The series was at its best with the main couple and how their relationship grew, it felt authentic and enjoyable and I love the transformation of DFQC to wifeguy extraordinaire. Xiao Lanhua was annoying at the beginning, but post-mortal realm she had a lot more depth and even some pretty thought-provoking insights (I'm not even talking about post-Goddess, because vanilla XLH in the arc pre transformation's maturity and willingness to accept responsibility surprised me a lot). This is where I agree that the drama really makes you fall in love with her through DFQC's eyes. She grows on you, until her absence is very much felt. I really appreciate the themes of peace and breaking the cycle of revenge and the very blatant anti-war message. The drama conveyed these ideas very well and with weight. I think the only thing that would've made it better is if Yunzhong Jun actually...faced some kind of repercussions for being a warmongering bastard and just generally an extremely unkind being with the empathy level of a rock. But I suspect that would've been too much for the censorship standards, and well, George Bush never got repercussions for war crimes so I guess it's only realistic Yunzhong Jun doesn't either.

Plot wise everything with the Tai Sui stuff gets sillier and sillier until you're just like lollll at the end. Whatever intricacies Ronghao followed to not only resurrect Chidi but also fuck it up spectacularly are kind of muddled and run on shaky internal logic. I also thought Changheng overstayed his welcome sometimes, as did Jie Li. Danyin, Xun Feng and Shang Que are great; I'm glad Danyin got to be her own character, and I'm predictable but the family drama with Xun Feng and their father is the part that made me most emotional. It made me cry a couple times, which is the base line of an enjoyable cdrama imo.

Effects and production wise this unfortunately was kind of a reminder as to why I usually avoid Xianxia dramas. It has some great elements and characters, but that doesn't change the fact that I just don't tend to enjoy the stylistic and trope choices of the genre, and watching the fight scenes that consist of two guys pointing CGI laser beams at each other didn't really help. You can tell where they used up the budget and where they didn't, because the backdrops and main characters' costumes tend to look great, the animated opening is one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen in a cdrama, and then you get to some of the gods' costume and crown pieces and it's like a piece of plastic. And yeah, I know it's not super fair to pick on a silly little drama for its visual effects, but I also wouldn't do it if xianxia dramas didn't rely so much on it. I would even accept poor effects if they were even a little more creative about it, instead of just having a stream of little light.

Overall a pretty okay way to pass the time, but wasn't the It drama for me like it was for so many others. Which is totally okay. Not its fault, I just prefer my dramas a little weightier.