Overall, this drama was a great ride. Tons of fun to watch and follow along with Wu Xie. There are a few pacing issues and more flashbacks then necessary in my opinion. If they had kept the pacing a little more tight, they probably would have been able to finish adapting book 4.

The flashback to the republic era with Zhang Buxun confused me a lot, but he ended up being probably my favorite character in the whole drama. Massive kudos to Chen Yi for his portrayal of a surprisingly complex character with some very intense relationships with other characters. I kind of wish it had been its own stand alone work as either a movie or short drama.

Neo Huo and Zhang Buyu were hilarious together. scenes with the two of them being complete clowns were some of the most enjoyable. I wish they had been able to have more scenes of the whole iron triangle together, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the original novels so I won't hold it against the show.

The music was ok for the most part, but the one bmg track with the random bat sounds started really annoying me, especially when it was played in above ground places that definitely didn't have bats. It was also played a lot to try and make certain scenes more emotional and it just stopped working for me at the very end. Probably not a universal problem that everyone would have, but it was something that bothered me.

The last 5 episodes devolved into a disjointed mess of scenes and actions that made so little sense to me I wish I hadn't watched it at all.