This started off quite promisingly, as a fairly domestic historical drama - modern man transplanted into body of scholar in ancient times uses his nous to support his new wife and her family in making money. Ning Yi is usually two or three steps ahead of everyone else, which isn't all that difficult with the level of intellect from some of his family members, as well as introducing modern techniques and gadgets to the business.

Then the screenwriter took the story in a completely different direction and, at one point, the pacing was just awful and the episodes really dragged on. The main relationship literally disappeared off the screen when they ended up separated for multiple episodes. Even after Ning Yi and Su Tan'er were later reunited, that only lasted a couple of episodes before he was off doing his thing again.

I knew this was taken originally from a harem novel, where all the women fall in love with the male lead, so was pleasantly surprised at the screenwriter managing to make the male lead have good friendships with other female characters and not just have them all be smitten with him. There are, however, a couple of implied or off-screen sexual assaults on female characters and that was uncomfortable as a plot driver given how positively the rest of the relationships are written.

In general, the supporting cast were good and the main villain suitably villainous. I hadn't seen either of the leads in anything else before, being apparently one of the few people around here who hasn't seen Joy of Life (it's on my list now, promise!) and I enjoyed both their performances too.

I'm not sure I'll prioritise season 2 over anything else, though. I was looking for one thing in this drama and then was served with another, which I was already getting from other shows I'm watching - that kind of bait and switch always makes me a little annoyed.