Despite everyone singing praises for this drama, I felt very differently about it and this drama turned out to be a giant disappointment for me.

Let's start with the things I didn't like about this drama. First off, I found Chen Xingxu's character terribly bland in this drama. His character is what I might have expected from a drama from a few years back. All the recent Wuxia/Xianxia drama's male mcs have been so good lately so I felt like Youqin just fell really short in term of character's depth and personality. And this disappointed me terribly because I loved Chen Xingxu in Goodbye My Princess. I loved his character so much I had a Pinterest board for him 😂 So I was looking forward to his performance in this drama. I can't blame him though, I felt like his character was poorly written due to script writing and the directing.

Honestly, the whole time I watched this drama, there was not one moment where I felt like I wanted to root for Youqin or felt like I shipped Youqin and Yetan. All the plotlines that play out to suggest they're experiencing hardships and going through near death experiences together felt very forced. If I compare this drama to Love Between Fairy and Devil or Ashes of Love, this drama falls very short in terms of creating hardships that force the main couple to have a deep attachment to each other. It feels like the writer tried their best to create situations where the main couple would feel a desperate need for each other or create this whole "I can't live without you" thing but failed.

HOWEVER, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the relationship and storyline between Chaofeng and Qingkui because it felt genuine and natural. From the get go, Qingkui is not portrayed as your typical smart, witty, strong female character who has a sad backstory (yes unlike Yetan). So I honestly didn't expect much out of her storyline. But OMG I love her. She's got a heart of gold and I love her genuine nativity. It felt refreshing to watch.

I love the relationship between her and Chaofeng that develops. I'm a real sucker for male characters who think they're super bad boy but when they meet a girl they like, become such a simp. I like how the beginning of their relationship starts with Chaofeng having to lie and manipulate her despite not wanting to as he needs her to take his side. He's constantly trying to convince himself that he's only nice to her because power and the throne is his ultimate goal but eventually realises that he truly loves her. It's such a classic but underrated trope and it's played out very well in this drama. Damn I was soooo whipped for these two. ALSO the costumes for the Void Realm was absolute chef's kiss. Both Chaofeng's and Qingkui's clothes, hair and accessories gave me life!!! I screamed like crazy at Chaofeng's gorgeous wedding gown. Chef's kiss I tell you.

Lastly, this drama is one of those dramas that starts off very promising and intriguing and then falls short by the last quarter. By episode 30 or so, I felt like I was watching filler episodes of an anime. Everything became very boring and surface. There were no longer plotlines that threatened the existence or happiness of our characters. It's a pretty much all lovey dovey happy happy for a really long time. And eventually when there was a threat, I felt like they threw it in last minute just to make the story interesting.

Overall it's a decent drama for anyone who's new to Xianxia or watching this genre for the first time. But it definitely felt like I was watching Ashes of Love all over again with the sets and similar Xianxia storyline. What started out as a 8/10 ended up being a 6.5/10 for me!