The actor who plays the ML has a permanent sour look on his face. Why does he permanently look like he just secretly ate a pack of Sour Patch Kids? He doesn't have another facial expression other than this one, and I just can't understand why. I could make allowances for some wooden stoic archetypes but to have your one and only facial expression be so sour? Hmmm.... no, I can't make logical sense of this.

Plenty of wooden actors in Chinese dramas, but none of them have this sour expression permanently pasted on their face. This trait belongs to this actor alone.

As for Bai Lu. Well, I can't fault her. She is so beautiful and likeable. I think it's impossible not to like this actress. She is one of the best Chinese actresses working today.

The plot feels quite empty. Young, mute noblewoman sent to a prince's estate to learn from him about life. Finds herself falling in love with him, and he with her. She stops being mute at some point in the story.... oh, and there are a bunch of wars going on and political intrigue. The only interesting character is the antagonist, of course, because he isn't just handed what he wants, which is to marry the woman betrothed to him in childhood, and to be the crown prince, which he is clearly the best candidate for to begin with, but.... mustn't make things easy for him or he wouldn't end up the bitter antagonist.

I was quite content with the characters that died, since I didn't like them anyway. I was rooting for the antagonist the whole time and hoping he would get everything he desired in life, after suffering so many disappointments. I don't think he was a terrible person, if I remember correctly. Anyway, all I felt watching this drama was excruciating boredom, so I skipped a lot of it, as it was incredibly slow in any case. Yeah, yeah, the FL saw the ML's "inner beauty", but for me, the story didn't reveal anything endearing, never mind beautiful behind that sour face.

4.5 silent sour faces out of 10.