An enemy to lovers trope which I am a total sucker for. The way the story began for this drama totally caught me on a hook. A once powerful bandit, "Lu Wen" known for cleverness, skills and scheming falls in the hands of the one and only persistent, cunning and strong "Lord Huai Yang", who turns out to be even more scheming. He planned a fake marriage scheme without knowing that the fake wife whom he thought was one of Lu Wen's dear concubine is actually his mortal enemy whom he had spent all his time chasing. This was how interesting the beginning of the drama was that I couldn't stop watching it.

It took quite a lot of time before "Lu Wen" aka Liu Mian Tang was actually able to regain her full memories. During the time she spent together with Lord Huai Yang disguised as her fake husband "Cui Jiu", little did they both know that they were slowly falling in love with each other amidst the lies. There is quite a lot to say about Liu Mian Tang's character, when she lost all her memories, she was a remarkable wife to Cui Jiu, she remained faithful to him despite knowing his so-called short comings as a husband, she was very good at doing business and was so clever that she could make a life of her own to feed her family. In short, she kind of stood as a bread winner. I admire her good qualities as a wife to Cui Jiu. Certainly, this was one of the many reasons why Lord Huai Yang was deeply charmed by her, simply because of her personality. Then, when she finally regained all her memories as Lu Wen, there was a quick but very evident shift in her character. We were shown how truly clever and skilled she is.

Cui Jiu or Lord Huai Yang on the other hand, was a character that set the standard. Regardless of his lies and schemes. As the storyline progressed, we were able to be shown a softer and comedic side of him compared to his usual strong upfront. However, what remarkably caught most viewers attention, even mine, was his extreme cleverness. Especially with how he dealt with things at court and between the two lords (forgot their names lol) while at the same time chasing after Liu Mian Tang after their fake marriage had ended. By the time the two of them had finally let their strong feelings for each other break free, with Lord Huai Yang's persistence and consistent 'chasing' after Liu Mian Tang, we were finally given the powerful couple who complimented each other so well. An addition to that would be their lovey-dovey scenes.

This is where I would have to give the drama an 8.5 instead of a solid 10. Somehow for me, the storyline became a bit bland during the second half and mostly towards the end. I did enjoy the first half so much and I am glad that they focused on their romantic scenes, but the second half of the storyline underdelivered for me. I find the villain Prince Sui to be completely weak and nothing but a fool. The other so-called 'chief instructor' didn't do much to help make it look like they were really against a strong and cunning opponent. It would have been much nicer if the 'villain' was at par with our beloved powerful couple. The ending of the villain dissatisfied me and all it took was his own mother 'empress dowager' for him to fall from his high horse. I do get that it was also all thanks to Liu Mian Tang and Lord Huai Yang's genius masterplan, but I wished they showed us more of them and their fight scenes. Honestly, that fight scene at the last episode when they were breaking out of prison was the best scene for the second half of the drama, apart from their adorable and well-detailed wedding.

I also had this thought, maybe if the director was going to focus on their romance, wouldn't it had been better if they started the drama by showing us more of Lu Wen and Lord Huai Yang fighting against each other then inserting their fake marriage and then them falling in love. If they did such, Lu Wen's character would be less vague and have much more dimension. It would have been much more interesting if we got to explore more about their past together when they were enemies. Regardless, I still enjoyed this drama because of the actors. Wang Churan truly suited her character as Liu Mian Tang and Lu Wen, she is a beautiful actress and would love to see her in more baddass roles like Lu Wen, as it suited her so much. Zhang Wan Yi's portrayal of Lord Huai Yang, Cui Jiu and Cui Xing Zhou on the other hand, with his comedic facial expression, strong facial expression, and emotional facial expression during heavy scenes deserves an applause. He has his own charm in completely captivating eyes of viewers, specially in scenes where he dominates at court or at war. They both did a great job that I still got to enjoy this drama because of them in the end. I also love the cute chemistry between them.

For the supporting characters, I honestly only liked Xueji the most. At first I thought her character would annoy me like Yun er's character but she was the complete opposite. I loved her character apart from the main leads and wished she had more romantic scenes with Ziyu. As for the second couple, He Zhen and Zhao Quan, I didn't feel much chemistry between them, although I did find Zhao Quan funny.

Overall, all the cast did a great job. I am looking forward to more of Zhang Wan Yi and Wang Churan's future project.