I read the book a few months ago. I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed the drama, too, but the reason I felt that I could not rate it above an 8.5 is because I was left scratching my head as to why they changed some of what they did to the story.

First off, let's talk about Er Lang. In the book, he was pretty badass. Like, could turn into a dragon badass. Was manly and herouc. I adore Chris Wu, but why in the world did they opt to make the character into such a low level weakling? I was greatly disappointed in that. Even if the special effects of making him turn into dragon would have been too expensive, couldn't they have made him still be a strong, competant male lead? What is up with the wuss factor?

Second, I have no clue why they opted to have all the supernatural elements be known to the mortal characters. Like, Li Lan and Er Lang just tell everyone and are totally believed, not questioned and no one thinks they are crazy at all. I also can't understand why they made Li Lan's father a victim when that never happened in the book. I can get why they cut out him being an opium addict, but why make him go to the netherworld? In the book, it just her.

Next up, the main villian from the book is turned into a woman and turned into a very minor character. The main villian is turned into Tian Ching. In the book, he is an idiot and a pawn, though I must admit that he is written much more interesting here. I also hope to see more of the actor.

Then there is Isobel. In the book, she is not even a character, really. She is just someone Tian Bai had feelings for in Hong Kong. Here, they made her a jealous second female lead and a villian. In the book, she is hardly mentioned it all.

The last thing I am disappointed in is the absence of an imortant character, a villian female ghost and a huge part of the plotline at the end. It really made the story much more interesting and without her in the drama at all, it felt like a huge chunk was missing in the plot.

Despite my complaints, however, I did enjoy the drama overall. If you haven't read the book, none of these is likely to concern you or affect your opinion of the drama. The acting was top notch, the story solid (though made very formulatic and predicible, imo) and the visuals are awesome. Very creepy, with the music was hauting and chilling. I do reccommend it highly, despite my qualms with it. Perhaps if they had a bigger budget and could have added more episodes, the story could have remained more faithful to the original work.