeling shy, Mian Tang grabbed the bowl and drank the bitter medicine in one shot. Still savoring the kiss, our hero said, “In the future, if you don’t behave and drink your medicine then I will feed it to you like this…” Playing with his armor buttons with her fingers, Mian Tang asked shyly, “Can we still be like that even if I don’t need to take medicine? Or it would always be a bit bitter…” Amused, our hero obeyed his wife and leaned down to kiss her.
• We saw Mian Tang had some knowledge of herbs and such in the drama which was how she ended up helping our hero defeat the enemy troop. In the drama, our heroine actually ended up being a sort of impromptu doctor for the small group of people that were following after our hero’s troop. The novel tells a funny exchange where our heroine, still very new and learning, accidentally puts some herbs that cause diarrhea in a man’s medicine. When the very exhausted man came to inquire about his diarrhea symptoms, Mian Tiang very calmly and confidently told him that it was a sign of the toxins leaving his body. Adjusting his medicine (picking out the offending herbs), Mian Tiang sent the man merrily on his way after assuring him that his medicine was going to start working even better now that the toxins were all cleaned out of his system. Having watched the whole exchange, our hero was very amused by Mian Tiang’s quick thinking. Equally quick on his feet, when our heroine asked him why no one around seemed to have heard of him, our hero came up with the excuse that he was working in some top secret intelligence gathering group.
• In the drama, our hero was sent off to the battlefield to a certain death by the young emperor. In the novel, we find out that our hero was secretly glad of the opportunity to get away from the Imperial Capital. By this point, our hero had figured out the second male lead’s real identity and knew that a fight for the throne is about to happen. Disliking both Dowager Chu (young emperor’s mother) and Zi Yu (second male lead), our hero had no interest in choosing a side so he thought it was best to leave the Imperial Capital until the fight for the throne had finally settled.
• Dowager Chu made a mess of the court and was quite cruel so a lot of the court officials were already wishing their kind crown prince (Zi Yu’s father) was still alive.
• In the drama, our two leads never consummated their “marriage” before our heroine recovered her memory. That was not the case in the novel. It was an ongoing joke in the novel that it was a big gamble whenever someone took the medicine our heroine put together for them. If you were lucky, the medicine would work great. If you were down on your luck, then you would become a frequent visitor to the loo for the next bit. Having mistaken our hero’s reoccurring insomnia as a sign of some hidden illness instead of his valiant attempt to be a gentleman towards her, our heroine read up on her medical books and put together a medicinal tonic for our hero. Not wanting to disappoint Mian Tiang when she took the tonic out during their outing to the hot springs, our hero resolutely drank the tonic despite his subordinate’s urgent warning that it was a big gamble given Mian Tiang’s track record. Our hero soon realized that Mian Tiang had somehow unintentionally concocted a less potent form of aphrodisiac used in brothels. As one who has excellent self-control and who had successfully suppressed the effects of more powerful aphrodisiacs before, our hero thought he would be able to control himself…that is until he saw our heroine come out of the hot spring. Needless to say, our hero’s self-control failed that day and he also found out much to his surprise and joy that Mian Tiang had never been with another man before.
• In the drama, our heroine eventually remembered her past on her own before she parted ways with our hero. That wasn’t the case in the novel. While our heroine did recover some random dream-like memories that made her wonder if she cheated on her “husband” with the male second lead, she never remembered enough to doubt our hero. Our heroine eventually realized she had been fooled when her uncle told her she never married the real Ciu Jiu but even by the time she parted ways with our hero and got home to her grandpa’s house, she still did not remember her time in the mountains.
• In the drama, our hero injured his leg while saving the little boy from the runaway horse, but in the novel, our hero was injured while protecting a team of imperial envoys from attackers. In the drama, Marquis Zhennan gave up on Mian Tang fairly early on, but that was not the case in the novel. Even by the time he delivered the meds (made with the flower our hero had gone through great length to obtain) to Mian Tang’s grandpa’s house, Marquis Zhennan was still asking Mian Tang to consider becoming his concubine. Our heroine of course turned him down flat and other than having his pride hurt a little, Marquis Zhennan was feeling bad enough for his friend that he confessed to Mian Tang that our hero was the one who sent the meds to her and that our hero was in danger of becoming a cripple from his leg injury.
• I really liked the character depth the show gave to the empress’ role because her character was a very minor one in the novel. Unlike the drama though, the empress got pregnant fairly fast after her marriage to the male second lead. While the emperor was also pining for Mian Tang in the novel, he obviously didn’t feel the need to “save” himself for her.
• In the novel, when Mian Tang found out from Marquis Zhennan that our hero was injured, she left the very next day and traveled for quite a bit of distance to see him. (This was different in the show where our two leads were in the same town at the time.) When she was caught by our hero while checking his injury, it was of course pointless for Mian Tang to pretend she didn’t have any feelings for him. Jumping on the perfect opportunity to plead his case, our hero complained to Mian Tang he really could not bring himself to accept the thought of her marrying anyone else…in fact, he threatened if Mian Tang was to marry anyone then he would show up with his army. Our two leads came to a strange agreement with Mian Tang agreed not to marry anyone for the time being.
• Another big difference between the drama and the novel was the fact that in the novel, it took a long time before our heroine figured out she was none other than the very Lu Wen, our hero’s nemesis. Mian Tang’s uncle knew of course but wanting Mian Tang to put that whole thing behind her, chose not to tell his niece that particular part of her past. It was actually pretty comical how Mian Tang found out about her identity as Lu Wen. While on the run with our hero’s mother to avoid being kidnapped, our heroine ran into her old subordinates from her Lu Wen days. Overjoyed to see Mian Tang, the old subordinates excitedly showed Mian Tang the words on their shoulder that she supposed had personally tattooed on them. Speechless when she saw the words of “Loyalty and righteousness” on the men’s shoulders which were supposedly a privilege for her most trusted subordinates, Mian Tang had to admit that only she could’ve tattooed words that were so ugly. The men’s words and her belated memory of her younger self once jokingly vowed to one day do some great accomplishments under the name Lu Wen, our heroine finally came to the stunning realization that our hero’s nemesis was indeed herself.
• Prince Sui was the one who ordered his men to kidnap Mian Tang and Dowager Chu in the novel. While Mian Tang was busy staying one step ahead of her would-be kidnappers, Prince Sui was caught in a bind. Already angry when his subordinates could not find Mian Tang, Prince Sui was stunned when his men informed him that his wife and son had been kidnapped by Cui Xing Zhou, and the only way his family would be returned to him was to exchange them with Miang Tang and Dowager Chu. Not only was Prince Sui unable to produce Miang Tang and Dowager Chu since he hadn’t even captured them yet, but he couldn’t even go complaining to the imperial court about what Cui Xing Zhou had done since he wouldn’t want anyone to start asking questions about why Cui Xing Zhou felt the need to kidnap his wife and son.
• Our hero finally found out Miang Tang was Lu Wen from Prince Sui, but by this point, not only were our two leads married but Miang Tang was also pregnant with their first child. At first furious, our hero confronted Miang Tang but quickly lost steam once Miang Tang tearfully (she cried very easily after she got pregnant) asked for a divorce since she assumed there was no way Cui Xing Zhou could stand being married to her anymore. After a few more rounds of bickering, our hero eventually came to the conclusion that he was not about to lose his wife AND child over the small matter of being married to his nemesis.

