Realistic Expectations of watching HL by @ Scblue80

Of course, this sweet, delicious, and heart-moving romance is not a slice-of-life!  

Jiaxu is too perfect, squeaky clean non smoker, teetotaller, work committed, high achiever, devoted to his one and only when at last he gives in to love... The kissing and tender movements are so sweet, and skilfully executed, that they can make audience squeal in delight! Some are even  convinced that CZY and ZLS are a real couple! You'll find plenty of snippets of on-scene and BTS where the rehearsal looks and sounds "too real" although never problematic. The environment is always beautiful even when it rains, the outfits are carefully laundered, the luxury EV car is much too expensive even for a high earner with little other spending. He may be a high earner in his field of work, so renting a large modern two bedroom apartment like the one shown is not impossible (I really know, there really are such dwellings and even more luxurious ones).  But nowadays, with the job crisis hitting the young, it is very difficult to secure a dream job easily and jobs are less stable than they were ; the workload can be crushing. Still, study hard and attain good grades remains a necessity to be enrolled in a good university and prepare for a professional future.  

Hidden Love is a feel-good ideal story, with emphasis on positive messages such as :

- respect for children and women (the way the brother and friend handle the embarrassment of Sang Zhi's first monthlies is a nice touch), 

- emphasizing safety (protecting from and correcting reckless behavior, discouraging bullying), 

- promoting politeness (good advise on how to handle an unwanted suitor), 

- family values (respecting Sang Zhi's elders, getting their approval for marriage, staying friends with her brother : the lovely siblings relation portrayed  also roused some question related to the defunct one-child policy.  I have addressed these quibbles in the Discussion linked below, pointing to several loopholes that could allow families to have two children even when the family planning policy was in force ; today there is no limit, and the Chinese government is happy with dramas that show two, or three siblings, since the purpose of the family planning to contain run-away population growth has been reached, and now, growth actually needs encouragement!), 

- friendship  values (both male and female characters are part of tight-knit friends-for-life groups, seed of important "guanxi" networks; and Sang Zhi learned early on to make the difference between real and false friends, in the bullying episode), 

- good citizenship (respecting the legal 20 year-old age lower limit for marriage, for a woman; 22 for a man, and going beyond that: waiting until she graduated at 22, so she would have a chance of becoming independent in the job she'd choose ; not engaging in violent fights but using the text of the law to deter a stalker),

- study and work ethics (allowing no possibly harmful distraction from school studies ; promoting respect, cooperation, appreciation, and good relations top down and horizontal between colleagues in view of achieving best results ; dealing patiently with demanding superiors).

In this ideal world, even a license plate can be a love message (that was indeed possible in real life for a while, but not any longer, according to licensing regulations which are strict in China).  

So here, even from episode 12, timestamp  29:21, you can see that license plate message  (I added a screenshot illustration found on the Net, in my Discussion item about the car on https://mydramalist.com/discussions/hidden-love/109103-shooting-locations-and-dates-misc-other-links)  Actually, that picture was a small goof, since Duan Jiaxu was not supposed to be in love yet with Sang Zhi in episode12!  But you can also see the love message clearly in Episode 14, timestamp 26:15, where it is perhaps more credible since by now, Jiaxu had secured knowledge that Sang Zhi was interested in him and he, at last, found that he could envision himself as her future boyfriend (and more, if she agreed for the long run). Of course the license plate is not a real one, but a drama one, authorized only by special provision for shooting purposes, because a ruling about movie and dramas has pushed to have drama license plates of fictional cities not be linked to real cities. So 宜A means "Yihe provincial capital".  I have added some info about license plates in China in the Discussion linked above, for those who might be interested in the arcane of license plates and their hidden and love messages, in general and in this particular case. 

The fictional cities still may be modeled on real ones. I addressed that too in the Discussion above: it is interesting to see how the shooting locations have become touristic spotlights and how the fashion items, despite not to the taste of all, have also become trendy. But the product placement has overall been clever and not obtrusive, not too much in-your face as in some other series that are real ad festivals.

  About the voice issue, I found it unfair :  Zhao Lusi portrays a character at different ages, and at 15-17, she is definitely still a very protected child in the story, for whom the actress has, on purpose, a childish voice, different from when she reaches 19 and "grown-up" status as young adult (although still somewhat naive and unsophisticated). She uses and dubs her own voice, which is not grating, anyway. Dubbing is always a necessity in dramas, to do away with unwanted noise, superimpose the bgm instead, possibly correct mistakes in the dialogue for tone, etc. so it has a function, although it can be irritating to listen to a professional dubber who dubs with same voice several dramas, depriving us of the actor or actress' real timbre.   Anyway, even with this different voice acting, Zhao Lusi's voice is not as irritating as other non-child portraying actresses in well-known other dramas (I'm thinking of one in particular, but she is competent, and she and ZLS are on friendly terms, so I would not target her ;  besides, many got used to that other actress' eternal high pitched childish tone and still love her).  But of course, it is a matter of taste. Zhao Lusi also sings sweetly one of the OST songs btw, and if you listened carefully, you could hear her singing also in background music recording from Oh! My Emperor! one of her first c-dramas (where she was playing the Ophiuchus zodiac FL). 

How wonderful it would be if road and construction and rude people noises could be exchanged for all those sweet songs and background music such as that music on the car audio system, which has the protagonists laugh during the "strawberry feeding" puzzle piece !  Reality is a downer, but we can sing and listen to the songs while going about our ordinary, and more complicated, life.  Dramas like this one are made to cheer us up and give some hope that ideals might to some extent be realized.  That's why it is precious.