In comparison to all other Chinese dramas I've watched, this drama offered an unmatched sense of realism. I felt like I was watching a natural love story unfold. Like I watched a real relationship develop from an outside friend's perspective: starting as a harmless one-sided crush on an older brother's friend and realizing a genuine affection and support for each other as they got older.

I think the key to this wasn't the acting, I felt like the acting itself was acceptable and good, but nothing jaw dropping. The main player to this real-feel was the story and writing. Having watched many Chinese dramas, I'm no stranger to the crazy schemes, plot holes, dramatic side characters, and unrealistic "has it all" leads. This drama still has a ML with a devastating and traumatic childhood, it still has a sort of crazy ex, still has a ML as a top new-face in the tech field, all of these are cliches, but this drama does it right. It adds just enough cliche to keep the viewers engaged and the story going, but never too much that it becomes unreal. The stories they presented us with, how the characters acted at their respective ages, and how the characters reacted to serious situations, were all very possible in the real world. We see the characters face adversity in their careers, family, finances, balancing the many parts of their lives, and etc. However, when we are shown these struggles, we don't see big schemes, dragged-on arcs, and the introduction of meaningless filler side-character stories. We get scenes about a character's emotions, conversations between the leads, and unspoken thoughts. This drama nailed showing, not telling. I think 95% of Chinese dramas fail at this. Things happen, but everything remains fairly calm. Just like in our real lives. I was able to appreciate how the leads built a relationship from support and trust only because I felt their problems were real. Their relationship, their conversations, their moments were all so entirely heart-warming because I felt touched for them.

The cinematography was also much higher quality than any other contemporary drama I've watched. Every scene felt intentional and just right for the moment.

My only qualm with this drama was the age-gap. True, a five-year age gap is really nothing. However, I will always have a problem with this part of the story because of one reason: the leads had an established brother-sister dynamic since the FL was young, to the point that the FL had the ML saved as older brother 2 on her phone. The drama doesn't emphasize much about the ML's change in perspective on the FL. It starts off as the ML seeing the FL as a naive little "kiddo", his words exactly. This is kinda set for a while, and as an audience we don't really know when he started seeing her as an adult. This distinction was never made clear. And I fear it's because he still partly saw her as a child even while he was pursuing her....this is where I think it's a little weird. Once they get into a relationship, they settle really well into it and I don't see their age gap as a problem anymore. It's the transition that was hazy. How can a grown man go from seeing a girl as a silly naive young kid to seeing her as a potential romantic interest that fast? The drama lacks here.