• One of the fun plot twists in the novel was that our heroine actually lost her memory one more time. After losing consciousness due to hitting her head during a fight with some bad guys, our heroine woke up with ALL of her memories intact except the three years she spent with our hero. Stunned when both Cui Xing Zhou and her trusted subordinates assured her that she had not only married her nemesis but had also had a son with him, our heroine reluctantly went along with what seemed like a ridiculous situation. Without the memory of those three years, our heroine acted a lot more like the mountain robber leader she once was, so our heroine had to resort to using physical force (they liked to argue and fight it out whenever the topic of which one of them was better during their nemesis days), charm, and a lot of coaxing to win her over. It of course didn’t hurt that the sight of her cute baby cooing at her melted our heroine’s heart.
• In a conversation with the emperor, we found out why our heroine had no thoughts of going back to the emperor even after she recovered her memory. Our heroine told the emperor that once she had her memory back, the one scene that replayed in her mind, again and again, was the night she caught Sun Yun Er walking out of Zi Yu’s (the emperor) room. The emperor protested that nothing happened between Sun Yun Er and him. Mian Tang agreed that she too knew that nothing happened that night but she also knew with the emperor’s inability to sleep peacefully through the night (due to his traumatic childhood), the only way Sun Yun Er was able to walk out of his room the way she did, Zi Yu must have allowed it to happen. Mian Tang pointed out that Zi Yu himself was weary of the power she had and also knew that there was no way Mian Tang would agree to him marrying the daughter of Shi Clan, so this was a perfect way to get her to leave on her own while making Sun Yun Er the bad guy. In fact, in the emperor’s plan, since it was all Sun Yun Er’s fault, then Mian Tang would still come back to him once he became the emperor. Mian Tang finished the conversation by telling the emperor that after reclaiming her memory, she had thought about coming to him to demand an answer but then after a while, she realized there was no need. The emperor asked her why there was no need. Mian Tang replied that realization came after she slept night after night in the same bed with Cui Xing Zhou, her supposed nemesis who knew very well that she was very capable of killing him, but still slept like a baby next to her. It was something the emperor could never do.
• Like the drama ending, our two leads left the Imperial Capital after all the big baddies were gone (interestingly, our hero’s half-brother was actually the hidden big baddie in the novel). However, in the novel, the emperor only lived six years after our two leads left due to his ill health. On his deathbed, the emperor summoned Cui Xing Zhou to come back to help his still very young son to rule the empire. Cui Xing Zhou did so and then voluntarily gave back all the power again once the young emperor turned 15.
• Thanks to Marquis Zhennan’s unceasing meds, our heroine did eventually regain ALL of her memory but it took a long time since by this time our two leads’ second child, a daughter, was already 13 years old. Our heroine was once again furious when she regained her lost memory. Turns out, taking advantage of our heroine not having the memory of their three years together, our hero had taken Mian Tang back to their little house and convinced Mian Tang that she was the one who couldn’t resist his good looks and attacked him one fateful night then “forced” herself on him. In the name of helping her remember the past, our hero then insisted that they roleplay how he “lost” his virtue to her. Asserting their roleplay wasn’t quite an accurate enough portrayal of what happened, our hero then convinced our heroine to redo it several times. This “memory-helping roleplay” happened from the kitchen to the study table, to the swing, causing Mian Tang to seriously self-reflect if she really had such a wonton side deep inside her. Quite apologetic, our hero smilingly pulled Mian Tang into his arms and offered to let her vent her anger by redoing the whole thing with reversed roles.

The End!

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