WOW! What an incredible ride this drama was!

This was truly a slice of life drama and the selling point of this drama were the family/character dynamics. I think this is one of the very first dramas where I loved every single character in this drama (even the nasty ones). The emotions and reactions of every character felt so realistic. From Ling Bu Yi and Cheng Shao Shang to Wang Yanji and Lou Ben and even to the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, every character had their own struggles and inner demons and everyone's choices defined who they were. No one was overly righteous, nor was anyone evil for the sake of being evil. Even when I didn't agree with a character, I could empathize with them and see why they made the choices they did..even if it was the wrong path to take.

I just adore Zhao Lusi. With every drama she does, she constantly improves her skills and demonstrates how serious she is at furthering her craft. Her portrayal as Cheng Shao Shang harken back to her rom-com days yet also illuminate how much farther she's grown as an actress when working with more serious fare. She does a marvelous job.
I truly believe CSS's greatest characteristic is her openness to learn. Her eyes and ears are always open and she's constantly learning from every experience she goes through. While I absolutely adore CSS, there were times when I felt the writing of her character was inconsistent. There were times when she was so wise and showed such character growth that I couldn't sing enough praises for her character yet at other times I felt it conflicted with her youth and scheming ways. Regardless, she remains one of my favorite female leads in Chinese drama-land.

Wu Lei..goodness. Such talent for such a young man. There were times I felt he was a bit stiff in his portrayal in both acting and posture (seriously, looking at him stand so straight made my back hurt), but it's exceedingly minor compared to how fabulous he was. He has very nuanced expressions that truly brought Ling Bu Yi to life. I'm interested to see how his future projects will go and hope he keeps exploring different genres to keep stretching his acting chops.
I love that LBY is not the typical righteous, just, good-old-fashioned "good" guy that many male leads are. He has so much darkness in him and a cruel streak that makes him terrifying. The fact that he wants vengeance rather than justice already differentiates him from most male leads.

I think one thing the drama was superbly well is how it shows people-people interactions. From the relationships between parents-children, siblings, lovers, enemies, etc, each relationship was well hashed out and made me see glimpses of my own personal relationships. One of these was definitely CSS's relationship with her mother. It definitely felt super relatable to how real-life mothers and daughters often have hard times communicating with each other. Sadly once CSS enters the palace, that relationship is not seen as much which made me sad since neither truly talked and the path to their understanding/reconciliation wasn't seen.

My major complaint is that it was very obvious how CSS and LBY both had female lead and male lead plot armor throughout the drama. LBY gets away with everything because the emperor adores him and CSS receives the same treatment because LBY loves her. It makes them lose credibility to me in terms of their own merit. There were many scenes where LBY and CSS are hashing it out with the "bad" guys and those scenes felt more gratuitous than impactful; mainly because the judges (ie: the Emperor/Empress/Consort Yue) are so blatantly and unapologetically siding with LBY and CSS that the chances of a "fair" outcome isn't possible. It comes off as fair...but if the tables were turned and the bias wasn't towards the ML and FML..then viewers would be up in arms at the favoritism displayed.

If anything, while most dramas suffer from having too many episodes..I think this drama would've benefitted from having more. There were many supporting characters (I'm looking at you guys Wan Qi Qi and Cheng Song) whose stories I wanted to see unfold. I just loved all the characters so much that I wanted to know their daily life adventures and it made me sad to not see any of it.