Cheng Lei is currently in Xi'an, China, continuing his filming schedule after wrapping up work in Dunhuang.
In the video, Captian Cheng seems to be enjoying a day off, spending time with his girl. He looks handsome in denim 😍😍. It really suits his laid-back vibe!
Remember the desert photography series Cheng Lei recently shared with the caption “Sharing a shepherd boy”? Today his assistant posted a BTS video showing how he actually captured those photos, and I love getting to see the process behind the final shots.
The video follows him as he searches for the composition he wants; positioning himself, kneeling down, squatting, shifting around and repeatedly adjusting his angle until he finds the perspective that works.
I think that's why I like this BTS footage. When we only see the finished image, particularly something as seemingly spontaneous as a shepherd boy and a flock of sheep crossing the desert, it's easy to think he simply happened to be standing in the right place at the right time and pressed the shutter. There was actually a lot of thought and effort involved in capturing those shots.
Cheng Lei, Leizi, Leilei...these are the names I most often see and hear from other people when they're referring to or speaking with him.
My thoughts--and some questions--about the nicknames he mentions in the clips above.
Yang Huixiang. I presume he's referring to this when he says "formal name." The recent Chinese government rule requiring productions to use actors' real names is wild to me. I guess CL is getting more accustomed to having his real name used in his professional life. It's one thing if friends use it; having others say it seems to disconcert him.
Dongdong. This is cute! I've seen his assistant and studio refer to him this way on Weibo.
Lei zi/Leizi. Used by friends and fans. I haven't seen anyone call Wu Lei this, but technically he can also carry this nickname, right? Same question about Lei ge.
Lei zi ge. Song Yuqi addressed him this way in a 2025 episode of Keep Running (around the 1:39:00 mark). I like this! It's cute and respectful.
Leilei. CL's laughter when he says this always makes me smile. I wonder if he thinks it's a silly nickname.
General manager, boss. Haven't heard him called these, but I can see it happening.
Sagittarius 181 fighter. What the --?😵💫
Xiao Cheng. It isn't in the clips and I can't find it anymore, but I saw or read about someone calling him this--or was it Xiao Cheng Lei? In any case, I've seen Cheng Lei using xiao to refer to others, e.g., he has called Bai Lu's Mo Li character Xiao Ye Li.
One last thought, this one about titles. Cheng Lei seems to be uncomfortable with the thought of being called a photography master. I hope that our appreciation of his photos and talent doesn't put any undue pressure on him. It would really suck if it ever comes to a point that photography becomes more of a chore rather than something he loves to do.
During the recording of Hi6, Xueqin was already saying she was looking forward to having a one-on-one deep conversation with Cheng Lei on "Our Dormitories" lol. Poor Cheng Lei looked completely lost at first and only belatedly realised that the girls had been talking and giggling about him the whole time. His confused expression before it finally clicked was hilarious. Source
Anyway, Xueqin finally got her wish! On "Our Dormitories", the conversation between Cheng Lei and Li Xueqin revealed how curious and open Cheng Lei is towards life. He refuses to chase a supposedly perfect life and accept that mistakes, uncertainty, and difficult experiences are all part of what makes life meaningful.
His interest in a number of hobbies makes much more sense after hearing him explain. It doesn’t seem like he takes them up just to become good at everything; it's to discover new ways of looking at the world. I think that is also why he loves spontaneous trips, photography, astronomy, motorcycles, and learning unfamiliar things etc.
I also found his attitude towards challenges interesting. When life becomes too comfortable, he deliberately finds something difficult to learn so that he can humble and challenge himself again. Speaking for myself, I would enjoy the peaceful period instead lol, but I admire how he constantly pushes himself beyond what is familiar.
The contrast between him and Xueqin made the conversation especially engaging. She seems more inclined to start over, whereas he would rather accept the life he has already lived and continue moving forward. I think that line sums up his philosophy beautifully. Life does not need to be perfect to remain worth exploring.
In one of the segments in the variety show "Our Dormitories S2" which aired yesterday, everyone was asked to choose between two difficult scenarios:
>Black card: Everyone genuinely cares about you, but you spend your whole life doubting their sincerity.
>Red card: Everyone is only pretending to care about you, but you never discover the truth.
Everyone else except Cheng Lei and Wu Zelin chose the black card option, and what followed became a thoughtful discussion and even debate at some point. Cheng Lei questioned the assumptions behind the dilemma. He argued that if people could successfully maintain the illusion of kindness for their entire life without them ever finding out, then all the warmth, care, and support they experienced would still have been real. From their perspective, their lives would still have been filled with love, meaningful relationships, and genuine experiences.
