Possibly the best relationship development I've seen in a long while? It's a slow burn at the start, but it gives us the necessary foundation to see Shiyi and Lingyi's relationship flourish, from it's unconventional start to its crowning finish. The show shines when its focus is on their romance and showing us how the two come to care for each other. Its political subplots are not very creative and most of the villains could be twirling their non-existent mustaches, but overall, I appreciated the serious tone and comedy-free plot The story also has a large female cast - at times, it does a great job of giving us a variety of opinions and attitudes to contrast with Shiyi's more demure nature, other times, its portrayal of female perspectives is horrendous. Er Niang's entire storyline, for example, does not mesh well with Shiyi's characterization and watching that entire mess unfold was hard. I also feel the third act suffers under the original setup of the series; it was sad to see the originally well-developed side characters turn into (albeit manipulated) villains of the week to force them out of the story and give us the endgae the plot demanded. Still, this had me hooked the entire time and I am glad I found out about this.

The MILs are the biggest villians of the show ; those concubine womes are just glorified slave or trophy wife glad polygamy is no longer acceptable in most parts of the world ; 90% of this show is woman screwing women and thats digusting to watch or promote. The wird hairstyle choices of the maid and one of the villaness cracked me up and Shi Yi always innocnetly flirting with second meal doesn't help her chances with LingYi only for he is in love with her that he tolerates her a many advanced of his age a c**ck*ld husband.