After being on hold in my list for over a year i finally finished it and i get it why most people love it while others hate it. I said in a comment that i can't bring myself to love it like most people. I really have mixed feelings about it. So I will start with what i loved the most and then go on to my dissatisfaction and rants. Oh god this will be a long one and spoiler heavy.

Production: Clearly this show had a BIG budget. The costumes were totally stunning. The backgrounds, cgi and the show as a whole was aesthetically pleasing.
Music: I am not a chinese speaker nor do i understand the language, so i judge basically on the music, then go for the translated lyrics. The tracks were magical. The music felt more in tune with the show than the lyrics to me. This album is one of my most favorite of cdrama albums.
Acting: The SML and FL are 2 of the actors i really love, but performance of everyone was beautiful and believable.

Story and characters: this is what i want to rant about. Why? What did Runyu ever do to the author? His character had a depth and complexity. He was thoroughly the most pitiful and pathetic character who ALWAYS got the short end of the stick. He suffered so much, lost so much. He was extremely tolerant and patient with jinmi, and loved her so much, he sacrificed so much for her, he did so much for her, but with absolutely nothing in return. It is understandable that he went down the wrong path eventually in the end because he most definitely deserved A LOT better but he got the worst.
Now on to Jinmi and Xufeng. Well i didn't like them. In the initial episodes when she was a little ignorant girl, it was better. She became horrible after she did THAT. She was indecisive and dumb. Even when she thought she avenged her parents, she failed everyone. She sacrificed so much for Xufeng, who practically was the root of all her troubles and Runyu was always her savior. This is one of the less common shows where its FL sacrifices for the ML with the SML endlessly sacrificing for her. I felt that Xufeng had the least growth in the entire series. He stayed the same- a kind, strong, privileged guy with easy life; devoted but filial lover who failed to protect his love from his parents.
Suihe was super evil and got what she deserved. Then come the heavenly emperor and empress. They were the definition of evil and what they got was too light on them. The demon princess was dumb brave and rest of the characters were okay. I must say i loved jinmi's father and his wife.
About the story... well the author obviously loved xufeng and hated runyu so everything that went on during the story were in his favor. I had it on hold for so long because the amount of evil things going on were too much foŕ me to take. The story might have played out differently if the mortal arc didn't have xufeng, she wouldn't have fallen in love with him so deeply. Many people make Runyu look like the villain but what they don't say is how xufeng forcibly kept her with him from the very beginning when she didn't even know about relationships and treated them the same. Runyu fell for her at first sight then it kept growing. It wasn't the same for xufeng who fell for her after seeing her dressed up as a woman. Well i obviously like runyu more so i shipped them. But whatever happened was for the ending to be like that. So everything was wrapped up very well, despite the bittersweet ending.

I would recommend watching it. If not for the story and characters, for the pretty visuals and beautiful music that it offers. And though similar tropes were used in LAR and this, their stories are vastly different.