This review may contain spoilers
unbelievably boring flimsy story
Before anyone just handwaives away my review as "being a hater," let me say that I had been looking forward to this for SIX ENTIRE MONTHS before it started airing bc I loved Hou Minghao so much in Fangs of Fortune. My friends who are also into CDramas could not get me to shut the f*ck up about how excited I was for this for like two whole months before episodes started dropping. And I still loathed this show. Now, having just come off of Fated Hearts when I started watching this, the deck was stacked against me bc the meticulous writing for that just makes almost everything else pale in comparison, but I'm confident I still would have had a terrible time with this even if I hadn't been coming down from the high that was Fated Hearts.
The whole entire set up of this show is the Ji Bozai/"Ming Yi" (Ming Xian, how I'll be referring to her for basically the rest of this review) romance. Yes, there is a bit of plot surrounding that with the sect politics, but the undeniable center of this show is the Ji Bozai/Ming Xian romance. Ming Xian, having had to lie about her identity her whole life and to literally everyone — seemingly the only people who know the truth are her mother and her animal companion, Twenty-Seven — holds her cards close to her chest and is reluctant to be honest with anyone. It's be nice if the show dug deeper into this fact and what it means for Ming Xian as a person, but sure, fine, this makes sense given how on guard she has to be around literally everyone all the time. So she has this facade of playing the damsel in distress to get Ji Bozai's attention and win his trust. Now, it'd be one thing if Ji Bozai thought this was her true personality, but it becomes clear pretty quickly that he's aware that this is just an act so...... what the hell is he falling for? Literally all he knows about her for the first third of the show is that she's playing him and putting on this facade. Like he knows absolutely nothing about *her* and he KNOWS he is not seeing the real her.... So, again, what is he falling for? And then, again, I don't inherently have a problem with Ming Xian lying to Ji Bozai, because — while the show should be connecting these dots and not me doing it myself — it makes sense given how she grew up in Yaoguang Mountain that she would have difficulty with being honest, but once she can no longer keep up this act bc she accidentally revealed that she has spiritual veins and Twenty-Seven — known to everyone as Ming Xian's animal companion — is accompanying her (meaning she has ties to Ming Xian and Yaoguang Mountain), she then is just incessantly lying to Ji Bozai. And this leads to one of my biggest problems with the romance: Ming Xian discovers Ji Bozai's goal of avenging his shifu in like... I want to say episode 7? So she has basically completely figured him out in the first 20% of the story — she knows his background, she knows his motivations, she knows what he wants to achieve. Ji Bozai doesn't know anything about Ming Xian until he learns her real identity in the last third of the show. Why should I be rooting for this romance when it is so uneven? (Also Ji Bozai just. sucks. lmao. After seeing Twenty-Seven appear in his home, he tells Ming Xian "Right now I'd rather kill you than Mu Qibai" as if he also hadn't been lying to her and using her for his plans?????????? And then after he starts to suspect that "Ming Yi" is Ming Xian he does all these f*cking tests to prove it instead of just asking her directly. Like he straight up does a test that WOULD kill her if he had been wrong. And I'm supposed to not want to throttle him for that??????????)
And to make matters worse on that front of Ming Xian's identity being hidden, one of the main antagonists literally comes to Ji Bozai's home WITH PROOF that "Ming Yi" is Ming Xian and it takes more than a dozen episodes after this for Ji Bozai to figure out that she is actually Ming Xian??????????? Like this is just embarrassingly bad writing. He had proof!!!!!! And everyone was like "No, that's ridiculous, you have to be fabricating it" ???????????? And on the thread of bad writing!!! So said antagonist who tried to reveal Ming Xian's identity has been raising an army of something called netherbeasts and Ji Bozai uses his cultivation to contain them and so the villain then makes it look like Ji Bozai was raising the army of netherbeasts and then an episode later Ji Bozai does an uno reverse of that to prove his innocence but nope! Can't let the villain be removed from the story yet, so his underling takes the fall. It's like the writers were allergic to any forward momentum of the story until they reached the final third, because any time it looked like there was actual plot progression, they'd just immediately undo it. AND ALSO!!!!!! to defeat the netherbeast army a handful of episodes later, Ming Xian and Ji Bozai use this thing called the Heartbond Array, which irrevocably proves Ming Xian's feelings for him because they have to be in love and trust each other or it doesn't work. But then when Ming Xian tries to steal the Golden Millet Dream a couple episodes after that, Ji Bozai doesn't think to ask why she needs it. He just jumps to "Everything was a lie." Like... brother you literally just did the Heartbond Array with her like a day ago what do you meannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn????? WHAT DO YOU MEANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN?????? And then I don't even have a problem with miscommunication as a trope, but the way like 90% of the problems between Ming Xian and Ji Bozai just. wouldn't even happen if they would just! share information! or ask pertinent questions! But they keep withholding info from each other for no real reason and repeatedly choose to walk away from each other instead of actually communicating. Like the writing is just so painfully bad I cannot take itttttttttttt.
anyway PETITION FOR YU CHENG'EN TO BE A ROMANTIC LEAD!!!! He's too good at looking completely and utterly devastated and being angsty and sad and totally sells the whole "devotion no matter the cost" type. I am convinced that this story would be 100x better if the romance was Ming Xian/Situ Ling because she never had to lie to him about her identity and just the way he was willing to give up everything to save her!!! Let that be the romance and she's just playing Ji Bozai for the Golden Millet Dream and never falls for him. also we have got to admit that the writers made Situ Ling a villain bc otherwise he would be a real genuine threat to the Ming Xian/Ji Bozai romance lmao.
