Star of Yanxi Palace Lawrence Wong is getting noticed again, this time not for his good looks or acting chops, but for his age.

Eagle-eyed users of local forum HardwareZone pointed out media reports of Wong's age before he got popular -- a number that does not tally with his current reported age.

Getting younger?

Is Wong getting younger over the years?

Before Wong's success in The Story of Yanxi Palace, media reports put his year of birth as 1982.

• Malaysia's The Star listed his age as 29 in March 2011.
•  The Straits Times put his age as 32 in May 2014.
• Toggle pegged him as 33 in December 2015. 

This means Wong should be 37 in 2019.

According to Baike Baidu (something like a Chinese Wikipedia) however, Wong was born in 1988, which makes him 31 in 2019.

When 8 Days interviewed him in September 2018, they also listed his age as 30.

However, just three months later in December 2018, his age reverted back to 36 again in a Straits Times interview.

According to Toggle, Chinese media outlets seem to be confused about Wong's real age after reports linked him with fellow Yanxi Palace cast member Qin Lan, who played Empress Fucha:

"[Thanks] to Korean dramas, noona romances (a term to describe a woman in a relationship with a younger man) are in vogue and part of their excitement stems from the fact that they think Lawrence, who is reported to be 30 this year by Chinese media, is seven years younger than Qin Lan, 37 – or is he really 36? The Malaysian-born actor was reported as 33 years old in the last interview he did with Toggle in 2015."

These are all, of course, reports purely from the media.

Wong's official social media platforms might offer more insight into this mystery.

If you head over to Wong's official Facebook page, you'll find his official date of birth: August 5, 1988, which brings into question all the past media information during Wong's pre-Yanxi days.

In 2009, Wong tweeted that he was "not very keen to be 27":

In what is most likely a joke, Wong tweeted this in 2013:

However, this would tally with the claim that Wong was born in 1988.

Guess age really is just a number.

Top images via Wong's Facebook page and Story of Yanxi Palace poster.