I love JiangHu brotherhood/friendship dramas and I thought everything about this show was quite good, except the romance between Xiao Se and Sikong Qianluo. All the other couples in the show have understandable reasons for pairing up, but XS and SQ seemingly just decided to like the other out of nowhere like the staff wanted to check off a box for them. It doesn't help that the actors have zero chemistry, even when they're next to each other and saying romantic dialogue, their body language is stiff as if they're resisting being too close together. This is even more striking if you directly compare how XS interacts with Wuxin (who is just a close friend) where his entire posture changes and face seems to brighten and open up, where with SQ he maintains that same guarded body language and expression, only his mouth is seemingly saying stuff that sounds sweet. Unfortunately they did spend some time trying to develop this (minor) subplot and it was annoying having to manually skip their scenes, which is why I mention it.

Some people were disappointed by the ending, but in my opinion it was very fitting. It was obvious what road XS was going take as the show reminds us repeatedly what kind of person he looked up to and what he had always wanted to do with his life. I feel like if he'd chosen differently it would've gone against the entire spirit of the show.