Fan Made Plot

I think it will take time before the stars align to get them back together, but since Actor Han remembers Xiao Qian from the dream, they might end up "discovering" that the characters from the dream are part of their "real" lives. (Make the dating time they were "together" the same time it took for the show to be made. You are shocked to find out they never got married in X time.) And argue in a big way one day and get sucked back say 100-200 years after they left, where they are legends into Xiao Qian's "sequel" script. But they have to work to get back together, which takes some episodes. Also, the meta lines can be about how sequel scripts are often bad, make jabs at other sequels that failed, and make a joke about how long it's taking for them to actually notice each other.

Chu Chu, can be Actor Han's rumored girlfriend, who sparked off the fight, and since actors love challenges, it would be entertaining for her to be a Brothel madam, etc. See if she could pull it off. Likewise, "reincarnate" some of the actors from the originals into totally new roles that are starkly different from the originals. Actors love that sort of challenge.

Lusi is interested in expanding her acting repertoire, so I'd also give her a nice big challenge, where she has to act demure to get ahead, but inside, she's still Xiao Qian, so is cursing her own etiquette rules she inserted, which she slowly are finding inconsistent.

As for the Kingdom, everything has gone sideways. Her plan of uniting the kingdoms has failed, and though Qian Qian's rule was successful, the heirs were not. (cue cursing Han Shuo for having dud children and visa versa. Also examining wwhat their children would look like, etc.)

In this way, they have to re-find their love, work to unite, and get over the sequel blues. Maybe make jokes about the show getting canceled too early.

Once they reunite (Second act) The third act brings back the same stress they had in the real world, with his absence all the time, but they work this time to overcome it, since they no longer have phones, etc, they remember old methods of communication and staying close. (Love Journals, for example).

Last act is fixing everything, and then in the real world Actor Han proposes to Xiao Qian, but vows to find a cure for them constantly falling into her scripts. End of show. Gives enough of an opening for a third sequel if they want it with them as parents... or about to be parents.

 HarryHoudini:

I heard that the Leads may change, which is sadly not unlikely since Lusi and Yu Xi both got more prominent and have other contracts and/or higher demands and/or other personal reasons not to participate in a sequel. I consider Yu Xi and Lusi as the core ingredients of TaR (Tiger and Rose) so this would basically spell doom for the sequel.

Truthfully, I think the fans of the show wouldn't let them have other leads besides these two. There are campaigns, etc to make sure on the Chinese side of things that it would be these two that return because half of the fun was the chemistry.

We'd also need the same writer to return.

But I think it would be wise to find a way to mix the contemporary plot with the city owners plot to keep the audience entertained and find a way to make good jokes about it.

Given the time span between the two, it would be fairly easy to argue things like Xiao Qian and the Actor Han have been in a relationship for years that's "stagnated", but he's not been able to "propose to her" in addition to the other suggestions I made to tie the past into the present.

Honestly, I think the writer could pull it off, the question is always about Lusi and Yuxi. I'd love to see them meet again and act together again given they've both learned so much since the last time and their acting chemistry is great. (This isn't CPing, this it more like, sometimes you like to see work spouses on screen, even if you don't want to care about their romantic lives.)

 HarryHoudini:

When I watch the BTS scenes and the way they "play around" before and after the scene is already shot, I believe that Yu Xi has a huge contribution in her Performance. I think his playful attitude enables Lusi to show her Talents to the full. Ding Yu Xi has a very positive impact on her.

I totally agree with this. Before him, Lusi, not to rag on her, since I still adored her before this show, was more of a "By the script" actress. She never improved. She never deviated, she did everything by whatever the script said and didn't do more than that.

But after the show, she got a lot braver, started to contribute more, got curious about other aspects of film making, tried things out, and while she screwed around a bit and played off camera, she was always serious about it when it was rolling, and thinking hard about who the character was or wasn't and really invested into doing things like reading the original works.

Yu Xi, who has a talent for improvising on the spot, thinking like his character off screen, etc, also was able to tap into more serious roles after. I'd like to think he picked up some skills from Lusi too. Like her ability to understand character on this intuitive level.

But I'd like a rematch of them sheerly because they've both grown so much as actors, I want to see if their interaction would lead to something you know, even greater than last time. It's not saying something like the magic of Bailu and Yunxi reattacking the on-screen pairing would automatically happen, but I just have a love of seeing actors come apart, and then being able to challenge each other with new skills on that sheer artistic level. And they've been apart long enough and changed so much as artists, I think I would be glued to the screen even if the other actors were mediocre as long as the script/project is good--which it seems both of them are fairly picky about, I would definitely want to see it.

How would they challenge each other as artists?