He also made an interesting point: if someone devoted an entire lifetime to treating you well without ever revealing their true intentions, they would have invested an extraordinary amount of effort into making your life a happy one. In the end, the experiences you lived through and the kindness you felt would still shape who you became.
Even when another guest challenged his view, he stayed composed, acknowledged the opposing perspective, and continued building his argument step by step instead of getting flustered. He's just so darn eloquent!
Which option would you choose, and why?
I would love to hear everyone's thoughts
Cheng Lei attended Our Dormitories to promote The First Jasmine, alongside his co-star Cai Zheng Jie, who plays Mo Jing Li.
I actually didn’t know about this variety show before. I rarely watch Mango TV variety programs because their English subtitles aren’t very good, so I find them quite difficult to follow.
This is the description about the show on MDL page:
A healing variety show featuring genuine gathering scenes with friends. Shoot seamlessly in real gathering scenes to capture the natural interaction between acquaintances. The program revolves around the "Hao Liujie" universe and uses friendship as a bond. After the recording of "Hello, Saturday", Teacher He led old friends and new friends in Changsha to get together and come to our dormitory after work to have dinner, communicate, and talk. The program will be presented in the form of "friends gathering after getting off work". Each gathering will be planned by a "dormitory housekeeper" with a unique gathering theme, inviting friends to enjoy a "recharge-style after-getting off work party" together.
Enjoy the new photos!
Source: Cheng Lei's Studio
Cheng Lei just shared a new photography series on Weibo with the caption: "Sharing a shepherd boy." Source
Cheng Lei's assistant also shared BTS photos of him taking these images, so I have added them to this post. Source . Refer to images 5-10.
I have also included screenshots of some of his replies to fans in the comments, as they are just as wholesome as the photos themselves 😍😻
The series captures a flock of sheep moving through the desert at golden hour, with dust illuminated by the setting sun. My favourite shot has to be the silhouette of the shepherd boy with his arms outstretched. It almost looks like he's dancing with the sunset and captures a sense of freedom against the golden desert sky.
Which photo is your favourite?
The quotation marks are there because Cheng Lei's latest profile picture on Weibo isn't actually a new photo. It comes from a Bottega Veneta event at Hangzhou in September 2025.
His last avatar was a cartoon of Mo Xiuyao (Mo Li/The First Jasmine). I wonder, will we see Yu Changxuan next (The Lament of Autumn)? He doesn't always use images of his characters as profile pics on his social media accounts.
Sources:
In today's Episode 6 of Our Dormitories Season 2: Back to Heart, Cheng Lei decided to cook sweet, sour, and spicy spare ribs using orange juice, hawthorn, dried tangerine peel, and chili.
He confidently declared that the dish represented "the many flavours of life", but the taste might have been errrrr unique, so we got comments like:
Even Cheng Lei admitted he created a "dark cuisine" dish. Bonus points to everyone who tried so hard to spare Chef Cheng Lei's feelings while struggling to describe the flavour!
Fun fact: Despite how it sounds, dark cuisine doesn't simply mean "bad food." The term originated from the manga Chuuka Ichiban! (Cooking Master Boy) and has since become a popular phrase in Chinese internet culture. It refers to dishes with bizarre or unconventional ingredient combinations that look (or sound) questionable but might actually taste much better than expected. Source
Not a fan edit! Cheng Lei's assistant shared this on Weibo just 2 hours ago. He posted "Yes... But" memes featuring Cheng Lei's different looks as Captain Cheng from The Leading Stars.
For anyone wondering, the "Yes... But" format comes from illustrator Anton Gudim's webcomic series, where each two-panel comic highlights the funny contradictions of everyday life. It has since evolved into a meme format where people compare two equally good options with "Yes... but...", implying there's really no wrong choice.
The auto-translation is pretty funny ("all attractive Cheng teams"), but the Chinese actually means: "Yes... but every Captain Cheng is so charismatic."
Which version of Captain Cheng gets your vote? Desert survivor, off-road driver, sunset silhouette, or all of the above?
This interaction is incredibly wholesome because the story about Cheng Lei checking in on Zhang Yun Long 3 days in a row after his injury, offering to buy medicine, and even going through the staff to find his address just so he could send milk tea, fruit, food, and drinks says a lot about his thoughtfulness and the kind of friend he is. Those small, quiet acts of kindness is so typical of CL.
For those unfamiliar with their friendship, Zhang Yunlong and Cheng Lei were both cast members of the 2024 variety show Random Tour, where they became very close. It's lovely to see that their friendship has continued long after filming wrapped through their interaction in events like Tencent Starlight Awards or iQiyi Scream Night where he patted Zhang Yunlong on his way to the stage.
FYI, Zhang Yunlong will be making a guest appearance in The Lament of Autumn as Yu Mingxuan, the older brother of Cheng Lei's character Yu Changxuan. I won't be surprised if the reason why Zhang Yunlong made time for a guest appearance was due to his friendship with Cheng Lei.
