I make it no secret that ZLS is my favourite actress and i always watch every drama that she's in; I find a lot with her dramas she will always be its main saving grace that will make watching anything bearable.

I did not have to worry about that in this case.

PREMISE:
Cheng Shaosheng has grown up without a mother or father - they aren't dead, they just kind of, accidentally, maybe on purpose abandoned her and left her in the care of her abusive aunt and grandmother. Now that her parents are back, her mother is adamant on teaching her daughter how to be a proper lady.

Not exactly easy when you suddenly walk into your daughter's life fifteen years after abandoning her and are like "yeah, i'm gonna be a mother now".

Intricately woven through the story is SS connections to other characters; first is the seemingly cold and meticulous Ling Buyi - a general who has made a name for himself both on and off the battlefield as a fierce warrior and cunning war hero. His morals trump his feelings and often acts on what he believes is right, not what the law or his emperor say. Then Yuan Shanjian - a scholar who is well known in the capital for his brilliance and also his snide personality. His intelligence gives him this lofty air, but also this disconnect from being able to connect with people and his own emotions. Finally, baby boy Lou Yao - gentle, sweet, gullible but kind and genuinely a good person. He isn't stupid by any means, but naive and led by his feelings and his heart in the face of all reason.

While there are many, /many/ storylines in this drama, its main focal point is SS and LBY and their romance, the trials and tribulations that come with it and eventually overcoming all hurdles to be together.

OVERARCHING THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS DRAMA:
As stated in the beginning, I started this drama knowing nothing save for ZLS being in it and that was enough to sell me on it. This drama does have a more "rom-com"-esque feel about it the first ten episodes, but it never fully drops the comedy entirely; there are still funny scenes and I find most of them surround the palace life which is SUCH a breath of fresh air considering palace life is always shown as being dark, cruel and unliveable. Many stories and characters are connected to one another; characters you think are gone are not actually gone and come back, backstories of forgotten encounters, you name it. There wasn't really one constant flow of a main storyline save for the romance, but rather different ones being picked up, carried out and finished with and i am glad that we didn't get a constant storyline dragged out for a total of 56 episodes.

I will state that the show really shone and bumped itself up into a 9 star rating with the last ten episodes; LBY's own storyline, now that i reflect on it, had been peppered in so silently and subtly throughout the show once it was revealed i had to pause and be like "HOW THE HELL DID I MISS THAT OH MY GOD?!". The last ten episodes are honestly the BEST episodes out of the entire drama; that isn't to say the remaining previous ones are bad or boring, they were a delight and i enjoyed them greatly, but episode 46 onwards really just sucks you into the drama in a way that it wasn't able to before.

But what really made the show, was its characters.

THE CHARACTERS:
Cheng Shaosheng is a beautifully tragic yet also someone who has an indomitable human spirit. She's quite innocent and naive to begin with, playful, wilful and has learned to look out for herself since her paternal grandmother and her aunt have been abusive to her since being abandoned by her parents as a baby when they went out to fight their emperor's wars. This is an extremely important part to both the story and to SS character; without having ever felt loved or experienced kindness, SS is incredibly insecure. She chases after love yet is also afraid of it too. She wants it, but is scared that once she has it, she'll be abandoned like how her parents abandoned her. It's not that she believes she doesn't deserve love, it's just she believes she is simply unlucky that love is something that will always be unattainable to her in this life - because if even her own parents could abandon her, how could anyone else decide to stick around?

Because of a lack of any parental love or guidance and a formal education, SS isn't exactly the typical noble lady. She's crass, rude, arrogant, stubborn, informal and acts on her own accord without regard for other people. I don't see these as bad qualities, in fact i would say that these traits are foundations for her own growth and therefore are impossible to hate because she never crosses that line of being detestable or selfish. She's learning her way around this new world that was previously closed off to her and she approaches it like an excited child, but learns as much as there is good in the world, most of it is off limits due to her gender.

One important aspect that is consistently hammered in is that SS has learned to put and love herself first, but she still feels empty; one of the most important things to SS character is her endless desire to gain her mother's approval. I never really understood WHY Yuanyi was so harsh on her daughter; i know it said it was because she wanted her daughter to become a proper lady, but... it just never made sense. Yuanyi is a general's wife and also fought alongside him on the battlefield; if anything, she goes against what a noble lady should be. She continuously shuts down her daughter's desperate attempts to form a bond with her, tears down her self esteem and self worth so much so that SS internalises all of this and it results in her reiterating her mother's cruel and harsh words time and time again every time someone praises her or is kind to her.

