The series feels like an appetizer. After watching 24 episodes, I feel like I need to immediately read the book so that I can get the full story.
My favourite character was Zhao Jue by a long shot and I really want to know his story and especially his relationship with Zhan Yao-I suspect they are father and son. I desperately want to know what happened in the past since the old guys are trying very hard to keep everything buried. Another character that I really liked was Zhao Zhen irrespective of the fact that he always seemed to appear in all the right places for no reason whatsoever. The casting of Zhao Jue, Zhao Zhen, Zhan Yao, and Bai Yutong was really on point.
My least favourite thing about the show was the relationship between Gongsun Ce and Bai Qingtian. It was all over the place and impossible to understand. I honestly couldn't like them. Another thing that I disliked was the villains in the first few episodes. There were too stereotypical and lacking in imagination.
I Iiked the bromance between the main leads but I would have liked a little more of it. I would have wanted to see some lingering looks filled with implications and other subtle things to indicate that this is an adaptation of a bl novel. The untamed, love is more than a word, and advance bravely have really mastered the art of subtly showing BL without being explicit about it. It's too bad that SCI couldn't achieve that.
Overall, the show feels like a prologue but I still liked it.