Seriously the best Cdrama of 2021 for me. I personally feel like the episodes are too short despite it being 38 episodes. Everything moves so fast and there are a lot of things happen at the same time. It’s one of the drama that you feel that you can watch hundreds of episodes of them since it is simply entertaining and intriguing, and believe me, 38 episodes of this is not enough at all. It is cleverly written with well-developed characters and most of all, I love the message that the author wanted to deliver in his story.

One of the greatest premises of the drama is the well planned and clever schemes that took decades to materialize. I love how Xu Xiao is like a master of chess that no matter how Fengnian tried to break away from his plans, he ended up following exactly what his father has set for him. It just made you shudder on how Xu Xiao has planned for literally everything and how even when Fengnian did things opposite of him, he ended up following his father's plans again. It was cleverly written with so many interesting details.

Aside from that, I love how they cover the details and address the seemed 'pretentious' act that many leads like to make in historical dramas. Like one of the Lady pointed out Fengnian's hypocrisy of saving the whole Wang family at the expense of killing his army. The way he answered it holds so many truths as soldiers are different from innocent civilians. Their job is to protect the civilians and he is with them fighting the bad guys all the way at the expense of his life as well. Or the motivations of his mother not revealing the assassination attempt on her and his father's choice not to wage war with the royal family for personal vendetta is handled really well. Everything made sense, with no plot holes and every decision holds true to every character's motivation even when they only appear couple of minutes in the drama. For someone who appreciate details and bullet-proof story with no plot holes, this drama is a total joy. I also appreciate how the schemes are done with basis and very detailed preparations and it is not like they are solely predicting the enemies' moves and actions but they are actually geared the enemies to move according to their narrative. This is the brilliance of Fengnian and how he is as dazzlingly intelligent and probably smarter than his father or his teacher. That’s is why when he said he will get ‘both’, I believe him since he has the brains to get all the things that he wants without compromising either one, whether his beliefs or morals.

Zhang Ruoyun did amazingly in this role. I think the brilliance in his acting is how he separate Fan Xian and Fengnian completely despite both characters are very similar in many ways -- extremely brilliant & intelligent, talented at martial arts, unpredictable, loyal, warm-hearted, funny, playful, full of love but underneath all that, both are a reluctant hero who just wish to live a happy and untroubled life with their family. Both have 90% traits similar with each other but there are not 1 ounce of Fan Xian that I see in Fengnian. Fan Xian seemed like someone who didnt care about anything at all while Fengnian is someone who cares so much -- so much to a point that even his enemies can know and predict his moves. Zhang Ruoyun handles Fengnian delicately and proved again how he is one of the best actors of his generation.

The last episode pretty much very satisfactory and while I can predict why Fengnian wants to make a do with XuanXuan family for the water routes, I never thought it is for his mother's revenge, I thought it is to bring his siblings home. I was intrigued to know who is his accomplice at the court and everything is answered with many hints of secrets lurking at the background. I know it will be gazillion years before we can watch the 2nd season but I will wait patiently. Great dramas are not made in one day and this is the case for this one.