That is why I first want to talk about her relationship to Empress Xuan before I talk about any other relationship in the show.

Maybe it's my own personal projection, but I saw a lot of myself in SS throughout the entirety of their relationship. EX is a mother who is not close to her children, be it because of propriety and rules of palace life, or because she recognises that they are cruel and shallow and do not care for their mother as they should. EX suffers with the realisation that she is not truly loved by anyone, though care as they might and her predicament is exactly like SS, which results in honestly the most heart wrenching and beautiful depictions of a mother-daughter relationship I've ever seen.

In EX, SS finds the mother she should have gotten and always deserved; the empress always empathises with SS, she reminds her of her better qualities instead of her worse ones, she's kind and caring, understanding and always quick to help SS with problems she doesn't understand, such as marriage and being filial. You can really see how much SS yearns for EX to be her mother and even despite not being biologically related, EX actually DOES become her mother, just as SS becomes her daughter. For EX, SS is the daughter she always should have had; SS is kind and attentive, she tries to make the empress happy with even the smallest of things, she seeks her wisdom and her advice and cares for her above all others, even LBY. In the midst of everyone scheming and these two women having little control over their fate, they find comfort and love where they never found it before. It's honestly got me emotion writing this because as little time as they got, the fact they got any time at all was a blessing enough.

Personally, my interpretation, is that the rift between Yuanyi and SS never fully heals once YY realises that SS has chosen EX over her and she recognises that another woman has taken her place as SS's mother. SS might now accept her mother's affections as YY might now decide to give them to her, but there's this sense that they will never have that mother and daughter bond that SS always wanted and YY was too late to give.

The importance of family/found family is also shown through LBY and his own arc.

Ling Buyi is presented as this archetypical main male lead character who is feared, cold and calculating but he's never really actually cruel; he has his own ambitions and his own view of what justice is and should be, and he does a lot to achieve this and I never found myself really disagreeing with him or being against his actions because the show took great lengths to get the audience to understand and empathise with him, which I found impossible not to do so. Like SS, LBY is unsure of how to love and be loved, therefore he stumbles a lot when he's pursuing SS; for most of it, he keeps his feelings silent because of missed opportunities that arise that prevent him from telling her his feelings and also would not be beneficial for him to tell her his feelings for her. In my own interpretation, I don't think LBY fully understood the scope of his feelings until a sudden snap realisation; he knew he cared for her, but it wasn't an instant love at first sight for SS, but rather a curiosity that stemmed into caring for her before making way for love.

I want to talk about LBY character first before his relationship with SS; as I stated before, the last ten episodes of the show are honestly the peak of the show. Before episode 46, I wasn't sure how I felt Leo Wu/LBY as a main character; i definitely didn't dislike him by any means. I think he did perfectly with the role that he was given considering LBY characterisation - someone who was suffering with major trauma and PTSD who learned to shut his emotions off from the world and himself, therefore not leaving Leo Wu much to work with outside of the many heart fluttering moments he has w SS during their honeymoon period.

However, once episode 46 hit I honestly can say I was completely and utterly blown away by LBY character arc in a sense that I've not felt since I watched the red wedding in game of thrones.

LBY is a deeply traumatised person who never got the chance to heal and recover and internalised all that he suffered until he met his breaking point. Episode 48 of this show is one of the best pieces of media that I have ever watched and Leo Wu put his entire Wussy into it. You could see every single thought and feeling coursing through LBY - the realisation that he finally achieved all that he wanted, and how empty it felt now that he had it. Watching him break into tears before laughing, switching from completely breaking down to an empty realisation that all that he did meant nothing, brokenly laughing at how many years he wasted and that it didn't fill that void as he thought it would. I remember watching that entire episode completely stunned by the performance given by Leo Wu, showing how LBY was simply an act to cover up the man he truly was - a man who lost everything and now the only thing keeping him going left him more empty than ever before. All his suffering and he received no solace in the end and ended up ruining his own chance at happiness and at a normal life. I literally cannot encapsulate the emotions that ran through me watching that scene of LBY finally confronting his demons, his past and the reason behind it all because there are no words to fathom my thoughts into writing at it all.

From that point on, LBY becomes this ghost of the man he was; you can sense the difference in his demeanour from who he was before and who he became, how empty he is once he realised that vengeance did not put old ghosts to rest and now he has to live the rest of his life with regrets, compared to before where it was only fuelled with rage. He becomes despondent, unattached, a shell who cares not if he lives or dies. It's truly heartbreaking because at the same time you can understand WHY he did it, you can empathise with him while also wondering why he couldn't just move on.

