Love in the Clouds

Love in the Clouds: Kisses Cut, Fans Revolt, Co-Star Scandal & a Possibly-Real Power Couple

When Love in the Clouds floated onto screens in 2025, nobody expected the real drama to be happening off the flying swords and CGI clouds. From allegedly confirmed co-star romance to deleted kiss scenes, fan-club meltdowns, latestnetflix.com contends, and a supporting actress scandal that reportedly cost Hou Minghao a whole other drama — this xianxia hit is sitting on a treasure hoard of gossip.

Grab your spiritual weapon of choice. We’re going in.

Romance Rumors: Is the “Mingzai” Couple Actually Dating?

• A viral Facebook post in March 2026 screamed what shippers had been manifesting since Episode 1:

“‘LOVE IN THE CLOUDS’ LEADS LU YUXIAO AND HOU MINGHAO ARE CONFIRMED THAT THEY’RE IN A RELATIONSHIP!” The post insists both of their agencies confirmed it, crowning them the “Mingzai couple” and declaring “MINGZAI COUPLE IS REAL!!” .

• This is social-media level “confirmation,” not an official press conference — but the post explicitly cites agency confirmation and links to Weibo as its source, so fans treated it like a royal decree.
• Instagram gossip hubs echoed the claim, saying Lu Yuxiao and Hou Minghao had “confirmed their relationship” following months of speculation during Love in the Clouds’ promo cycle .
• On TikTok and Reddit, fans obsess over their off-screen chemistry: behind-the-scenes clips show them joking, leaning into each other, and looking far too comfortable for “just colleagues,” which only fuels the “dating for real” discourse .

Status check:

• Confirmed by social-media gossip accounts? Yes.
• Formally confirmed by agencies in a standard press release? Not clearly visible — so this sits in that delicious “everyone believes it, no one can 100% prove it” category.
• Either way, the fandom behaves like they’re basically married.

On-Set Drama & Deleted Kisses: Youku vs. the Fans

If Love in the Clouds felt hot, just know: you didn’t even get the full heat.

• A Chinese entertainment TikTok account claimed “some Reuters say there are five kissing scenes in this drama that Youku deleted” .
• “Reuters” here is slang for “on-set leak/insider,” not the news agency — but the implication is clear: more kisses were filmed than aired.
• A Facebook group post about Episode 19 lays out deleted scenes in painful detail, including a cut basketball-court kiss and other intimate Ji Bozai/Ming Yi moments that never made broadcast . Fans described realizing, only through script summaries and leaked clips, that they had been “robbed.”
• TikTok compilations of “Deleted Kiss Scenes in Love in The Clouds” show snatches of unaired pavilion and court moments that match early set leaks, reinforcing the belief that at least some romance content was axed post-production .

Meanwhile, the kiss that did survive the censors became its own scandal:

• A Taiwanese lifestyle outlet reports that the infamous “bath choke-kiss” hot spring scene between Hou Minghao and Lu Yuxiao racked up 4.36 million clicks, calling it “desire-inducing” and “scorching in scale” .
• Shot in a steamy onsen setting with mist, veils, and underwater footage, it shows Lu Yuxiao’s character literally gripping a poison dagger underwater while kissing him — part passion, part murder attempt. Romance!
• The piece notes that the intensity of the scene, plus the missing “pavilion kiss” (凉亭吻) that fans had seen in leaks, sparked outrage that this kiss made the cut while others were buried .

Fans also complain that four full episodes were chopped from the original plan, leading to chopped-up emotional beats. In Reddit threads, viewers mention that “4 episodes were cut off from the final release,” leaving some crucial transitions feeling like they’d been edited with a spiritual sword instead of scissors .

Translation:

The production filmed a lot of heat. Youku served you a slightly-censored sampler, and the fandom has never forgiven them.

Scandals & Fallout: He Nan’s Fan-Meeting Mess and Hou Minghao’s Exit

The juiciest scandal adjacent to Love in the Clouds doesn’t hit the two main leads directly — it slams supporting actress He Nan (鹤男), who plays the bubbly Tianji Princess, and then ricochets straight into Hou Minghao’s career.

He Nan’s “Private Fan” Controversy

Hong Kong outlet HK01 and mainland entertainment reports paint a seriously messy picture :

• In early 2026, He Nan dropped a vlog showing her on a Disney trip with a prominent fan (“big fan”/大粉).
• Her studio claimed it was just a “coincidental encounter”.
• Fans… were not buying it.
• Netizens dissected the timing and details:
• The fan allegedly left Shanghai at 6 a.m. specifically to meet her.
• They appeared to have matching outfits and phone cases.
• They were filmed hanging out repeatedly, in what many viewers said looked suspiciously like a couple’s trip, not a random meet-and-greet .
• Things escalated when more accusations dropped:
• At set visits, He Nan was said to lavish attention on “old fans” — chatting, privately accepting gifts, even setting off fireworks with them — while ignoring newer fans who had waited just as long .
• Fans accused her of running a “small inner circle” and playing favorites inside the fandom.

The Fanclub Implosion

The fallout was brutal:

• By late 2025, He Nan’s original fanclub announced its dissolution.
• A new team — reportedly run by close associates — took over, but allegedly added high barriers to entry: proof of large-scale support, strict vetting, and a very “gatekept” vibe .
• Result: around 600 veteran “iron fans” publicly quit, triggering headlines about her “persona collapse” and “mass fan exodus” .

