Man this was a very frustrating show.

I enjoyed this a lot more during the early episodes; watching Shi Qi and Cui Lin steadily fall for each other while being badasses in their respective armies. It was so fun watching their antics and seeing them come up with strategies to one up each other. When things were calm and quiet, their love was really sweet to watch too with all the loving gazes they would always give each other, abundant kisses, and nose rubs.

However, there were just too many problems with this drama that made it unbearable to watch from the halfway mark. Main issues were the poorly developed villains and inconsistent writing of character personalities. The only villain worthy of being a villain was really only from the early episodes, thereafter we got stuck with such poor excuses for villains it was seriously embarasssing to watch. The villains made it hard for me to believe the story cos of how inept they were, I just kept wondering how any of the characters beside them were taking them seriously. At least, if you're going to have dumb villains, balance it out by making the people around them either recognize how dumb they are, call them out for being dumb or try to get them to be better. (I'm looking at you Liu Cheng Feng and subordinate / Emperor Li and Ministers). When the villains are dumb and no one seems to have a problem with that, it just makes the writing and plot look weak. And that is no fun to watch.

Also, another thing I didn't like was that our main couple weren't steadfast in their love for each other. Whenever crisis hit, they'd have a dramatic blowout and then reunite a couple days later. But then this kept repeating and it was dissapointing to see. After all the difficulties SQ and CL went through together, it would have been better to see them gradually become more trusting of each other and communicating with one another rather than the whole hot/cold treatment they'd give each other at every adversity that rose up.

I'm happy we got a fleshed out visual of the happy ending of SQ and CL's story, but I can't help but feel unsatisfied. Despite everything ending happily, it just feels so sad because of how much was lost to get to that happy ending. I can't help but think, "was it all worth it?"