Small Town Remedy
Small Town Remedy is a 29-episode Chinese family drama from CCTV. It aired from October 21, 2026 to November 1, 2026, and all episodes are out. In the US it streams officially on iQIYI (VIP, episodes 1-5 free), checked November 3, 2026. It is adapted from a novel by Liu Sanshu.
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Viewers who like patient-of-the-week medical dramas with a big, funny small-town ensemble
The story, without spoilers
What to Expect
We haven't watched this one. This section is based on the official episode synopses and the production's own character notes.
Expect a medical drama built on cases rather than a romance. The early episodes each bring a patient or two to Xiaoximen: a mother who refuses tests to save her son money, a child whose family can't afford the drugs that might save her. The question in most of them is less "what's wrong" than "who can pay." Chinese coverage describes the clinic's staff fixing problems with improvised local methods, like borrowing a hearse to move a patient.
The tone swings between broad comedy and grief. Much of the humor comes from the Northeastern setting and from Liu, a big-city specialist who tries to get himself fired by slacking off and can't manage it. The funeral shop run by Ai Chen's family brings its own running jokes. Underneath sits the search for Liu's mother and his rift with his brother.
A content note: the drama deals with grief and suicide.
The Story
Liu Zhengliang is a rising neurosurgeon in Shenzhen until one operation goes wrong. It's a "flying knife" job, a paid surgery at another hospital, and it's snowing that day, which brings back a childhood fear he has never shaken. The operation fails, and the fallout costs Liu his job and his savings. Then a call from home: his mother has gone missing in the small northeastern town where he grew up. Small Town Remedy (小城良方) follows him back there, where his younger brother needs brain surgery, and the only hospital that will let Liu operate is Xiaoximen, a shabby local clinic whose director has no intention of letting him leave. Xiao Zhan leads a large ensemble with Ni Dahong as the director, Jiang Yan as a woman who runs a funeral supplies shop, and Wang Yanlin as Liu's old classmate. The 29-episode drama is adapted from a novel by Liu Sanshu and streams on iQIYI.
Release Notes
Small Town Remedy premiered on October 21, 2026, on CCTV-8, which airs two episodes a night in prime time, and on iQIYI. iQIYI VIP members got four episodes at 19:30 Beijing time on the first night, then two a day from October 22. When we checked iQ.com from the US on October 25, it had 12 of 29 episodes with English subtitles, the first five free. Beijing TV and Dragon TV started airing it on October 29.
Near the end iQIYI slowed regular VIP releases to one episode a day and sold the last three episodes early. From 19:30 Beijing time on November 1, viewers could pay extra to unlock episodes 27 to 29, and Chinese coverage put the regular finale on November 4. On iQ.com, checked from the US on November 3, Standard VIP had 27 episodes, and episodes 28 and 29 cost $6.99 as Express access or came free with the Premium plan.
Early reports gave 28 or 30 episodes. Sina reported that official materials changed the count more than once before settling on 29, which is what iQIYI lists. Episodes run about 45 minutes.
The drama was produced by CCTV and Linmon Pictures (柠萌影视), with iQIYI as co-producer. Zhang Xiaobo directed and Nie Chengshuai wrote the script, and the end credits list Zheng Xiaolong (郑晓龙) as artistic director. Filming began in October 2025 in Jinzhou, Liaoning, and wrapped in early 2026. Baidu Baike notes that it is Xiao Zhan's second role as a doctor, after The Oath of Love (余生，请多指教). He also sings the theme song, "Qing Qing" (轻轻), and Ren Suxi (任素汐) sings the insert song "Xiao Cheng" (小城). In January 2026 the drama won Weibo Night's award for the year's most anticipated drama, voted by users.
Does Small Town Remedy have a happy ending?
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We have not finished this one ourselves; this is based on outside sources.
In Brief
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It's a happy ending for the leads. In the last episode, Liu Zhengliang and Ai Chen agree to get married, and Liu stays on as a doctor at Xiaoximen, which a private group has bought and reopened. It comes at a cost: Ai Chen's mother, Mi Si, dies suddenly in episode 28, and the finale scatters the ensemble, with Liu's brother, Chen Junnan and Che Mingming all leaving for Beijing. Liu never fully gets over his fear of snow. He just stops letting it decide his life. We haven't watched the finale; this comes from the official episode synopses.
Full Ending Explained
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This account follows the official synopses for episodes 21 to 29 on the drama's Baidu Baike page.
The hospital. In episode 21, Long Dongdong tells the staff that Xiaoximen is being closed and its assets settled, and sends everyone home. When a TV crew comes, patients the hospital once saved crowd in front of the camera to defend it. In episode 24 the Qikang Group buys Xiaoximen and reopens it as one of its own hospitals. Long steps down and leaves Huang Dongsheng, Lao Huang, in charge. In episode 27 Long retires for good and drives south in a camper van with his wife. He tells Liu the hospital's future isn't his burden, and that he's free to leave one day. At the final dinner, Lao Huang notes that only he and Liu are left of the old team.
Liu's fear of snow. The fear goes back to his childhood: his father died under the ice. Ai Chen tries to cure him by flooding a cold-storage room so he has to face a sheet of ice. He collapses and runs a high fever. In episode 24, at his parents' grave, the caretaker tells him his mother came every winter and every Qingming and stayed all day. Liu tells Ai Chen to stop looking for cold rooms. He isn't cured, but he no longer needs to be cured before he can stay. His mother's fate was settled back in episode 7, when her body was found in the river after the thaw.
