This drama could have been rated in the same league as Ten Mile Peach Blossom or Nirvana in Fire and I would have given it a perfect 10 if...

The drama would keep you chasing episode after episode. Story was intriguing. And the entire cast is first class - the main actors Kenny Lin, Zhao Liying, Li Qin and Shawn Duo were outstanding and though Allen Deng only appeared for a brief moment, his cheeky and comical acting brightened up the sombre drama. The chemistry between Liying and Kenny were amazing. Kenny acted this cold personality YuWen Yue who was softened by Xing'er acted by Liying. When the two were together, you could feel YuWen Yue's cold personality struggling to hide his growing affection for his slave girl, and left you wishing something would happen between the two of them.

There were times when I wanted to give Xing'er and Chun'er a slap in the face. Xing'er is an extremely stubborn character driven by her sense of righteousness. She might be a person of principle but her insistence in a crucial situation had indeed jeopardised Yun Xun's chance of a probable victory. Chun'er was this spoilt princess who wanted to get her way all the time and when things went wrong because of her willfulness, she blamed others for it.

Although this is fiction, the story is as complicated as the world's politics and indeed of China's politics. The emperor's narcissism and selfishness remind me of Donald Trump lol. The theme of a selfish emperor who is wary of his sons and ministers and purges them when suspicious of their motives is very common among contemporary Chinese dramas. I could see a shadow of Mao and the purges of his comrades before and during the cultural revolution. I hope I am not getting anyone in trouble here (the drama was already in a lot of trouble with copyrights.) What goes into fiction often is the influence of real life situations. This makes the story more believable and realistic.

With my eye for details and perfection, I cannot help but noticed that some Chinese actresses in period dramas dyed their hair but left the ends to grow, and Liying did that in this drama. This may be alright in modern settings but appears rather odd in period dramas when such fancy colour hair dye may not exist.

A rating of 8.3 on mydramalist.com is rather low for this drama. I think it was affected by two factors. It had a bad ending which deliberately left a door open for a sequel. Bad endings always leave a bad taste and a feeling of being letdown among the audience. Nirvana in Fire was an exception - unless you have that kind of emotional scenes displayed by Hu Ge and Liu Tao, and the intense story to match, it sets the rating back.

The second is some episodes were heavily and clumsily trimmed on some of the Asian drama websites, leaving the story rather disjointed and some important events poorly explained. Managing the duration seem to be a problem with Chinese dramas - this needs to start with the script. This series could have been split in two with a convenient ending at Yun Xun's escape to Yanbei. However, there is a recent addition to YouTube on the full untrimmed version - for this one, there is trade-offs, all the draggy bits are in it. Guess there is no win.

Look at what the Ten Mile Peach Blossom has done - it staged a comeback before the ending. That won it the applause - yes, you cry and then you brighten up and give it an excellent rating. This drama tried that too, but the effect was not strong enough to give a clear indication of that.

Heard that they are preparing a season 2. Hope they know how to end it properly.

So, if the ending has been better managed and the episodes were properly trimmed, it would be a perfect 10.