It's only at the end of the drama when I realize that this is a small adaptation of the real history. As a sucker for historical dramas, I quite like how the plot focuses more on the political side of things instead of just pure palace romance. However, there are some parts where I find are quite unnecessary, which is why I did not rate the drama too high.

Parts I love:

1) You'll see quite a balance in terms of important roles between female and male. For once, we have a historical drama where female don't just show off their wits in palace schemes but play substantial roles in politics.

2) Patience is virtue. Most people can't stand slow plot progressions, so I wouldn't recommend this drama if you're one of them. This drama is not just a battle of the brains but also a battle of patience. You'll see a lot of scenarios where the "good people" will lose and had to do things that they don't want to do in order to obtain the final victory.

There's always pros and cons. Here are the things that I cannot oversee or don't think makes sense to me.

1) Unpopular opinion: the female lead plays the most pointless role in the drama. To be honest, it feels as though the screenwriter is trying to force this character in just for the sake of the romance element. She is not the greatest in martial arts, she is not the smartest of the lot, she plays no use to the emperor being by his side but has a delusion that she does and I don't see how she constantly "spoils" Qiu Zi Liang's evil plans - it feels like she spoils the emperor's plans even more. In fact, most or even all the wounds on the emperor attribute to her. She'll usually only turn up at times when the plans are already almost successful and play a simple role, then it becomes her credit.

2) The third person. Honestly, I knew who the third person is from the start. They had dropped way too many clues. Why I think this third person is pointless is because I thought they could have teamed up with the emperor. Why go through all that trouble "working independently" only to achieve the same goal as the emperor? Teamwork makes the dream work, no?

I have to be honest - this is not the best drama but I did enjoy it to some extent.