The whole entire set up of this show is the Ji Bozai/"Ming Yi" (Ming Xian, how I'll be referring to her for basically the rest of this review) romance. Yes, there is a bit of plot surrounding that with the sect politics, but the undeniable center of this show is the Ji Bozai/Ming Xian romance. Ming Xian, having had to lie about her identity her whole life and to literally everyone — seemingly the only people who know the truth are her mother and her animal companion, Twenty-Seven — holds her cards close to her chest and is reluctant to be honest with anyone. It's be nice if the show dug deeper into this fact and what it means for Ming Xian as a person, but sure, fine, this makes sense given how on guard she has to be around literally everyone all the time. So she has this facade of playing the damsel in distress to get Ji Bozai's attention and win his trust. Now, it'd be one thing if Ji Bozai thought this was her true personality, but it becomes clear pretty quickly that he's aware that this is just an act so...... what the hell is he falling for? Literally all he knows about her for the first third of the show is that she's playing him and putting on this facade. Like he knows absolutely nothing about *her* and he KNOWS he is not seeing the real her.... So, again, what is he falling for? And then, again, I don't inherently have a problem with Ming Xian lying to Ji Bozai, because — while the show should be connecting these dots and not me doing it myself — it makes sense given how she grew up in Yaoguang Mountain that she would have difficulty with being honest, but once she can no longer keep up this act bc she accidentally revealed that she has spiritual veins and Twenty-Seven — known to everyone as Ming Xian's animal companion — is accompanying her (meaning she has ties to Ming Xian and Yaoguang Mountain), she then is just incessantly lying to Ji Bozai. And this leads to one of my biggest problems with the romance: Ming Xian discovers Ji Bozai's goal of avenging his shifu in like... I want to say episode 7? So she has basically completely figured him out in the first 20% of the story — she knows his background, she knows his motivations, she knows what he wants to achieve. Ji Bozai doesn't know anything about Ming Xian until he learns her real identity in the last third of the show. Why should I be rooting for this romance when it is so uneven? (Also Ji Bozai just. sucks. lmao. After seeing Twenty-Seven appear in his home, he tells Ming Xian "Right now I'd rather kill you than Mu Qibai" as if he also hadn't been lying to her and using her for his plans?????????? And then after he starts to suspect that "Ming Yi" is Ming Xian he does all these f*cking tests to prove it instead of just asking her directly. Like he straight up does a test that WOULD kill her if he had been wrong. And I'm supposed to not want to throttle him for that??????????)
And to make matters worse on that front of Ming Xian's identity being hidden, one of the main antagonists literally comes to Ji Bozai's home WITH PROOF that "Ming Yi" is Ming Xian and it takes more than a dozen episodes after this for Ji Bozai to figure out that she is actually Ming Xian??????????? Like this is just embarrassingly bad writing. He had proof!!!!!! And everyone was like "No, that's ridiculous, you have to be fabricating it" ???????????? And on the thread of bad writing!!! So said antagonist who tried to reveal Ming Xian's identity has been raising an army of something called netherbeasts and Ji Bozai uses his cultivation to contain them and so the villain then makes it look like Ji Bozai was raising the army of netherbeasts and then an episode later Ji Bozai does an uno reverse of that to prove his innocence but nope! Can't let the villain be removed from the story yet, so his underling takes the fall. It's like the writers were allergic to any forward momentum of the story until they reached the final third, because any time it looked like there was actual plot progression, they'd just immediately undo it. AND ALSO!!!!!! to defeat the netherbeast army a handful of episodes later, Ming Xian and Ji Bozai use this thing called the Heartbond Array, which irrevocably proves Ming Xian's feelings for him because they have to be in love and trust each other or it doesn't work. But then when Ming Xian tries to steal the Golden Millet Dream a couple episodes after that, Ji Bozai doesn't think to ask why she needs it. He just jumps to "Everything was a lie." Like... brother you literally just did the Heartbond Array with her like a day ago what do you meannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn????? WHAT DO YOU MEANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN?????? And then I don't even have a problem with miscommunication as a trope, but the way like 90% of the problems between Ming Xian and Ji Bozai just. wouldn't even happen if they would just! share information! or ask pertinent questions! But they keep withholding info from each other for no real reason and repeatedly choose to walk away from each other instead of actually communicating. Like the writing is just so painfully bad I cannot take itttttttttttt.
anyway PETITION FOR YU CHENG'EN TO BE A ROMANTIC LEAD!!!! He's too good at looking completely and utterly devastated and being angsty and sad and totally sells the whole "devotion no matter the cost" type. I am convinced that this story would be 100x better if the romance was Ming Xian/Situ Ling because she never had to lie to him about her identity and just the way he was willing to give up everything to save her!!! Let that be the romance and she's just playing Ji Bozai for the Golden Millet Dream and never falls for him. also we have got to admit that the writers made Situ Ling a villain bc otherwise he would be a real genuine threat to the Ming Xian/Ji Bozai romance lmao.
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