This drama sucks you in with a promise of an engaging story and interesting characters. But, after a few episodes, the whole thing devolves into a cesspool of boring cliches, plot holes, and bland story arcs.

The story started off with Renjuan and Qiuchi having an incredible first encounter just to be separated and reunited again at school. They had some of the best chemistry I've seen in Chinese drama with cute interactions and beautifully written romance. The fun lasted for about 15 episodes until the story switched up to a series of very bland and skippable short arcs with very quick resolutions. It would've been fine if these stories somehow fit into the plot. But after one ended, none of the minor characters and plot ever resurfaced again.

One of the major issues was the main couple getting together too early and leaving no room for future romantic development. This became apparent when the writers force fed us every possible jealous lover trope to manufacture tension and destroy their own story. Brave Renjuan regressed into a spineless turd who couldn't be bothered to fight for her love. Instead of thinking of a clever way to avoid marriage between Qiuchi and Princess Yeying, she ended her relationship with Qiuchi in a screaming match. Ironically, a very timid Qinghe exchanged hair pins with Hang Ruxue, then both strolled off leaving the princess to pout on her own. Not only did the writers completely destroy Renjuan's character making her look weak, they also showed that she couldn't handle adversity or fight for what was important to her.

The villains were reduced to scorned lover caricatures devoid of any complexity. Wen Renshu started out as a jealous schemer only to regress to a complete idiot who acted against her self-interest because of her deranged obsession with Fu Yuanzhi. Instead of rubbing her two brain cells together, she went out of her way to help Yuanzhi get rid of Qiuchi without realizing that she was helping the object of her affection dispose of his love rival. Yuanzhi went from being clever and calculating to a complete psycho trying to burn his classmates alive. The quality of storytelling felt laughably arbitrary like nobody on the writing team communicated or even understood their own plot.

And then there were plot holes everywhere. Evil step mother promised to be a force to be reckoned when she threatened to destroy Renjuan's future and marry her off to some loser. That storyline was quickly abandoned and the stuttering loser just fell off the plot. Renjuan's martial arts training evaporated in favor of the damsel-in-distress trope where she forgot how to fight and now needed to be constantly rescued.

Even the best thing about the drama - the love story between Renjuan and Qiuchi - eventually became boring and repetitive. The plot felt like the writers ran out of ideas at episode 15 and decided to wing it moving forward. I was so excited when I started watching it, and now I want all the hours I wasted back.