The show is about a top assassin, Ren Xin, who had been framed and imprisoned of killing the empress of An kingdom, who happen to be her benefactor. She had to escape prison, fake her death, change her name to Ren Ruyi, and later reinfiltrated the An kingdom’s spy organization’s branch located in a rival kingdom to track down the mastermind behind the empress’s murder and avenge her. With a twist of fate, she encountered the head of spy organization of the rival country, Ning Yuanzhou, and striked a deal with him, tagging along with the envoy entourage to her own country to teach the envoy in return for NYZ gathering intel to help her get her revenge. Many things happened along the way, and she started forming a bond with the members of the spy agency in the entourage, and a special liking towards NYZ.

I like it how the show had a solid premise, good storyline and they executed it in perfect gracefulness and rather fast paced too. Although it started out in a serious and intense premise, they manage to blend goofy scenes seamlessly within. The goofy parts were well executed and didnt looked forced, leaving me smiling or laughing throughout - definitely didnt look out of place or annoying like those in Fighting for Love. Despite the goofy scenes, they were able to execute the action and serious scenes tremendously well too. The action scenes were superb, the choreography was on point and well executed. The intimate scenes between the leads were well paced. With this show i can really feel and make sense of how they fall in love with each other despite coming from rival kingdoms, without having senselessly overbearing and cringe-worthy proximity moments like those in Ancient Love Poetry.

The only show ive ever seen Liu Shishi in was Scarlet Heart, although she acted well in it, i felt that her face didnt really suit to be in ancient drama, cuz i thought she looked too modern. I changed my mind when i saw this show. Maybe its due to hairdo, costume, age or makeup, but she looked perfect in AJTL as a retired top assassin on a mission to avenge the death of the closest person to her. Now this character Ren Xin/Ren Ruyi is one of my favourite FLs of all tv shows I’ve seen so far, the writers wrote her really well with almost no flaw at all. She is strong, quick-witted, resourceful, brave, resolute and capable with a sound and collected mind despite facing conflicts of interest. Basically she is the badass of all badasses of the mortal world, while Shen Li from Legend of Shen Li wins that spot for the fairy fantasy category. Although ML being the understanding other half, contributed too. I liked A Mai from Fighting for Love too, but the writers slightly botched it with poor decision-making when in comes to love in the earlier part of the show. Ren Ruyi did not suffer from this. I guess I had to give it off to the the writers for not messing up. FL was constantly with a sound mind and not the type who would get emotional. Although she did went berserk quite a bit when the red uniform guards killed her adoptive mom, and ML ended up knocking her unconscious to stop her. But hey, even a flawless character had to have some flaw or else theyd be inhumans.

My most favourite character of the whole show is Yu Shisan, one of the spies in the envoy entourage. He’s easily the most handsome of the spy group, he’s not shy to flaunt it too as he is proud to be known as the shameless, flirty playboy who has a way with girls. He was extremely popular and admired by female inmates and workers in the prison (he was imprisoned for kidnapping a noble’s daughter) because he loves to do make up on them (and obviously because he flirts with them) before ML picked him up to join the entourage mission. He’s the goofiest person in the group, most of the goofy scenes are caused by him, but also the closest to ML, being a good listener and confidant to ML, especially with regards to dealing with FL. ML also revealed to Yu Shisan of how bad his condition was before the final showdown of the emperor rescue, and entrusted Yu Shisan to take the rest of the troop to safety if ML couldnt make it. And I totally ship him and Chu Yue. Theyre the cutest not-yet-a-couple ever!

Princess Yang Ying is probably the character with the most progress. She started off as an extremely timid, weak with zero self confidence, unfavored princess of the late emperor, born in the cold palace and looked down even by the palace maids, let alone the rest of the harem,but later grew into a full fledged ambitious, capable, confident, resourceful and quick-witted princess aiming for the throne. She is the youngest sister of the current emperor, who was lovesick with the only palace guard who showed her kindness thus willing to do anything to marry him. When her brother the emperor was taken hostage by Emperor of An kingdom, she volunteered to be the envoy to deliver the ransom in return for her to be granted fiefdom and ability to choose her own husband. Because one of the conditions of ransom is it must be delivered by a prince, she had to disguise as one and learn everything a prince should know during the trip. She was slow at learning at first, but the moment ML, as the head of security of the entourage, changed her tutor to FL, she made great progress in terms of learning capability and the building of her character as a pompous and snobbish prince with ample political & court knowledge. I must commend the actress, she definitely nailed it as a male impersonator. Although she looked soft and delicate as a princess, she also managed to pull off the look of a snobbish yet graceful teenage prince and as time passes, i no longer see her as a girl. This is the second character after Fighting for Love’s FL that I ever saw able to pull off as a male impersonator, and she did it perfectly well without even having to try too hard to act as a tough boy. I’m glad they didnt forget to bind her chest, i hate it when characters are portrayed to be disguising as a male and yet the chest totally gives them away, and lets not even get into the girly voice and acts. Fortunately, those cringy parts that give away male impersonation are nonexistent in this show. Well done!

Another interesting character is Qian Zhao, one of the spies with medical expertise. He’s literally the medic for the entourage. He is very quiet and reserved, only speaking when necessary, but in fact is very stubborn and steadfast in his decisions. Nobody could stop him when he set his mind to kill FL when he found out she was a spy from An, and everybody had a hard time persuading him against seeking revenge from Emperor Wu for his reckless decision of going to war with misleading intel and information which resulted in high war casualties. The only thing stopping him from finishing the emperor off was the flare signal from nearby fortress indicating that they were under attack. Even ML admitted in the end that he had everyone else figured out but Qian Zhao.

All in all i think the whole production team did a tremendously great job with this show. I really couldnt find any other loopholes other than the hand injury of Deng Hui that went missing the next day after his hand was stabbed by Emperor An. The make up artist and director must have forgotten the script. Anyway, I wonder who wronged the writer team so badly for them to come up with such a huge massacre of characters. It saddens me but the show was so good I cant seem to hate it for making me cry with each episode after Ep35. For a show that is laden with goofy scenes all over, i was so not ready for the last 5 episodes that are pretty tragic and tearjerker. Boy sometimes I hate this show for being so damn good at bringing laughter and tears to its viewers.

If youre like me who love shows with strong leads, action packed with non-domineeringly sweet and non-cringy love story, and do not mind a tragic-possible-emotional-damage-inducing ending, then this might be for you. If youre all that but cant handle sad ending, well, maybe stop watching at Episode 38. Despite hating the ending, I just cant seem to strike off a star from my 10 rating. The show was THAT good!

!!!!!! SPOILER BELOW THIS LINE !!!!!!

I am currently rewatching the show and realized ML’s near death situation on Ep 20 and his ultimate exit on Ep40 were both due to saving that brat I dont want to mention. The first time because that brat recklessly went for the leader of the assassins despite his mediocre (in my eyes) martial skills, and the second time when he again, stupidly went into the enemy’s camp ALONE to supposedly kill/capture the marshall. The first time, ML saved him because he was An emperor’s envoy keen for peace between the two kingdoms hence they needed his support, and the second time because he was An kingdom’s regent. Well, the second time was because he didnt want FL to go on the suicide rescue mission, and because he knew how much that brat meant to FL. This sorry piece of sh!t, gosh i hate him so much that I didnt want to even mention him when i wrote this review the first time because i didnt want to reveal spoilers, but when i am rewatching right now, damn i just had to say this at least once. Okay finish rant!