2026-07-28

July 28 Short Drama Top 10 Watch: Tiger Mom Holds as a New AI Season Takes No. 3

The latest complete public Hongguo board is dated July 26: Tiger Mom still leads, a new AI/manhua season enters No. 3, and July 27-28 launches remain separate tests until comparable heat data appears.

Short Drama Daily Top 10 @gritty

The quick read

The latest complete public Hongguo heat board I could verify is dated July 26, not July 28. Tiger Mom Arrives, Everyone in the Family Stands to Attention remains No. 1 at 7,876, with Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister, Season 2 only 83 points behind. The more meaningful move is at No. 3: Relegated to the Border Pass, the Guilty Wife Farms Her Way to a War God, Season 9 appears at the source's raw display value of 74349. 1

This is a July 26 Hongguo benchmark with July 27-28 launch signals, not a same-day cross-platform ranking. A newly launched live-action title, Love in the Wind at Yanwu, arrived with a strong nostalgia and brand hook; today's Glimmer in the Night is a smaller, locally rooted test on Rednote. Neither has a comparable Hongguo heat score yet.

The latest complete public board

Rank	Title	Heat score	Genre / format	Platform	Episodes
1	虎妈驾到，全家反骨仔乖乖立正 — Huma Jia Dao — Tiger Mom Arrives, Everyone in the Family Stands to Attention	7876 1	Live-action; family / ethics	Hongguo	Not verified
2	咱家剑宗团宠小师妹第 2 季 — Zan Jia Jianzong Tuanchong Xiaoshimei, Season 2 — Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister, Season 2	7793 1	AI/manhua; child-centered xuanhuan fantasy	Hongguo	62 2
3	发配边关，罪妻开荒养出战神第 9 季 — Fapai Bianguan, Zuiqi Kaihuang Yang Chu Zhanshen, Season 9 — Relegated to the Border Pass, the Guilty Wife Farms Her Way to a War God, Season 9	74349 raw source display 1	AI/manhua; cultivation / war fantasy	Hongguo	Not verified
4	万妖图录传第 9 季 — Wanyao Tulu Zhuan, Season 9 — The Ten Thousand Demons Codex, Season 9	6717 1	AI/manhua; serialized xuanhuan fantasy	Hongguo	Not disclosed
5	渐染 — Jian Ran — Creeping Love	6668 1	Live-action; reunion romance / age-gap romance	Hongguo	71 3
6	苏毅穿书第 2 季 — Suyi Chuanshu, Season 2 — Su Yi Enters a Book, Season 2	6350 1	Transmigration / family fantasy; format not independently confirmed	Hongguo	Not disclosed
7	苏毅穿书第 1 季 — Suyi Chuanshu, Season 1 — Su Yi Enters a Book, Season 1	6251 1	Transmigration / family-farming fantasy; format not independently confirmed	Hongguo	Not disclosed
8	沈小姐她不干了 — Shen Xiaojie Ta Bu Gan Le — Miss Shen Is Done With It	6133 1	Live-action; workplace comeback	Hongguo	Not independently verified
9	钢铁小棉袄，为父斩风霜 — Gangtie Xiaomianao, Weifu Zhan Fengshuang — Steel Little Cotton Jacket, Taking on the Storm for Dad	6095 1	Live-action; family drama	Hongguo	72 4
10	咱家剑宗团宠小师妹 — Zan Jia Jianzong Tuanchong Xiaoshimei — Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister	6033 1	AI/manhua; child-centered xuanhuan fantasy	Hongguo	62 5

What is driving each title

1. Tiger Mom Arrives: the leader is still a photo finish

The leader moved from 7828 on July 25 to 7876 on July 26, while the runner-up slipped from 7809 to 7793. 6 The board is rewarding a recognizable family-conflict hook, but the small margin says the top spot is still vulnerable to the next strong sequel launch; the readable public profile confirms the title is actor-led, starring Liu Qingxin and Hu Chunyuan, but does not disclose an episode count. 7

2. Jianzong Season 2: the almost-winner has a very legible engine

The sequel remains within striking distance of No. 1 and carries a clean 62-episode profile. Its child-centered cultivation setup, in which a supposedly ordinary five-spirit-root girl becomes the emotional center of a cash-strapped sect, is easy to understand in a short clip and gives the AI/manhua lane a warmer, family-like hook than a pure power fantasy. 2

3. Relegated to the Border Pass, Season 9: a raw-value warning matters

The new entrant takes No. 3 in the July 26 repost, but its heat value is printed as 74349, without the formatting used for the neighboring rows. That makes the rank usable and the number worth preserving, but not worth silently converting; the source display is an anomaly, not evidence that the title has a 74,349-point advantage over the rest of the board. 1

The title is part of the AI/manhua cultivation-and-war lane that has been taking over discovery slots this month. Its real test is whether a large franchise-style launch can hold after the opening burst, rather than whether a single malformed-looking number can be compared with the other rows.

4. The Ten Thousand Demons Codex, Season 9: franchise gravity survives a reset

Season 9 falls from 6943 on the July 25 board to 6717 on July 26, but it remains inside the top four. The readable profile places the series on Hongguo, dates its premiere to July 19, and records more than 3.8 million reservations by July 16; the hook is a high-pressure dragon-transformation trial followed by a five-immortal war. 8

That combination explains the staying power better than a generic "fantasy is hot" label: the series has a known world, a new-season event, and a high-stakes visual premise that can keep circulating in clips.

5. Creeping Love: the live-action survivor with real volatility

Creeping Love drops to No. 5 at 6668, but it is still the strongest stand-alone live-action romance on this board. The 71-episode drama launched on Hongguo on July 18 with a reported opening heat of 7782 万, and its reunion-plus-age-gap setup gives the AI-heavy board a concentrated performance and relationship counterweight. 3

Its appeal is also its risk: the same source describes strong praise for the leads and production quality alongside complaints about pacing and melodrama. That kind of split can create conversation, but it is less stable than the catalogue effect enjoyed by a multi-season AI property.

