emma

first of all heyu and mengziyi are amazing actors i watched this just for them- i will say i dont understand what was even going on in the beginning and the end (her realiving as a different person and him realiving at the end) but do i even care about the logistics of that?? it was a happy ending and im happy about that

i think something i really liked was xihe's character development throughout the show, i personally saw her depicted as a cold emotionless person in the first half and also super confused why all the princes fell for her despite her barely speaking to them or interacting with them at all in the first place so i really didn't like her character throughout that

but then we saw this gradual progression that i just loved so so much between them and i also grew to love the side couple SO SO much especially in the middle episodes where there wasn't really much going on between the main couple i was just waiting and waiting for a side couple scene and i was definitely not disappointed the way cuijinbai kept loving bushulin despite how many times she rejected him (the progression they made in the illegal mine operation OMGG)

another thing i just loved a lot was the loyalty between mo yu zhu zhun with xihe, and tianyuan with huayong- i find this to be a commonality in most historical dramas where theres a master figure and servant counterpart and i felt like just seeing the relationship between them all was so rare and so valuable the way they would all do anything for their master (esp tianyuan with EITHER xihe or huayong)

i will say the ending was choppy and im not sure how to feel about changqing's redemption arc... can i even call him a villain anymore after that death??? i definitely do wish that there was more solid explanation behind the guqingzhi and shenxihe switch, because that makes no sense at all and she never really went in depth about that so i feel it just leaves us all in confusion