Liu and Ai Chen. The two confess their feelings at the end of episode 26. In episode 28, Ai Chen's mother, Mi Si, has a heart attack at Jia Xin and Gong Xue's wedding and dies. That night Liu sits with Ai Chen outside the hospital morgue and tells her he used to be afraid of dying, but now what he fears is someone grieving if he's gone. They find her father, Ai San, hiding in a stairwell with a padded coat, worried that Mi Si will be cold. In the finale Ai San takes a job as the cemetery's caretaker to stay near his wife, and tells Ai Chen that he's stopping there, but she has to keep going. That night, Liu and Ai Chen agree to marry.
Everyone else. Liu Zhengguang and his brother finally agree that neither their father's death nor Jia Xin's burns were their fault. At the family grave, Liu tells him his roots are in the town, so he can live however he likes. Zhengguang leaves for Beijing to start a business with Chen Junnan, who has quit medicine and made peace with his father. Che Mingming wins a place in a PhD program in Beijing. She turns Chen Junnan down on her birthday, but when she sings on stage for the last time, he's the only one on his feet clapping, and she smiles back. Her father, Che Changhai, comes home from a trip to Beijing clearer than he's been in years and applies for a job as a security guard. Jia Xin survives his burns and a suicide attempt, and marries Gong Xue.
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Cast and characters
The novel behind it
The drama adapts Fei Dao: Wo Zai Xiao Cheng Dang Yi Sheng (飞刀：我在小城当医生) by Liu Sanshu (刘三叔), published by Chongqing Publishing House in March 2021. The main title, Fei Dao, means "flying knife," and the drama has also gone by Fei Dao. As far as we know, there is no official English translation. The book has the same lead, Liu Zhengliang, a surgeon who takes paid operations in other cities. We haven't compared the novel and the drama closely yet, so we can't say how faithful the adaptation is.
- Original title
- 飞刀：我在小城当医生
- Author
- Liu Sanshu 刘三叔
- First published
- Other, 2021
- In English
- No official translation that we know of
Words and customs you'll hear
What a "flying knife" surgeon is
Feidao (飞刀), "flying knife," is slang for a surgeon from a major city hospital who travels to operate at a smaller one, usually for a fee arranged on the side. It lets patients in small cities get a top specialist without traveling, and it can earn the surgeon far more than a salary. It also leaves him working in an unfamiliar operating room with a team he doesn't know. Liu's disaster in the first episode is one of these jobs, which is why the novel takes its title from it.
Township clinics
Xiaoximen is a weishengyuan (卫生院), a basic local health center at the bottom of China's hospital system. These clinics handle everyday illness, vaccinations and emergencies for a town and the villages around it, and send serious cases up to bigger hospitals. They often run short of money, equipment and specialists, which is the gap the drama's improvised fixes keep filling.
A funeral shop called 1314
Ai Chen's family shop is the 1314 funeral supplies store. In Chinese, 1314 (yi san yi si) sounds like yisheng yishi (一生一世), "for a whole lifetime," and it's usually a romantic number, popular for wedding dates and love notes. On a shop that sells funeral goods, it's a dark little joke that fits the drama's mix of comedy and grief.
Small Town Remedy FAQ
How many episodes does Small Town Remedy have?
Small Town Remedy has 29 episodes, each about 45 minutes long. Early reports gave 28 or 30, and Chinese coverage says official materials changed the count before it settled on 29. That's the total on iQIYI's international site, so expect roughly 22 hours of drama in all.
When does the Small Town Remedy finale air?
Chinese coverage puts the last episode for regular iQIYI VIP members on November 4, 2026, at 19:30 Beijing time, early morning in the US. Viewers who paid extra could watch episodes 27 to 29 from November 1. Before that, VIP got two episodes a day, slowing to one a day near the end.
Where can I watch Small Town Remedy?
Outside China, Small Town Remedy streams on iQIYI's international service, the iQIYI app and iq.com, with English subtitles. When we checked from the US on November 3, Standard VIP had 27 episodes, the last two cost extra, and episodes 1 to 5 were free. In China it aired on CCTV-8 and iQIYI.
Who does Xiao Zhan play in Small Town Remedy?
Xiao Zhan plays Liu Zhengliang, a gifted neurosurgeon from Shenzhen who loses his job after a failed operation and goes home to a small northeastern town. There he works at a run-down local clinic. Ni Dahong, Jiang Yan, Wang Yanlin, Shi Pengyuan and Jian Renzi lead the large supporting cast.
Is Small Town Remedy based on a novel?
Yes. It adapts Fei Dao: Wo Zai Xiao Cheng Dang Yi Sheng (飞刀：我在小城当医生) by Liu Sanshu, published in China in 2021. The title means roughly "flying knife: I'm a doctor in a small town." We haven't found an official English translation, and the drama renames the story for television.
Does Small Town Remedy have a happy ending?
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Minor spoilerReveal the answer
Yes, for the leads. By the official episode synopses, Liu Zhengliang stays at the reopened hospital and he and Ai Chen agree to marry in the last episode. It isn't all light: a major supporting character dies in episode 28, and most of the ensemble leaves town in the finale for new jobs and studies.
Do Liu Zhengliang and Ai Chen end up together?
SpoilerShow the answer
Ending spoilerReveal the answer
Yes. They confess their feelings at the end of episode 26, and Liu stays by Ai Chen's side after her mother dies in episode 28. On the night of the final episode, the two agree to get married. That comes from the official episode synopses; we haven't watched the finale ourselves.
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