How Hou Minghao Gets Pulled Into This

And then the scandal jumps dramas:

• He Nan was attached as female lead of a new S+ drama called 《攻玉》 (Gong Yu).
• Multiple entertainment reports and HK01 say that Hou Minghao had been lined up as the male lead — until the He Nan scandal blew up .
• Rumor has it:
• Hou Minghao quit the project (“辞演”) to distance himself from the controversy.
• Actor Zeng Shunxi was then approached as a possible replacement .
• The Gong Yu production responded with a carefully-worded statement asking viewers to “stay rational” and only trust information from the official account, which is PR-code for “there is drama but we’re not spelling it out for you” .

Netizen takeaway:

He Nan’s “private fan date” didn’t just blow up her image — it reportedly cost her a top-tier co-star and turned into one of the biggest C-drama messes of 2026, with Love in the Clouds constantly mentioned as the show that made her famous before the fall.

Cast Feuds, Criticism & Soft Power Plays

While no outright screaming match has leaked from set, there’s still plenty of behind-the-scenes chatter.

Voice & Dubbing Drama:

• Reviewers and drama bloggers repeatedly single out Lu Yuxiao’s original voice as a weak link. Chasing Dramas notes that while her performance is strong, her enunciation and dubbing are sometimes “distracting”, and her speech becomes less clear in highly emotional scenes .
• A Threads/IG post similarly praises her chemistry with Hou Minghao but bluntly says that her original voice “has drawn criticism” .

Billing & Star Power:

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• Chinese-language gossip clips talk about “billing wars” in the C-drama world, with Love in the Clouds frequently used as an example in discussions of who gets first name on posters and how that reflects power dynamics .

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• Fans noticed that many viewers “only started watching Love in the Clouds because of [Lu Yuxiao]” according to one promotional IG reel, fueling debates over who’s really the bigger name in the pairing .

Second-Lead Upset:

• On Reddit, some fans openly say they prefer Yu Chengen (Situ Ling) over Hou Minghao, calling the side characters “too handsome for just supporting roles” and wishing Yu had been the male lead . It’s not a scandal, but it is a small bruise to the main lead ego.

No confirmed feuds, but the usual mix of billing gossip, performance critiques, and fan-favorite side characters hint that the cloud palace wasn’t entirely zen.

Leaks, Paparazzi & BTS Chaos

For a show set in a mystical realm, Love in the Clouds sure has a lot of receipts in the mortal internet.

Pap-Style Couple Content:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Hs67zQ--A

• A YouTube “drama tea” video titled along the lines of “Paparazzi Catch Hou MingHao and Lu Yuexiao Together” fueled rumors that they were spotted out in public off-set, with the video hyping their “caught together” moment as a smoking gun for real romance .

Princess-Carry Shenanigans:

• Chinese entertainment write-ups recall a filming-day “princess carry” where Hou Minghao lifted Lu Yuxiao and bounced her once — she burst into laughter and mock-hit him, while the crew laughed and cameras kept rolling . The anecdote was widely shared as proof their rapport is way more flirty than professional.

BTS Livestreams:

• Bilibili streams and promotional lives featuring Hou Minghao, Lu Yuxiao, Yu Chengen and He Nan show them joking, roasting each other, and slipping into in-character banter mid-interview . Clips from game segments — especially when Hou Minghao and Lu Yuxiao get put on the same team — are constantly reposted with captions like “THIS is not just acting.”

Mini-myth: Fans swear that Hou Minghao’s “it’s really hard to leave here” wrap message after four months of shooting sounds less like he’s leaving a set, and more like he’s leaving a person. Shippers, of course, know exactly who they think he meant .

Wild Fan Theories & Fandom Obsession

No good xianxia is complete without fans trying to out-scheme the screenwriters.

Ji Bozai’s Crown Prince Identity:

• Before the show confirmed it, fans on Reddit and in Facebook groups spun a now-famous theory: Ji Bozai is the real Crown Prince of Yaoguang Palace, swapped at birth because he was born without a spiritual vein, with Ming Yi raised in his place .
• One Facebook post even spelled out the whole backstory — long before the reveal aired — predicting that Bozai’s secret lineage would explode everything around him .

Situ Ling Villain Arc:

• Reviewers note how “pure-hearted second male leads turning evil” is a tired trope, and Love in the Clouds didn’t resist it . Viewers on blogs and forums predicted Situ Ling would go dark for love, and when he did, they half-cheered, half-groaned that they’d called it from Day 1.

In other words: the fandom wasn’t just thirst-watching. They were working overtime as unpaid story editors — and they were right more often than not.

Behind-the-Scenes Power: Is Hou Minghao a Secret Co-Director?

Beyond just looking good in ancient robes, Hou Minghao may have had more creative sway than viewers realized.

• A MyDramaList discussion thread titled “Director Hou Minghao in the making” claims that many of the most intriguing scenes were actually designed and partially directed by Hou himself — fans credit him with bringing sharper emotional beats and more layered romantic tension to certain encounters .
• Between that and his growing “labor model” reputation — hopping from Love in the Clouds to other high-profile projects almost back-to-back — insiders and fans alike are whispering that he’s edging from mere actor to genuine creative force.

The Cloudy Bottom Line

Love in the Clouds isn’t just a xianxia about fake relationships, hidden identities and power struggles — it’s also the launchpad for:

• A possibly-real co-star romance loudly “confirmed” by fan pages and gossip accounts .
• Multiple cut kisses and at least one legendary hot spring kiss that set viewing records and nearly melted the timeline .
• A supporting-actress scandal so messy it allegedly made Hou Minghao walk away from a whole other S+ drama .
• Ongoing chatter about voice work, billing power, and side characters stealing the show .
• A fandom so obsessive they correctly predicted key plot twists before the drama itself said a word .

In short: the real Love in the Clouds was the chaos we gossiped about along the way.