'Descendants of the Sun' most searched keyword on Weibo

South Korean TV series "Descendants of the Sun" has been the most popular search keyword on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

As of Wednesday, the tale of romance between a soldier (Song Joong-ki) and a doctor (Song Hye-kyo) in a fictional war-torn country in the Mediterranean was searched 74.5 billion times on the social networking website, beating all other keywords by a large margin.

The KBS 2TV show premiered in both South Korea and China on Feb. 24. In China, the show is released every Wednesday and Thursday night on the local streaming website iQiyi.

The "Descendants of the Sun" syndrome has also given rise to die-hard fans in China who call the South Korean actor "qianmin laogong," or the national husband figure, and themselves "xiaolaopo," his mistress, a Chinese entertainment official said, adding his other monikers include "liaomei nansun," or heartthrob.

Some fans have set his picture as the background of their smartphone chat rooms and tried to communicate in short sentences to keep his face visible on the screen, the official said. (Yonhap)