I used to think that I was already 100% smitten with Cheng Lei. I was wrong. He smites me yet again...with his literary taste.
Many of us are already aware that he loves literature. I'm just starting to realize the extent to which he does.
Last year, he released 不着边际. He sings it, and he wrote the lyrics for it. If the English translation is accurate, then his use of Rocinante (Don Quixote's loyal horse) as a metaphor in a song about wandering as a boundless adventure is just chef's kiss. I think it's a significant nod to his literary leanings.
The video is on Cheng Lei's Weibo. Seriously, watch it if you haven't yet. It's beautifully done, and the King/God/Emperor of Bath even makes an appearance!
Back to the topic of this post. What books has Cheng Lei read? Which ones are in his personal library?
In a 2023 interview for GQ China (YT fan video), he talked joining a reading group and bringing Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. He also said he wants to collect all versions of Italo Calvino's Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore (If on a Winter's Night a Traveler) because it's one of his favorite books. But at that time, he hadn't read the English version yet.
Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace and Friedrich Nietzsche's non-fiction book The Birth of Tragedy also grace Cheng Lei's reading list, according to a June 2026 piece in Vogue Taiwan. I haven't read The Birth of Tragedy, but after seeing the Goodreads blurb (A compelling argument for the necessity for art in life, Nietzsche's first book is fuelled by his enthusiasms for Greek tragedy, for the philosophy of Schopenhauer and for the music of Wagner), I'm not surprised that Cheng Lei has read it, him being such a lover of the arts.
Side note: That Vogue Taiwan article is an eye-opener. I discovered things about Cheng Lei that I didn't know before (e.g., he loves perfume and scented candles, his recovery from severe anxiety, etc.).
This 2023 Leon article is likewise very much worth reading. It's very long, but it reveals a lot about Cheng Lei. Including:
In a funny Weibo video about Cheng Lei's printer making a mess, eagle-eyed fans pointed out several titles. They include:
He also mentioned reading a variety of things and having several other bookshelves.
In this Weibo post, he said he drank lots of coffee while reading Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. And in this one, he showed a lovely Peanuts comic book (still a classic, I think!).
Finally, in his answer to the question "What do actors do when they're not filming?" at a Zhihu roundtable, he talked about the types of books on his list. In addition to those about acting techniques, he also cited books recommended by directors, such as Patrick Modiano's L'Herbe des nuits (the English version goes by the title The Black Notebook) and Sundays in August.
I don't exaggerate when I say this Zhihu piece, written by Cheng Lei himself in 2019, is a must-read. In his own words, he showed us a glimpse of what life was like for him seven years ago, when stardom was still just a speck on the horizon. His "flair" there: A young actor. Not famous yet. It made me LOL.
It's a lot shorter than the Leon and Vogue Taiwan writeups. And you don't need to install anything (just ignore the prompts to download the app). All three articles are in Chinese, but they can be auto-translated by Google.
There are more Weibo, XHS, and Douyin posts about Cheng Lei and books and reading, but wǒ lèile.
In my alternate universe, I'd go visit art and photography exhibits showcasing Cheng Lei's work. Signing up for classes where he's a hot and knowledgeable comparative literature professor just got added to that universe.
I came across this clip on Thread and I thought all the retro-style photos looks so aesthetic with Cheng Lei and his co-star's outfits and the background.
I’m on episode 5 of Footprints of Chenge, and I’m really enjoying it so far. I don’t usually read much about a drama before starting it, so I knew very little about this series except that it was a non-idol drama and that Lei Lei dubbed himself.
The drama explores a generation of women seeking more freedom in a male-dominated society. The cinematography is beautiful, guys, and I think the cast is solid. The female lead, Jelly Lin, acts so well. In some scenes, she even outshines everyone else on screen, imo.
I’ve had so many thoughts while watching because the drama touches on social issues like favoritism toward sons over daughters, gambling, and patriarchal norms that force women to accept unfair treatments. The worst thing is they weren't aware of it and continued to pass down the burden to generations. These are issues that are still relevant today, at least in my home country.
For those of you who’ve watched it, what did you think of the series? No spoilers please! And for those who haven’t, what are your first impressions of this couple based on this short clip and their interactions?
Before Cheng Lei drove an hour after filming to fulfil his promise of filming a stargazing vlog, he had already shared another photography vlog where he went out to capture the sunset.
I really enjoyed all his quieter, slice-of-life vlogs because they show how genuine his love for photography is. It's clearly more than just a passing hobby. It's also fun seeing the photos he took at the end of the vlog.
Some totally average but SO much fun to draw watercolor paintings of the king of cheekbones.
