I was hesitant at first to watch this drama because 55 episodes is pretty daunting. But I was glad I gave it a chance.

I loved how unpredictable this drama was. There were a lot of things and arcs that I did not expect. Most characters were very well developed, with motivations pretty much understood. The actors had chemistry. The scenes gave the other worldly vibe that this xanxia needed. The music was good enough. Overall this should have been one of those great epic dramas. But and there's a big BUT, it suffered from bad editing. There were inset scenes before the opening song that you might not understand but still need to watch because sometimes these were key scenes that should have been placed in the middle of the episodes. I was often disoriented because I felt some scenes were missing. Sometimes you will think that a scene is happening when in reality it only happens in a character's subconsciousness. Also, there were some inconsistencies in the lighting and sometimes confused me whether it was a daytime or a night time scene. This really affected the flow of the story. But still it is understandable enough.

ZaYao and ChenLan had swapped places in a typical romance. ZaYao is the cold, disillusioned antiheroine who was changed by the gentle love of ChenLan. It was really amazing to see how ChenLan's eyes becomes adoring everytime he remembers ZaYao. And then there's JiangMu, he's actually my favorite character in this whole drama. I didn't expect it because he was a very deplorable character at the start of the drama. But his development was amazing. I had tears in my ears when he was was giving ZaYao his sword before that last battle.

There were a lot of unexpected deaths in this drama that you will wish did not happen but I guess that's just the reality in the pugilistic world.