The Early Spring Review: Nian’s Jealousy Makes the Romance Harder to Enjoy

Shang Zhitao’s new boss, Luan Nian, tells her that he works for money and that she should quit. Unfortunately for him, she is interviewing him for the company, not asking for career advice. She puts his answers in her report, just as the human-resources manager requested. Following the interview instructions gets Nian reprimanded. Sun Qian is fun to watch here: Zhitao remains polite, but she does not rewrite his rude answers to protect him.

The Early Spring follows this new graduate through an advertising career in Beijing and a secret relationship with that boss, Luan Nian. She uses the English name Flora at work; he uses Luke. Jing Boran plays Nian as a man who can help her with a difficult client, then make her personal life difficult when he gets jealous. The attraction is believable. The way he treats her is often harder to accept.

This review covers all 24 episodes, including the later workplace dispute and breakup. The Chinese series is complete on Netflix in the US, where it is rated TV-14. Its Mandarin-language episodes add up to about 19 hours. This is not a short, easy romance: it includes workplace harassment, illness and grief as well as intimate scenes.

Zhitao, or Flora, is the new graduate trying to build a career at Lime. Nian, or Luke, starts as the agency’s creative director and later becomes its general manager. He is both her boss and her secret boyfriend.

Lumi is Zhitao’s more experienced colleague and friend. Sun Yu is her flatmate and runs the dating business that later causes an argument with Nian. Sun Yuanzhu is another flatmate; he helps Zhitao study English and gives her a friendship outside work.

How Zhitao earns her place at Lime

Zhitao works at Lime, an agency that makes advertising campaigns for other businesses. A campaign needs an idea, a client who approves it, and people who can make the photographs or video. As a beginner, she has to contact those people and keep a project moving. A useful idea means little if she cannot get the right person to take her call.

When a production company refuses to meet her, Zhitao finds another way to reach the director she needs. She signs up to appear in the background of his shoot. Nian gives her advice about the advertising proposal, and Lumi helps her get that proposal to the director. Her attempt finally gets his attention. We like that the series shows what she actually does to get a meeting. Nian contributes, but he does not simply give her a finished project and call it her success.

Another client keeps requesting changes. Nian tells Zhitao to move those requests into an email group with everyone involved and ask for specific solutions. This gives the team a record of what the client wants instead of leaving Zhitao to manage changing instructions alone. The office advice is useful because we have already seen the problem. These scenes also explain why she can admire Nian at work even when his manner is unpleasant.

Lumi, a more experienced colleague played by Zhang Yezi, notices when other workers give Zhitao small errands that should not all be her responsibility. She warns her about it. That is a different kind of help from Nian’s attention: Lumi wants her to recognise how the office works and protect her own time. Zhitao has people to learn from besides the man she dates. Her friendships make the story more interesting whenever a project or argument takes her away from him.

Nian can affect her job as well as her relationship

After Zhitao and Nian spend a night together, she asks to move to another department. She does not want her career to depend on being close to her boss. Nian gives her a positive reference, and the transfer goes ahead. But he then questions whether she is using him to get promoted, even though she has asked to leave his team. She has asked for distance; he treats that request as a reason to doubt her. His later promotion puts both departments under him, so changing teams does not remove his authority over her.

When they agree to continue seeing each other privately, Zhitao sets clear conditions. They must not date other people, and either must say so if they want to end the arrangement. She is not agreeing to wait while he does whatever he likes. A birthday phone call shows why she still wants him: she talks about keeping her friends nearby, improving at work and having him in her life. Her wishes include Nian, but they are not only about Nian. Sun Qian and Jing Boran make this quieter affection enjoyable; their relationship is not just a series of angry office conversations.

The trouble is what happens when he feels threatened. Zhitao helps at a matchmaking event run by her flatmate Sun Yu. The business has created a dating profile using Zhitao’s name, but its staff operate the account. Nian sees messages to other men and assumes she is looking for another boyfriend. Zhitao tells him she is not writing those messages. He refuses to accept the explanation and threatens to withdraw a business referral that could bring Sun Yu an investor.

This is not an argument caused only by Zhitao failing to speak. She does speak. Nian answers by putting her friend’s business at risk. Deleting the profile does not settle it, either. His jealousy becomes a threat to someone else’s work. Jing Boran makes Nian’s anger convincing, but the scene makes us want Zhitao to get away from him, not reassure him with another kiss. Repeating this sort of dispute makes the middle episodes tiring: we keep seeing him use connections she cannot match.

The award scene explains why Zhitao leaves

By the time Zhitao is considered for Lime’s Specialist Award, she has worked at the agency for six years. The company chooses Song Ying, a younger colleague whose father can bring it a valuable advertising account. Nian announces the result. Zhitao has put years into her work and expects the award to recognise that work, so she wants to know why she lost and why he did not warn her.

There is more to his silence than favouring the other candidate. Lime forbids relationships between employees, and a former colleague has threatened to expose the couple. Nian has tried to protect Zhitao’s job. He negotiates an agreement for her to receive the award the following year and for him to transfer to the US, but keeps it from her. He is trying to help while denying her the information she needs. We understand his fear of getting her fired. We also understand why a decision about her career, made without her, does not feel like support to her.

Their breakup follows this dispute; it is not just one more short separation after a jealous argument. Zhitao has to decide whether she can keep accepting his private decisions about her future. The workplace rules make this disagreement serious. Unfortunately, the repeated suspicions before it have already used up a lot of time that could have gone to seeing them handle a problem together.

The final episode gives Zhitao her own advertising business in Harbin. A cancelled contract and unpaid bills put it in trouble. Nian quietly directs clients her way, then offers to work for her and takes a job as her driver. Having him join a company she runs is a meaningful change from their old arrangement. But the client help still begins without her knowledge. He is still deciding what she needs before asking her. His apology and their reconciliation give the couple a happier ending, yet leave little time to see whether that habit will really change.

Our Pixel Twelve Score is 7/10 — Good. Zhitao’s efforts to find work, deal with clients and rely on her friends make the 24 episodes worth watching. The two leads also make it easy to believe that she and Nian want to be together. We have not given the series a higher score because his threat to Sun Yu’s business and his concealed award agreement repeatedly make their relationship worse. A misunderstanding is less convincing as drama when Zhitao has already explained what happened and Nian ignores her answer.

Watch The Early Spring if you want an advertising workplace story alongside a romance with an often difficult boyfriend. It gives Zhitao a life beyond him, and it takes her reasons for leaving seriously. If you want a considerate partner, a light romance or a quick weekend watch, Nian’s repeated accusations and the roughly 19-hour length are good reasons to choose another series.

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Find the cast, age rating and streaming details on our The Early Spring series page, check the 24-episode guide, or browse more Pixel Twelve reviews.