come on man you need a real FTDI cable or an older Prolific serial to TTL cable; each is only few bucks. The whole business with zener diode and resistors would likely fry the ESP. I got these FTDI cables with a little switch to change the TTL levels between 5v and 3.3v;
I fully expected fake FTDI ICs but lo and behold what came from AliExpress was a real IC which was immune to the November driver snafu and it works perfectly with the ESP module. On top of that the seller actually dropped off the package within few days of ordering (that has been a typical problem with Ali where sellers wait a week or more before actually dropping off the packages at their post office -- I guess they want to make sure they get the money first)
https://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6380810662.html?orderId=64880993130131