I wonder if other viewers have different standards or is grade inflation the norm for drama reviews as well. The premise of the story is interesting enough but this show is severely let down by very poor writing and pacing. This drama is based on a book and since I have not read the book, I do not know if it is the original story itself that is dumb or script changes that made it dumb. For a story about a strong FL with brains and martial arts skills, the FL got to demonstrate her martial arts for a total of 3 times lasting less than 5 mins over the course of a 24 episode long season. That can be forgiven if the intrigue and subplots were more interesting, but all the schemes are transparently obvious to anyone with half a brain. Suspense is near zero. Comedic relief is there but too infrequent to make it truly entertaining. That whole “I want to be a feeble beauty” schtick was entertaining for 5 episodes but got old very fast and every time the FL repeated it, you just want to roll your eyes and fast forward the show.

The worst is the ending. The writers suddenly decided to have no consequences for all the pretty boys who might have any female fan following. The Jinpo second prince suffered no consequences (not even a confrontation) for attempting to kill the ML and FL, multiple times!!! The triple agent Yun Hao appeared to have died in the arms of the woman he cares out (which would be a satisfactory death) but appeared alive with no explanation given. This is an agent who could have died multiple times in the whole show.

Very very disappointing overall.