I miss liu Shi Shi in costume drama, so naturally I was anticipating this, but I forgot how good she was, the casting was perfect I liked the minute emotions passing through every characters eyes, it was perfection. when I started I was like they would all die anyway, who goes on a deadly mission and expect to come back alive, but few episode into the series I started to have hope, the characters grew on me, yuan lu, yu shisan, Qian, sun Lang, and A'ying. no character was unnecessary, every one played an important part in driving the plot, the story and the romance worked hand in hand neither bringing the other down, I also loved the consistency of the characters though the actress who played chu yue was a bit lacking at her representation of the character, her acting took a turn for the better eventually. you get to understand their thought process and even Jiu obsession for Ruyi though annoying was nonetheless heart wrenching and somewhat understandable for me. It's human nature to hope even while knowing the truth, I saw their demise, but I loves the characters so much I was in denial and when they started to leave one by one it made it all the more heartbreaking, even though I balled my eyes for the last few episodes, I'll still stand by the fact that this was a masterpiece, a journey, a romance and a relationship worth journeying with them for. the ending were chu your sees them all galloping through the meadow was soo beautiful and though she met a young boy named Ning Shisan who through his words we realized was Yangzhou and Ruyi's son and even had a little sister named Ren Lu who their father loves more, I realised that's the ending I wanted but it's all in chu yue's head, it's all in my head. War hurts, it's not necessarily about who won or lost it's about those who fought, about those who remain and try to move on, about those who are left and can't go on, even the emperor of wu learnt what sincerity and gratitude was. I totally recommend this, badass females, friendship, brotherhood, realistic death of main leads, and beautiful cinematography.