Blossoms in Adversity main focus isn't really about the love story, the focus is moreso on the family and their growth through difficulties.

Due to a petty king, Hua Family was exiled and reduce to commoners from their high wealth status.
Their oldest granddaughter, Hua Zhi, eventually becomes the head of the family to take control of their lifestyle. Zhang Jingyi played Hua Zhi quite well and very convincing. I've seen several of her dramas, and honestly she's not phenomenal but she has improved from her early day until now. Hua Zhi is a very strong-willed, independent main female character. She knows what she wants, she holds her family together through difficulties and hardships. She is quite smart and I love that she doesn't care about what the public thopught of her and her family. At the end of the day, what motivates her are is her family and bringing home the exiled family members. I have watched a few of Zhang Jingyi's dramas over the years, I think she's a natural actress, everything she has acted in was quite natural and conforms nicely to the character she plays.

The love interest of Hua Zhi is Gu Yan Xi acted by Hu Yi Tian. Gu Yan Xi lives a double life in this drama, or tries to. Although one would think he's evil to the core but from the get-go you can see that he's someone who stands up for what is right. Unfortuantely, he also has to protect someone because he has no autonomy otherwise he would be slaughtered like most of his family. His love for Hua Zhi was seen from the beginning, you would see it in his actions where he would always be her shining knight in armor.
Hu Yi TIan's acting was quite a disappointment but not a surprise. I've seen him in other dramas, he has not changed from his early years to this drama. Hu does not use his facial muscles like other actors who also plays stoic characters. You would think there's some eye acting, but not really. His face is just.. .BLANK majority of the time. He has three distiguishable faces: pokeface aka blank face, smile happy face, and finally the shooketh face which literally looks like this every time he's shocked O_O. Sometimes when there's something that is shocking, his face doesn't even do anything. It was really HORRENDOUS to watch him. He was the reason why I did not want to watch this drama when it first came out because I would be very annoyed with the way he "acts." At this rate, he's more of a eye candy actor, not an actual actor. Fortunately, the martial choreography was quite nice and the storyline isn't really focused on his character compare to the females'.

A character that stood out to me is Shao Yao (Lu Yu Xiao) because she not only went through something traumatic, it seems she was also on the spectrum. It reminded me of how Park Eun Bi acted as an autistic character. Lu Yu Xiao nailed her role quite well. This is the second drama I've watched of hers, and we all know how amazing she was in MJTY and in this drama as well. I really hope she is one of the rare actresses who is willing to try out different roles, because so far it definitely showcased a lot of her acting abilities. I digress, Shao Yao is such an adorable character, she's also self aware of how her brother, Gu Yan Xi, and Hua family treats her: like a porcelein doll. However, she managed to find a very nice friend, Shen Huan (Biang Cheng), who didn't treat as such, and treated her like a normal human being, a friend. It was very heartwarming to see Shao Yao light up whenever Shen Huan shows up because their relationship was so innocent and adorable. I was rooting for the happy ending more than the main leads. lol

There were several veterans in this drama, most notably Myolie Wu. I honestly thought her character was going to be so annoying throughout the drama. lol The king in this drama was very annoying, he's very paranoid and petty so I will jsut leave at that.
I think the moral of this drama has taught me resilience is the best form of survival through difficult times. There will always be a solution even if you've fallen from the top. Which is exactly what Hua Zhi did to get her family back on their feet.

I would like to highlight how much i LOVE the OSTs in this drama, I haven't been hearing good music from cdramas for the past couple of months and this drama definitely have one of the bests OSTs out there, imo.

Blossoms of Adversity is definitely a must watch if you love 2010s cdramas of focusing on a female character's life through hardships to get to the top of the pyramid. It's a female centered drama where all the men are exiled, and the women needs to fend for themselves lest death of starvation.