6-7. Su Yi Enters a Book: two rows, one unresolved title variant

The July 26 source spells the title as 苏毅穿书, while the July 25 repost used 苏忆穿书. I am preserving the newest source's wording rather than pretending the two forms are definitively identical; what is clear is that both seasons hold adjacent rows at 6350 and 6251. 1

The paired placement is the useful signal. Public recommendation coverage describes the property as a rich heiress returning to rural life, rebuilding the family through cooking and small-business ideas, but no clean episode count or current format label was readable for either season in this pass. 9

8. Miss Shen Is Done With It: workplace refusal remains a durable lane

At 6133, Miss Shen is still inside the board even as the two Su Yi seasons and several AI franchises crowd the middle. The premise is immediately legible: a translator quits after years of extra work and a cancelled allowance, forcing the company to confront what her labor was actually worth. The episode count was not independently verified from a readable source today.

That is a different kind of repeatable hook from cultivation or rebirth. It turns an ordinary workplace grievance into a clean promise of reversal, which helps explain why a compact title can hold a slot beside much larger serial worlds.

9. Steel Little Cotton Jacket: the quiet family floor

The title falls from 6029 on July 25 to 6095 on July 26 while remaining No. 9, a small increase inside a lower-board cluster. Its public profile identifies it as a short drama starring Li Yize and Liu Junyang and lists 72 episodes; the current heat signal says an actor-led family title is still discoverable even when the board is dominated by fantasy sequels. 4

The interesting point is not that family drama has beaten AI. It is that the genre still occupies a stable floor without needing a top-three launch spike.

10. Jianzong Season 1: the back catalogue is still doing work

The original season remains No. 10 at 6033, giving the Jianzong property two rows even after the sequel nearly wins the board. The public profile lists 62 episodes, describes the same child-centered fantasy premise, and says the series has accumulated 3.4 billion views across the franchise; the important chart signal is catalogue depth, not a one-off sequel spike. 10

This is the clearest example today of one IP occupying both the launch lane and the replay lane at once.

The two current tests outside the ranking

Love in the Wind at Yanwu: live action has a real-world hook to convert

Love in the Wind at Yanwu (Ai Zai Feng Qi Yan Wu Shi) launched on Hongguo and Douyin at 00:08 on July 27. It is a 70-episode period drama about a returned student and a factory technology executive trying to rescue a salt-city electronics plant; a July 27 report says the title had nearly 2 million reservations before launch and more than 26 million plays for its Douyin topic. 11

That is meaningful attention, but it is not a Hongguo heat score. The next question is whether nostalgia for the Yanwu recorder brand, a genuine industrial-history setting, and the two-lead partnership can move the title onto a comparable board rather than leaving it as a well-publicized premiere.

Glimmer in the Night: a smaller local-story experiment begins today

Glimmer in the Night (Manye Weiguang) is scheduled to launch on Hongguo on July 28. The official local announcement describes a 1990s-set story filmed in Nong'an, centered on ordinary people's marriage choices, entrepreneurship, and family life; it does not publish an episode count, heat value, or pre-launch ranking. 12

It is worth watching as a content-positioning test, not as an unearned No. 11. The premise borrows the familiar family-and-work lane, but its local setting gives it a clearer identity than a generic urban romance.

A useful negative signal is Palm Eye (Zhangyan), which launched on Hongguo on July 27 with more than one million reservations but reportedly opened at only 3891 万 heat and No. 16 on the new-drama list. Its slower cultural-investigation setup may have struggled to deliver a fast enough emotional hook for short-drama browsing; that is a single-title case study, not a platform-wide verdict. 13

Three patterns to carry forward

1. A live-action win is possible, but the margin is thin

Tiger Mom remains first, yet the lead over Jianzong Season 2 is only 83 source points. Below them, the chart has a malformed raw display for the new No. 3, a falling but durable live-action romance, and four lower rows that still mix family or workplace stories with serial fantasy. The July 26 board is competitive, not a clean format reversal.

2. Franchise depth is now a ranking strategy

Jianzong occupies No. 2 and No. 10. The two Su Yi rows occupy No. 6 and No. 7, while Wanyao continues from a July 19 premiere. The recurring pattern is catalogue-assisted discovery: a new season can create a spike, while older episodes remain close enough to keep the IP visible as a package.

3. Launch publicity is not the same as chart conversion

Yanwu arrives with nearly 2 million reservations, a real-world brand story, and a 70-episode release, while Palm Eye had more than one million reservations but a reported 3891 万 opening heat. The next Hongguo refresh will tell us more than either pre-launch number; until then, both belong in the watchlist rather than the ranked table.

Data note

This article ranks the latest complete public Hongguo snapshot available in this research pass: the July 26 repost published at 11:23 a.m. China time. The July 26 source provides all ten rows, but its No. 3 value is preserved exactly as 74349 because the source display is anomalous. The July 27 and July 28 titles are kept outside the ranking because no comparable Hongguo heat score was publicly verifiable for them by the morning run.

A comparable daily Douyin play-count board and a Kuaishou daily ranking were not publicly verifiable for this issue. Heat scores, reservations, topic plays, and reported opening heat are therefore kept as separate metrics rather than merged into a synthetic cross-platform score.

The next meaningful update is whether Love in the Wind at Yanwu converts brand nostalgia into a measurable Hongguo position, and whether Glimmer in the Night can turn a local 1990s setting into national short-drama attention.

All English titles are reader-facing translations of the Chinese chart labels; where the source's format or episode count was not readable, the field is explicitly marked as unverified.