This show started off great. Taiwanese singer and C-pop boy band member Hong Wei Zhe makes star turn in his first ever acting role. He brings to life a ridiculous and aimless college in the problematic BL. He delivers a performance that perfectly balances earnestness and humor, and the camera loves his goofy faces. Unfortunately he can only carry the show so far and the last third of the show is paced so poorly with little to no dramatic momentum that it's pretty vapid by the end and ultimately makes you forget how good the show was at the start.

First the good! As mentioned about, Hong Wei Zhe was great. There have been several BL series and movies that used the ghost story theme -- HIStory: My Hero, He's coming to Me, Ghost House Ghost House, After Sundown, Y-Destiny, Sweet Curse, Low Frequency, Ghost Runner. IMHO the best of this genre are Eien no Kinou and Marry My Dead Body. This series doesn't do anything dramatically new here, but the execution in the set-up of the first 5 episodes is very well done.

Additionally, in a genre littered with manipulated misunderstandings pushed forward as interesting drama motivations (they aren't), this show had a nice balance (initially) between two characters who both had ulterior motives behind their actions. Jiang Chi had romantic desires, and Gu Bu Xia had talismanic needs. This dual deception kept things hopping through the first half of the show.

Also, the trope of the more serious unflappable character being the one in love with the silly and naive character was fun to watch. It's been done before, but this trope always feels a little disruptive, as usually the more emotional and verbal character (Gu Bu Xia in this case) is the one who is expressing that they like or love someone. I think it's always nice to see the character we wouldn't expect to be as consumed by those feelings to actually be the one who's love sick.

I also really appreciated all the kissing. So many BLs are filled with very tepid pecks, or no kissing at all. It was nice to see the production dive into this with such gusto.

Unfortunately there was a lot more bad then good. Isaac Yang is a very handsome actor, but the storytellers didn't give him a lot work with. He only had two modes in this show -- stoic or fawning. They kept talking about the conflict with his parents, but never expanded on it, which would have given his character a stronger backstory perhaps given him some more scenes to display more range in his acting.

The main dramatic force in this series was two characters each pushing their secret agenda's, so when they get together as a couple in episode 7, most of that dramatic motivation dissipates. Yes, Gu Bu Xia still doesn't come clean about why he allowed Jiang Chi to get close to him in the earlier episodes, but even that sort of gets wiped away when it turns out Jiang Chi knows about it and is ok with it. The writers could have used that to play out some real drama between the two in the last few episodes. It may have felt predictable, but at least there would have been something interesting to watch.

Instead we're forced to sit through episodes 8, 9 and 10, where nothing really happens happens except the two characters continue to fawn over each other kiss a lot. I do like the kissing, but it needs some story to support it. During these last three episodes they are tying up the ghost story, but it's really not enough to keep things interesting. The real nail in the coffin comes with the special episode 11. It's a whole episode where the two main characters just continue to declare their lover for each other. It's all vapid and ultimately makes you forget how good the first half of this series was.

The producers and writers missed an amazing opportunity with the surprise acting prowess of Hong Wei Zhe. They had all the ingredients to make a really fantastic and memorable BL, but dropped the ball with the story telling and pacing and left a really vacuous impression at the end.