I don’t know why, but for some reason Chinese dramas lack that little “it factor” that makes Korean dramas so good in comparison. While I’m watching this drama, I can’t help but compare it to Hometown Cha Cha Cha, since I’m watching the two side by side. There’s just an emotional element and cohesiveness that’s missing in My Fated Boy and other Chinese dramas and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. My main problem is that the side characters in this drama had absolutely no impact on the plot. Some side stories made no logical sense to me, such as the cousin (?) of Lu Zheng An who was pursuing (?) the FL. I never really understood the point of him having any sort of storyline since it was completely separated from the main plot and followed no logic. Similarly, the friend or relative or something like that of the Second FL had no existing contribution to the plot. There were some scenes of her and her husband, my I mentally checked out when I was watching those parts because I just didn’t quite understand their point. What I’m trying to say is that besides the love line, the entirety of this drama was just dull, directionless, and all over the place. I also couldn’t for the life of me justify the ML’s intense attraction to FL. It seemed obsessive-level to me because he literally molded his entire life around her existence, from the location that he lived, to the job that he pursued, to the way that he acted around her. If you find this type of person in real life, you'd most likely discover serious attachment issues and stalker tendencies. Cute in the drama, not cute when you think about it for more than a couple minutes. All in all, there was a great lack of engaging story, likable and realistic characters, and direction to the plot. I had this drama rated a lot lower initially, but I was satisfied with the lack of a cliche break-up that I bumped it up just a little bit. I wouldn’t recommend this.
Ps: did I mention it took me 2 months to sludge through this drama?