This leads to the problem that I have with SS and LBY relationship.

Before I talk about anything else, I want to talk about my problem with how SS, as much as she says she understands, isn't really capable of it, and it's down to her own trauma that prevents her from doing so. Considering what LBY was forced to go through especially at a young age, a lot of the time it's SS asking him to forget the past and choose the future with her while not understanding the immense amount of suffering and trauma that he has been struggling with since being forced to witness a genocide as a child. This stems from the difference in their traumas: SS begs LBY to let go of the past not because she knows it hurts him, but because she wants him to choose her, to love her, to not abandon her as her parents did, whereas LBY is unable to fulfil that because of the trauma he was forced to undergo and believing that only when he achieves justice that he will be able to give himself to SS wholeheartedly without forcing the burden of his own demons onto her. As much as SS states she does understand, I don't think she truly does because her own trauma makes her incapable of it since she is still stuck in that mindset that if she isn't number one in someone's heart, it means that she is not in their heart at all.

But I truly feel like their relationship was all the better for all that they went through; learning to trust one another and be open with one another, accepting the parts of each other that they believed unacceptable before. SS is terrified that once married, she will lose her identity as her own being and simply become LBY's wife, but he constantly reiterates to her that it will never happen and that he would never want to take away her freedom and her identity. SS constantly tries to make sure LBY understands she will not leave his side (until breaking point but let's ignore that) and she accepts every part of him, going with him to see his mother, comforting him when he feels helpless, defending him when everyone keeps saying he's cold and cruel. LBY fell first and he fell harder, but that doesn't diminish the scope of SS's own feelings - she loves him truly and deeply, to the point she would join him in the afterlife than be without him, but she never lets her love erase her own self of being and identity and LBY never makes her do so. The respect that they have for one another goes beyond what I've seen in other drama couples, and it was slowly built up over time and I have a feeling will last forever.

One other important aspect I want to talk about is the palace life and the relationship between Empress Xuan, Emperor Wen and Consort Yue Fei. Whereas other dramas might pit the two women against one another (the latter is the childhood sweetheart and first wife of the Emperor and the former is his official wife), there's nothing like that in this show. In fact, I honestly have to say all three people were the least toxic characters in the entire show. While EW and YF are childhood sweethearts, they are never cruel or callous the EX; EW is kind and caring to EX, but we know he does not love her in the way she wants, while YF continuously sees EX as a friend and even as a sister. True, EX is an outlier, watching YF and EW be in love and act like teenagers, but they actively never exclude her. They both deeply respect EX and care for her, even if they are unaware that their actions make EX feel alienated.

Also, I just want to say i love Emperor Wen. Like, i think he might be my favourite character. While he does provide the bulk of the comic relief towards the latter half of the show, he's not a comedic character; he sees LBY as his own son, only wants what's best for him and to live a happy and normal life, protecting him as much as he can without making him untouchable, acting as a doting father to LBY without letting LBY walk all over him. we stan Emperor Wen in this household.

There are a lot more characters I could write about such as the other two male love interests, but I don't really have many thoughts on them that are important in this review.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
This show took me the better part of a week to finish and I have no regrets. Everything about this show was simply sublime, the pacing, the romance, everything. I don't know if I will rewatch it simply because I have the attention span of a goldfish and 56 episodes was a LOT to watch for me to begin with, hence why it took me so long to finish (hence the 8.5 rewatch value).

OTHER COMMENTS:
- the cinematography, acting and soundtrack in this show was fantastic and once again I round back to episode 48 which is where this show really, and I mean really, became a masterpiece. That episode is one of the best episodes of any show that I have ever watched. The acting from Leo Wu was PHENOMENAL, I am expecting that man to win a lot of awards for this episode alone. The music score and switching the scenes back from LBY and SS trying on her wedding dress honestly tore my heart into pieces. Even if the show was terrible (which is absolutely wasnt) this episode and the following episodes would have entirely made up for the rest of the show.
- personally, I'm glad they dropped most of the comedic element of the show after the first ten episodes. It was nice to have it peppered in throughout, but not have it constantly.
- The editing and VFX for this show was AMAZING; there are so many beautiful shots in this show that doesn't look cheap and tacky with the use of CGI. It's honestly the best use of CGI and VFX that I've seen any drama, but specifically a cdrama, ever use.
- The production and sets were also so aesthetically beautiful, god everything about this show was BEAUTIFUL to look at.
- episode 48? episode 48.

CONCLUSION:
The cast better invest in massive bags because they're all going to be walking away with all of the awards this season.