I put off watching this one despite really enjoying Lusi's other dramas because I'd been told it had a sad ending and I want to avoid bawling my eyes out if I have the heads up already...but then I was told that the ending was happy and I was like, is it really? So I gave in and watched it.

I have to say it's a really well done story, the ending is open to interpretation...it could be a sad ending or it could be a happy ending depending on what you make of it. It is never spelled out to the viewers and it's a confusing final episode, but I understand why the writer chose to go that route. If you don't like ambiguous endings, I'd skip this one...but for everyone else I'd highly recommend it.

I liked a lot of the characters who I didn't like in the beginning and several of them did surprise me dramatically on multiple incidents, some for the good, some for the bad, and some for the temporarily bad and then surprisingly also really did it for the good. It will make sense if you watch, I swear!

I really felt a lot of viewers misinterpreted Xuan Zhu as a character, I felt she was the most complex and realistic type...she wasn't one dimensional which a lot of people seemed to want her to be. They wanted her to be vain and selfish and that be her only motivation, and it's not, it is a LOT more complicated than that. You have a young girl who is ever in the shadow of her cousin, her cousin that has it all without even trying it seems...FL has the love from her parents that Xuan Zhu didn't get from her mother, FL has the love of the guy that Xuan Zhu fell for first and FL never even had to try to attract his attention...his eyes only saw her. Everything that Xuan Zhu wanted and even fought for, was never hers, while FL just existed and things fell in her lap....or so Xuan Zhu thought. During the course of the series, there is a lot of growth on XZ's part and I feel that her choice at the end was done for the right reasons, though there were still viewers calling her selfish and attention seeking, and I'm left wondering if those particular viewers are 12 years old or what?

I can't go too much into it or I'll spoil the whole show but I really enjoyed the acting of
Zheng Ye Cheng too, in this drama he was so polar opposite of some of his other roles but he was very believable. He was softer, sillier, more honest with feelings, just everything about this character was so different from his other roles and yet Zhen Ye Cheng made you believe he was an ancient immortal helplessly in love with a soul that he followed for a thousand years. You also at the same time absolutely believed he was a flamboyant flirty playboy of the worst type at the beginning of the series, this character also was very much not one dimensional. He has a secret and a reason for the way he acts along the way...but first you have to watch deeper in to the series to discover it all.

For a drama that has 30 episodes, it still managed to keep me connected and aching for more. I never got bored or felt it was repetitive for more than half an episode before we moved onto something new and bigger looming adventures. I felt this is what those 60 episode fantasy dramas could and should be like, cut it down to 30-35 episodes, get rid of the filler and concentrate on world building, character building, and real story telling. It gripped my heart and made me cry when I tried to describe important moments to someone else...if I'm not actively watching a show and I'm just remembering a character or a scene and I can still feel the emotions, then that marks it as a good drama in my heart.
I wish the ending had been a little more clear, so I'd give this a 9-9.5/10 but really other than the ending, it was a pretty dang good drama and I'll probably watch it again!