This story...either purposefully or accidently, ended up being a completely different story than it orignally appears to be. What I thought would be a supernatural romance turned out to be a heartbreaking supernatural bromance. Brotherhood. Soulmates. Whatever you call it, the two male leads' bond surpassed all others intended for this story.

But let's start with why the average rating...

If this was a visual arts competition, it would surely win first place. The visuals of this series are GORGEOUS. I don't think I have seen a single cringe visual effect. I thought I've seen gorgeous (Love Between Fairy and Devil) but this story took the crown by FAR.

The music in the series also really grew on me and I now have several OST in my playlist. It has some very powerful tracks for fighting scenes and also hauntingly beautiful BGM for sad scenes.

The cast was beautiful. Each character (and even each character's different counterpart) had a very specific and gorgeously styled outfit, hairdo and makeup. The costume team really outdid themselves here.

But as far as acting goes, I feel like more times than not, the aestethics helped them look a certain way rather than their own range of acting skills. Not saying their acting is lacking, but with how much artificial help they got to enchance a certain "mood" I can't properly distinguish between the effects and their acting skills.

For example, in what seems every episode, the characters would cry that one beautiful bead of crystal tear that rolls down their cheek in a close-up camera work. When done in moderation, that thing is beautiful, but when it's overdone (and in this story every character basically) it really starts to lose its impact. They looked gorgeous in their miserable state though...

Overall, from the cast Neo Hou, Tian Jia Rui, Yan An and (coming out as a surprise) Lester Lin were the best part. Their characters had the most impact, diversity and growth (in my personal opinion). It's very hard to judge Chen Du Ling's performance in this because there was something very lacking with her character that seemed too one-dimensional and a damsel in distress.

The plot....it's drowning in misery. The storyline, the idea of it, initially, was very good and rather compelling. There are demons, gods and humans. There are sacred artifacts and rules for their worlds. The visuals of the supernatural powers are vast and gorgeous, so at first glance the story seemed to have a lot of potential. But the execution of it was much to be desired... Starting from the beginning, the scenes were all over the place - people would cry, laugh, be comedic and serious all in a span of few minutes and it'd keep going. I couldn't tell what "mood" the story wanted to set. Somewhere mid-way the impending doom for one character or another seemed to be not only the main but the ONLY driving story point. Death and self-sacrifice, when used right, can be a powerful way of telling a story, but here it was passed around like a dodge ball, losing its intended impact.

The romance. Or lack of. Unfortunately til the end I found it hard to root for the main couple. It felt like we were TOLD that they love each other through certain plot aspects, but there was not much substance. Zhao Yuan Zhou (the ML)'s character is lonely and craves closeness, so if anything, the romance with FL feelt like a dream for normalicy rather than true bond. His other bonds (mostly brotherhood) run that much deeper. The ML had incredibly more chemistry with the SML, not to mention their storyline had SO MUCH MORE substance. It had growth, natural banter, warmth and heartbreak. THEIR STORY is the one that brought me to tears. Ultimately, they were the power couple of the series.

Part of me would have loved to see FL be a young kid that the two ML's unoficially adopted. I feel like her presence in the series wouldn't have changed much, and the ML's protectiveness would come out more naturally.

Overall, this story has aspects of it that are worth watching. The stunning visuals, music and the heartbreaking connection between the two MLs. But I would not recommend it for FL x ML romance. And not if you're not into a slow-paced melancholy mood storyline.