I watched in hope I will get to see a strong female lead and it did surpass my expectation on how Mai work really hard to got on her position now. She have a strong character and what i like the most is that she started from the bottom! So it’s not the “typical” Mary Sue story, if you want to watch the character development of the female lead, I would really recommend this drama.

But I cannot hide my disappointment on how the story only focus on the love interest rather than putting the whole plot together pieces by pieces, slowly. It seems that the love between Shang Yi Zhi and Mai seems to be forced to happen that fast. How do I get to this conclusion? Because Mai had been disguised as a male all these years, and catching feelings with a man (a himbo) she just met was so questioning to me.

All through the 34 episodes, I’ve been wondering if Yi Zhi is really the male lead. Why he didn’t have that heartthrob chemistry with Mai? And for the last two episodes my questions had been answered. It is sure a plot twist for me, and I would rate this drama 8.5 if they didn’t waste all the previous episodes just to make us feel things about Yi Zhi and Mai romance story.

There are some important parts of the story that prevent me from giving 8.5 rating too, some are how they try to fast forward some conflicts, they don’t even bother to retell the story on why would Qi Jing want all the children born that year dead (which I think was an important part of the story, because this was mentioned a few times), the story on how Chen Qi come to Beimo and obtained his high position after killing his godparents was never mentioned until the end of the episode, and we see some Beimo palace conflicts and how strong the Chang family but we never truly “see” them, again it was mentioned a few times but we didn’t get to see them again. ?

But there are some other things that made me truly disappointed about this drama is that there was supposed to be 3 male leads here. But I accept that one was supposed to have a brotherly bond to Mai. But Chang Yu Qing had a lot of potential to be the one with Mai. But he only had a few screen times even though he was titled as the “Main Role” here, along with Tang Shao Yi.

I don’t know if they will continue the relationship or not in S2 (if it ever happens though). How come that I see more chemistry between Mai and Yu Qing, than Mai with Yi Zhi? But I still hope that they will make a S2 to answer all my questions (again, if it ever happens).

Lastly, Mai is such a baddie and I don’t really think the male leads here deserve her. ?