This was a love story between Princess Zhu Yan (Ren Min) of the Chi Yi Tribe and Royal Prince Shi Ying (Xiao Zhan). Due to the framing of his mother the queen, Shi Ying was taken away to Jiu Yi Mountain to cultivate from a young age. Since then, he focused solely on his cultivation until he met and accepted Zhu Yan as his disciple. Over time in the mountains, both developed romantic feelings for each other, but neither acknowledged nor expressed their feelings because of their relationship until only much later.

What I liked:

1. The male lead, Shi Ying. I really enjoyed seeing Xiao Zhan’s boyish face. Though he looked young, he carried himself well as a teacher. His character was kind yet decisive and ruthless when required.

2. Acting of the entire cast. No negative comments about anyone. In the beginning I was skeptical about the female lead. Her face looked round and what with her bangs down in the early episodes, her face looked even shorter and rounder. However, despite her character being the typical kind in such teacher-disciple dramas – innocent, playful, adorable, she grew on me. Her acting was not exceptional, but it was acceptable. Undeniably, Xiao Zhan’s acting was a par above her.

3. The cinematography. It was spectacular. Clearly a drama with a huge budget. I heard someone said that it would not be easy or even possible to make another such heavy-budgeted xianxia in China again.

4. In many of the teacher-disciple relationship dramas I have watched, most of the time the teacher would not acknowledge his romantic feelings openly, much less think of ways or take actions to chase after the disciple, so it was good to see Shi Ying admitting his feelings for Zhu Yan, taking action and willing to give up his life in the mountains to be with her, albeit I had to wait 30 episodes to see him take some action.

What could have been better:

1. The open and somewhat illogical ending or maybe I just cannot accept it. One of the worse endings to me in any xianxia drama. After all that they had gone through? I was left wondering whether they were finally together or not. I read that the drama portrayed a different ending from the novel, so I shall choose to believe the novel’s ending which was a more acceptable one.

2. Chemistry between the main leads. I hate to admit this because I was quite touched by their love, but I would not say they had the best chemistry ever. When Zhu Yan was younger, it was near impossible to imagine them as a couple. When she was older, I think she was mellower and her bangs were longer so they looked better together, but still, their pairing did not feel natural enough and their intimate scenes were slightly awkward to me. I watched the behind-the-scenes shots and saw that Ren Min was embarrassed kissing Xiao Zhan. Could that be one of the reasons?

I have always enjoyed teacher-disciple relationship dramas. It is an old trope, but I enjoy the angst and thoroughly enjoy every intimacy between the couple, because it is a so-called forbidden relationship.

The overall storyline for this drama was easy to understand, although some parts confusing, flaws and illogical parts like the final battle scene which seemed so lame possessing one body after another and eventually having to sacrifice Shi Ying to rid the demon once and for all.

As for their relationship, it had relatively less angst to me compared to other such dramas of the same genre. The angst only started around episode 34 of the total 40 episodes and was still relatively mild - I did not watch sighing and wanting to tear my hair out.

All in all, would I seem shallow to say that the best part for me about this drama was watching Xiao Zhan? His performance was not his best to me, but it was still good, worth watching him for 40 episodes.