It's actually a haiku.
Two moles on your face
Defy the filters sometimes
Making me happy
All photos (except for the Mo Li screenshot) are from Cheng Lei's Weibo.
Let your inner poet shine (like CL's moles) and drop a heartfelt verse, along with the image that inspired it. Whether it's Leizi himself or a character he's portrayed or anything else relating to him, feel free to share a couplet, sonnet, haiku, limerick, free verse...anything goes. Just no AI-generated shit, please. No judgment here, it's all in good fun. <3
To:
The production team of A Thousand Miles of Your Miles, iQIYI, and Hainan Super Upward Culture Media Co., Ltd.
The Cheng Lei Official Fan Support Association has observed the following issues throughout the filming and production of A Thousand Miles of Your Miles. We hereby formally express our concerns and request that these matters be addressed.
The drama has made inappropriate alterations to the original male lead's narrative, including but not limited to:
As a result, the male lead's screen time has been substantially reduced. Many pivotal scenes have been marginalized, and the character has effectively become little more than a device for advancing other characters' storylines.
The styling relies on a repetitive, formulaic template that ignores both the actor's own strengths and the character's profession.
As a rescue team captain and geologist, Cheng Zhuo (程琛) should be presented with styling and makeup that reflect his professionalism, composure, and calm temperament—not treated with the same generic look throughout the entire drama.
Since filming began, the official promotional materials have repeatedly failed to reflect Cheng Zhuo's role as the drama's central protagonist.
The focus of publicity has become scattered, while the male lead's presence has been noticeably weakened. This demonstrates that the production has failed to give proper importance to the male lead's narrative position in its overall promotional strategy.
Regarding these issues, fans have repeatedly communicated through official channels, yet no substantive response has been received.
>"A tiny crack in the embankment can lead to the collapse of the entire dike."
Long-term silence and failure to make improvements are, in themselves, a form of response.
Our intention is not to interfere with the creative process or engage in disputes over artistic intent. Rather, our concern is whether the production has given its lead actor and the audience the respect they deserve in the details of the production.
To ensure the quality of the finished drama, respect the actor's creative efforts, and faithfully present Cheng Zhuo's character and story, the Cheng Lei Official Fan Support Association formally submits the following requests to the production team and publicity department.
The story should revolve around Cheng Zhuo's:
His role should lead the narrative progression throughout the drama.
Screen time should be appropriately balanced, his characterization should be complete and three-dimensional, and his character arc should be fully realized.
He should not be sidelined or reduced to merely serving supporting storylines.
The makeup and styling should convey Cheng Zhuo's calm, composed personality.
His appearance should match his professional identity as both a rescue team captain and a geologist, incorporating appropriate variation and depth rather than relying on a single, repetitive styling throughout the series.
All official promotional materials should consistently position Cheng Zhuo as the core of the drama.
Specifically:
As the undisputed male lead of this drama, the completeness and depth of Cheng Zhuo's characterization will directly determine the overall quality and market competitiveness of A Thousand Miles of Your Miles.
Respecting the lead actor's professional dedication and creative effort, respecting the script's positioning of its core character, and respecting the audience's reasonable expectations are the most basic professional standards and contractual integrity expected of any film or television production.
Cheng Lei devoted himself wholeheartedly to this role, carefully refining every aspect of the character and investing tremendous sincerity and hard work.
The above requests are based on objective facts and reasonable expectations. We ask the production team, creative staff, and publicity department to acknowledge these issues and make timely, comprehensive corrections.
We sincerely hope that you will value the dedication and goodwill shown by both the actor and his fans, prioritize the quality of the production, and make prompt corrections.
If these requests continue to receive no response or meaningful improvements, we will no longer participate in any subsequent promotional activities or support for A Thousand Miles of Your Miles**.**
Support should never be taken for granted. It must be nurtured through respect, not exhausted through neglect.
— Cheng Lei Official Fan Support Association
17 July 2026
From Cheng Lei's Weibo
I was all excited because I first thought he was referring to The Lament of Autumn. Then the name Cheng Zhuo kicked in. Still, glad to see The Leading Stars will probably be on iQiyi.
Waiting for CL's actual announcement to drop. The man knows how to tease.
iQiy had a 717 Membership Festival livestream event yesterday (July 17th) and Cheng Lei was among the stars who attended the event!
Shen Yujie was describing her character as a free-spirited woman who drives an off-road vehicle and has travelled to many places. However, she revealed that she didn't have a driver's licence, which could easily have been taken out of context or twisted in an edited clip.
Cheng Lei immediately stepped in and reminded her that she does have a licence. She then realised she had meant to say that she didn't have one before taking on the role, but later obtained it. Cheng Lei really saved the day and deftly smoothed things over!
