Looking at the first couple reviews, my opinion seems to be on the unpopular side - I did not, in fact, like the drama.

Having watched just a couple modern c-dramas before, I decided to give this one a try solely because of much I adored Zhao Lusi in Hidden Love and this seemed to be one of her more popular roles. As I progressed into the drama, I started realising that I was not immersed in the story at all. Maybe it was because this was my first historical c-drama ever, but it was so. Here's a few thoughts:

1. Direction : The overall direction seemed extremely all over the place. Scenes would transition very abruptly, the buildup towards certain important plot points was too underwhelming, hell even the climax felt anti climactic. The pacing and development was off, making the viewer feel disconnected to the drama as a whole.

2. Story: I believe that the writing of this show was one of the main reasons everything felt the way it did. The writing did NOT do justice to the characters, or the plot itself. The story shifted directions way too many times, and lots of things introduced in the earlier episodes were left unexplored which is one of my biggest complaints with the show:

For example, the first couple episodes hinted at the complex relationship between the leads, with the FL actively disliking the ML. So much substance could have been added to the show by delving into the leads' collective pasts but alas, it was not.

Hei Fengxi, our beloved ML was introduced as a shrewd, clever and cunning man and while he did technically use his 'cleverness' in the battles etc., he was just ultimately written off as a soft man, with a 'cold exterior', an exterior which was never really shown to us somehow.

The whole reveal of Bai Fengxi being Feng Xiyun could have been written and utilised in a much, much better manner. They could have easily used her identity as an element of surprise in the final battle, but instead we got a flat 'I figured this must have been the case when so and so happened' from both the ML as well as the antagonist, in the damn middle of the drama.

So many interesting relationship dynamics were introduced, but none were developed - INCLUDING THE LEADS'. Well, the entire relationship development of the leads felt very skewed in the first place. We went from them not liking each other, to somehow falling in love - a point we were supposed to decipher from the few 'romantic' scenes we were shown (which were really just half a minute scenes popping out of nowhere with intense eye contact and weird falling into the other's arms and awkwardly poetic dialogues, but that's just the whole 'historic' premise ig).
Also, as much as I detest love triangles, this show could have really done with one considering how bland the leads' whole relationship turned out to be. We got that one random scene with Yu Wu Yuan reminiscing about FL dearest only for it to never be talked about again. We had Hua Chunran, a very shrewd and calculative character who ultimately ended up not having much contribution to the plot - WHY?? The relationship between the FL and Huang Chao was given a relatively larger screentime tho - an entire 5 to 6 minutes! The ML and his elder bro's relationship could have been much better too, so much wasted potential omg.

The writing felt as if they tried to show a healthy relationship between the leads with no misunderstandings, but it just ended up depicting a very boring one.

3. Acting: I have pretty much no idea about c-dramas and actors so I went in without any expectations about acting, except for Zhao Lusi who obviously did not let down. The overall acting was good and even the side characters did a pretty decent job imo.

4. Chemistry: Now here's the thing, I can handle even the shittiest of dramas if the chemistry makes up for it but while I appreciated both the leads' acting, I could not feel that kind of explosive chemistry that could save this drama for me. Obviously they did not feel downright incompatible, I just found the chemistry very mid.