Madison

I LOVED the side stories, Feng Jiu was actually my fave character lol. But you def have a point about it not being perfect, Ye Hua and Bai Qian definitely don't have the most healthy relationship, but you still root for them anyway because you want them to be happy. The story, although iffy at some points still got the job done of being hella entertaining (to me anyway). But I've only seen a handful of chinese dramas so I dont have very much for comparison.. Yet, out of the romance ones i have seen this one actually had the least tragic ending.

Chinese romance dramas are wild, expecially if it's a wuxia/fantasy concept.

OKAY plagerism controvercy over the original book aside; this drama is amazing! I personally thought the story was really interesting and harrowing especially for a romance drama. This is the story of Bai Qian and Ye Hua make no mistake, however even the side storys and characters were entertaining and didn't necessarily make you want to skip through them. Although this show is definately a tear jerker it also has an amount of comic relief that balances out the hardcore dramatic parts in my opinion.. and overall it's really well made aside from the classic chinese tv CGI (which you totally get used to). Honestly this is one of my favorite chinese dramas and although it's a shame the original story has faced so much backlash over the plagerism issue it doesn't change my love for this drama. <3