What I loved:
1) I fell in love with Sovereign Lord Ying Yuan the moment he appeared in Part 1, Episode 1. I have watched several xianxia dramas already and the cold heartless male lead is nothing new to me, but something about Ying Yuan made me feel for him. He's the kind of character I'll keep thinking about long after I've forgotten the events in the drama.

While the character setup is nothing new, the character's emotions and motivations really came across. Cheng Yi really made the character feel alive. In the entire drama, I think Ying Yuan was the most consistent and stable character. While the others had moments where they turned a new leaf after a major event, Ying Yuan's essence was always the same. He was always the same even as his priorities gradually changed. He was fully developed in the sense that you can fill in the holes in his story yourself. (Okay, I'm being biased here since I love Cheng Yi haha)

TO BE CONTINUED (I'm still organizing my thoughts)