I have adored this drama and have shed a lot of tears. Those who love tragic romance and are interested in palace politics and romance but are looking for one with more depth in terms of story and character development are in the right place.

Let me start with what I appreciate about this drama.

♡ In-depth character design of antagonists:
GBMP is the first drama at which I cried over the antagonists. Stories of antagonists were so developed that you truly understood the reasons for their actions. This drama succeeded in making them human, not merely tools. There are three main antagonists: the 2nd prince, the Queen, and the minister uncle, and I felt so much empathy for each of them. Unlike some dramas, at which additions could be seen as a way to add unnecessary episodes, this was not the case for GBMP. Their stories blend well with the main plot and provided the depth and appreciation we have for Li Cheng Yin's character development.

♡ Excellent blending of palace politics and romance:
I enjoy romance dramas with more depth and breadth. GBMP managed to blend the romantic aspects with political elements, such as war waging with neighboring countries and the internal power struggle of empirical families. It is a romance that is not about love at first sight and happily ever after, but about conditioned by political success and selfish personal objectives.

♡ Character design of Li Cheng Yin:
Primarily our main male protagonist Li Cheng Yin has all the aspects above built into his character development, which made him extremely interesting to watch. Throughout 55 episodes, I felt a rainbow of emotions towards him: love, respect, hate, sympathy, disgust, fear, and pity. I don't think there hasn't been one character ever that evoked this many different emotions in me. This inconsistency is what made me want to continue caring about the fate of him, Princess Xiao Feng, and the people around him. Despite having been spoiled of the ending of the drama, the anticipation of how LCY would become at the end is what kept me glued to the screen.

♡ Excellent acting and high-quality production:
As mentioned by many viewers, the acting of Peng Xiao Ran (starring Princess Xiao Feng) and Cheng Xing Xu is marvelous. Peng Xiao Ran perfectly depicted the innocent and playful Princess full of hope for the future, who, however, later becomes disillusioned of love and life. Cheng Xing Xu has the more difficult task of acting out the multi-faced character LCY: dark, ruthless at times, loving at times, unyielding to achieve his objectives and obtain the love of XF. At the start, LCY seemed a bit immature in acting, especially when crying, but it slowly got a lot better. In fact, especially since it was their first lead-role drama, both actors have excellent chemistry, which made the audience love and cry for them. I will continue to watch both of them.
One of the things I adore about this drama is the cinematography, especially the landscape shots at the start: the dunes, the valley, the prairie... It must be an expensive production. If it's not for the romance, I would recommend everyone to watch it just for these jaw-dropping shots. Finally, the OST is fantastic. This drama has one of my favorite songs and background music that again and again evoke those emotions in me whenever I hear them.

Now I few words about what I don't like about the drama and why I cannot give it a 10.

❤︎ The last 12 episodes were painful to watch:
I enjoy tragic dramas lot when they are well executed. I also don't have any issues with the final episode; in fact, I think it was well executed and XF's logical behavior. However, I don't particularly appreciate it when the makers create drama for the sake of creating drama. This already became apparent during the first arc, on which I closed one eye. But when the same script came back at full swing in the last 12 episodes, I started to get annoyed. A lot of the decisions and actions by the main characters were utterly illogical and groundless. Story development just felt very forced to justify female lead's final decision. Whether this has come from the novel or is original, I wish the makers would have put more thoughts into this (viewers are not dumb and realize all this); there are so many ways to conclude the same ending with more logical story development.

Overall, I would still recommend this drama as I find the story original, the production high-quality, and the acting of main leads outstanding. My heart still aches when remembering some of the scenes, and I can understand why some fans cannot let go of this drama, and rewatch it so many times. If you like tragic romance, this is the drama for you. If the story had found a sound ending at around episode 45, I would have given it a 9.5 or 10.

Below are some of my detailed rant about the unlogical parts of this drama which made me deduct so many points from the story despite me loving this drama so much (focusing on the two main leads' actions):

------------------------Please don't read beyond this point if you don't like spoilers-------------------------------------

Li Cheng Yin:
- To easily decide to take revenge at the Queen although she raised him for 20 years
- To naively believe Tanchi tripe has killed his brother and end up killing tripe of the woman his loves based on one person's statement
- To say out loud" he will overthrow the Queen as "he has proof to appoint her sins" and later "be sad/ disappointed" she decided to assassinate him
- Not to show any affection to XF to the very last minute although Queen has died and the uncle has almost lost too
- To suddenly become" a good king without any bloodshed" after XF has died despite being so ruthless all along

Xiao Feng:
- To be oblivious and naively believe that LCY only loves ZSS but not her
- After regaining her memory, to complete forget LCY's good after losing memory and only remembers his betrayal before that; also to hang on to the love of Gu Xiao Wu (who was lying to her at that time) but not that of LCY
- To hate LCY so much though the truth before losing memory is not much different from what she got to find out after losing memory at that time, she already forgave him
- To decide not to tell LCY anything about her hate towards him despite knowing he cannot remember and LCY asking so many times" why", i.e., she forced him to act this ruthlessly at the end
- To not to tell LCY that he is GXW despite GZ being killed in front of her eyes