I really don't understand why good historical Chinese dramas get low ratings. While, horrible Chinese romcoms get unusual high ratings.

***Review for episodes 1-5
I usually start writing my review for a drama around episode 5, and then add to the review until I finish the series. This allows me to be more thorough with my review, and it gives you the opportunity to know whether or not you want invest more than 5 episodes into the drama. As I mentioned before, I really don't understand why good historical Chinese dramas get low ratings. While, horrible Chinese romcoms get unusual high ratings. The first 5 episodes (what I've watched thus far) is worthy of a 9.0. This historical drama uses a lot of tropes, but when done well (written well, acted out well), I don't mind. The first 3 episodes is focused on the female lead character when she is a child. The pace of the character development for the female lead character is well done. The actress who plays the female lead character when she is a child is so freaking cute. She looks like she could be Dilraba Dilmurat's daughter. I hadn't checked the cast page yet, but is the actress who plays the female lead character as an adult, the same actress who played the female lead in Good Bye My Princess?

Btw, I think producers and directors read our reviews on MyDramaList, because I've recommended that Chinese historical/period dramas have 30-40 episodes instead of the usual 60 episodes, unless absolutely necessary. This drama only has 40 episodes, and that's a plus in my book. =)

So far, so good...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
***Review for episodes 6-15
Still good! Great pacing!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
***Review for episodes 16-30
Still good! Great pacing!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
***Review for episodes 31-40
Still good but I was hoping for more romance between episodes 28-32. I know that Chinese dramas like to keep it conservative when it comes to on the screen romance, but I think there's a way to have romance and chemistry between the main leads, and still be conservative.

Episodes 32 & 33 is when I actually start to have a dislike. I get that the female lead character is upset with the male lead character but it's to the point where it's not making sense. He saved her life so many times and when he made one bad call (trying to save her life), she no longer want to talk to him anymore? This part of the storyline should have been written better.

Towards the end of episode 35 you'll start to understand the reason why this drama has low ratings on MyDramaList. Personally, I don't think all dramas have to end with the female and male lead getting together, in order for the drama to be good. If you read my other reviews, you'll notice that I enjoy realism over a "perfect" ending. However, if the female lead and male lead in this drama do not end up together about time I reach the last episode, but instead the female lead and the second male lead (the crowned prince) end up together, I want my time back. I will def. lower my rating from 9.0 to an 8.0 or 8.5. The reason why is because there was little to no romance between them two, and for at least 80% of this drama the romance has been between the female and male lead character. If the writers wanted the female lead and the second male lead to be together, they should have allowed the second male lead to find out that she was a female around episode 28, instead of waiting 5 episodes before the end.

I am currently watching episode 38, and the drama could have ended at episode 38, and it would have been fantastic. I don't know why I have a bad feeling about the remaining 2 episodes. BTW, I wasn't feeling that kiss towards the end of episode 38, it seem like the male character (I am not going to tell you which one), was distracted by something on the set when filming. It wasn't passionate/romantic lol.