This drama has it all, amazing production, intelligent dialogues, heart-thumping moments, attention-keeping palace plots, good-looking people and costumes, explosive chemistry between the different protagonists and antagonists ...

The director together with the actors have been able to create pure magic in their characterization and in weaving the complicated interactions by them.

The actress NiNi in her portrayal of both Wei Jhi and Feng Jhi Wei brings a lot of freshness to the dark character of Ning Yi as well of the Emperor. Her character is really an intelligent and smart. Her easy camaraderie, her dignity, her sorrows and her longing for her love really seeps through Ni Ni's portrayal. This is the making of a fine actress when she very naturally seem to behave, walk, talk like a young lady, like a man as well as be the very feminine, sad Jhi Wei later. A big Kudos to her.

But what makes this drama so special is the character of Ning Yi. In fact, the whole drama pivots on Ning Yi. He is one of the most complex character that I have so far seen in Chinese drama. He is so cunning, ruthlessly plotting his way to revenge and towards his path to reunite Tiansheng and towards becoming the Emperor. Yet, he is so tormented with self-doubts, by his innate wish to be a good and righteous person, by his vulnerabilities towards his mother, the Emperor (his father) and the woman he loves, by his plotting debates and banter with his true friend Xin Ziyang. Chen Kun did a fabulous job in portraying and giving dimensionality to this character. Though he is quite short (in terms of height), his portrayal of the character make him seem larger than the screen. I am on my third binge-rewatch of this drama. I just cannot get enough to look at all his facial and body expressions.

Love, Love, Love this drama.

Of course, the last part is not well executed and this unfortunately, seems to be rather common to C-Dramas. For this reason, I will not even comment on it nor allow it to influence my overall appreciation of the drama.