Ending Analysis!! (SPOILER)

I was scanning weibo and found some interpretations of the ending which made sense to me.....

At the last scene, a man (face wasn't shown) held out an umbrella for the FL and that scene looked very similar to the rain scene when FL first travelled back as the ML did the same thing to her. It was filmed in the same way too. So we can infer he is the ML.

The theory is... he wasn't dead in the present timeline! So he got pushed down from the lighthouse by the gangster, then no one knows where he went. Gao Ge told the FL his parents suddenly moved away after that incident and was never heard of again. Notice how the characters always refer to ML disappearance as an 'accident' or 'incident' but never 'death'. So the theory is that the whole family moved to overseas to get medical treatment for the ML. The ML was in a coma all the while! Then when the FL keeps time travelling back to the past, she was actually entering into his conscience to fulfil all his regrets of not confessing to the FL that he loved her ever since they met at the zoo when they were little and all the way till high school!

After the last time travel when she finally prevented his death at the lighthouse by firmly telling him to stay away and hiding her feelings, they met at the airport when he was leaving and he said 'i like you' which transported her back to the present timeline again and that WOKE HIM UP from the coma. So after some time he flew back to China to reunite with her, with all the memories of their time spent together only they will know.

It's a beautiful ending and I will imagine this theory to be true! HAPPY ENDING!

yeah, i always felt like he is still alive and is busy with his job as vet without borders. They will find each other again at the right time and this time it's forever.

I copy and paste @xmag's comment here. Both theories make sense

--

Great drama, I wonder if it takes place in the same world as "First love again"? Because in this drama, an old cell phone was also the mean to travel, either time-travel or travel to an alternate universe. And in one episode, the first traveler (a monk from the 17th century) told him that many people were time-traveling, by different means (watches, phones, clocks...), so I wondered about that.

Also, I don't know, I doubt the traveling to an alternate universe (I mean, a parallel universe). Because it looks like the ML is alive in the end, with the umbrella scene. Also, in episode 19, the FL realizes that all her "travels" took her to a moment in time in the life of the ML, about what he wanted to do with her. It can't be a coincidence.

So I think that the travels took the FL into the ML's brain, while he was in a coma after his fall. This alternate universe is not a parallel one, one which would exist next to ours, but an alternate one he has created while in a coma, to relive moments with the FL.

Somehow, the FL was able to get into his mind, maybe after her wedding was cancelled and especially after she gave up for good on her cheating fiance. Her mind was free from her obsession with him and with the phone making the link, she could travel to the lives the ML was creating for them.

Maybe I'm wrong but I think it will be my headcanon, rather than the alternate universe or a parallel universe a la Fringe (the american tv series, great one, by the way, I recommand it).

i like your theory... i always thought too Wanseng didnt died, his parents closed his true condition

but its still bitter how those 5 friends in the main timeline is like a stranger didnt so close to each others like in parelel world.. 

He didn't die, watch the last episode. It was the ML because of the same coat as FL. ML disappeared after falling from lighthouse, no one knew where he went. The police could've closed the case when ML parent's suddenly moved away. His friend is mourning cuz of WS's disappearance... not exactly his death. The police could have hid the truth from ML's friends. 

The drama is very, very careful about leaving a lot of air for interpretation on whether or not Zhang Wan Sen died or not. You can do mental gymnastics in any direction and come up with a fairly reasonable theory for both.

That said, Zhang Wan Sen got into trouble with the whole gang. It wasn't just Lei Ge he pissed off, his underlings were loyal to him. So loyal that they're still dogging Mai Zi like 10 years after the fact. Lei Ge might be dead but the gang certainly isn't. Mai Zi knew that the case was closed, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the police wouldn't be keen on revealing their findings to someone who was very much involved with the perpetrating gang.  Given that the gang continues to rove about, some sort of witness protection wouldn't be unreasonable either. Or perhaps they just sealed the case (ie you'd need a court order to get the details) and called it a day.

 Zhang Wan Sen could've died, sure very reasonable take. But there's plenty of room to comfortably extrapolate that he's alive too. I don't think it's desperate to believe so. The beauty of an open ending ;)

@Yogesh Jain 

The drama is never clear on what happened to Zhang Wan Sen after he falls from the lighthouse. Their theories hinge on the fall not being fatal, your theory hinges on the fall indeed being fatal. We never get /conclusive/ evidence either way, so both theories have merit. He could've died, he could've gotten seriously injured but recuperated and went off to Africa as planned, he could've fallen into a coma, who knows. We don't know, we can only make theories and assumptions based on the information they gave us. The ending is open because it is ambiguous what happened. The fact that we're in here discussing possible endings reinforces that. Your theory is just as much an assumption as theirs.

The coma-theory isn't my personal theory, but I see where it's coming from.  No character says whether he died or whether he lived. Because none of them seem to know. If he really died, wouldn't people know? Especially Gao Ge. His parents moving out overnight (as per Gao Ge) doesn't really match up  with having a sudden death in the family. So maybe they had to go somewhere else to get him the best treatment. A fall from the lighthouse, whether he landed on the concrete or in the water, would result in serious injury. And what's the drama-land go-to for a character with a serious injury? That's right my friend, a coma.  

Her traveling into his consciousness doesn't necessarily break the rules. Lin Bei Xing assumes she's hopping to parallel worlds because of that documentary she watched. I don't think it's ever explicitly explained otherwise, so once again the vagueness invites conjecture. The moments she travels to are specifically linked to certain instances he regrets, which are certainly part of his consciousness. If she's diving into his memories, that covers why nothing gets changed in reality. Memories don't change either, so that could cover why none of her actions affected any of the other moments she traveled to. Is it a flawed theory? Perhaps. But the drama isn't exactly perfect and rigorous with logic anyhow.

If you just don't like that theory regardless or think that it's too much of a stretch, that's certainly fair and understandable. But the ending we got is still an open one, because the question of "What ultimately happened to Zhang Wan Sen?" is never fully resolved. The question of "What is up with that mystery man behind XingXing?" is also left unanswered.  We can only assume and clearly a variety of assumptions can be made.  

Sorry for the length, I'm very longwinded lol

(can't believe i wrote a whole essay about this, what has this drama done to me ahaha)

They never said he died.. no dead body means no one died.. . And no, I am not desperate lmao... sounds like someone is more desperate than me to say ML is dead