Don’t let the cover photo fool you. This series is a bona fide romance. And it soars above the rest of the field thanks to the talents of its leads, Ren Jia Lun and Tan Song Yun. While neither are classically beautiful, they are a perfect match in terms of their youthful looks and acting styles.

Ren Jia Lun’s strength is that he can act with his eyes. You can literally map his Lu Yi’s growing feelings for Jin Xia through how his eyes for her changes over time. He has this gaze that is just for her and her only. Since Lu Yi is rather cold and inscrutable, Ren Jia Lun needs to convey just enough emotion without being too obvious. He does exactly that and so much more with his nuanced performance. You can see how love gradually changes Lu Yi from a ruthless man who is just doing his job to a man who wants to do the right thing.

Tan Song Yun is cute as a button. The squeaky dubbing and wide-eyed acting work against her at first, but she eventually settles into her role as the greedy, gluttonous, sharp-witted Jin Xia. She matches Ren Jia Lun glance for glance, gaze for gaze. She does comedy well and has me laughing so hard every time Jin Xia pulls some stunts that grate on Lu Yi’s nerves. Unlike Lu Yi who undergoes character growth, Jin Xia remains her kind-hearted, heroic self even through the worst of times. That’s not a bad thing, as she is the moral anchor in their relationship.

Romance aside, we get to see one of the most twisted, sickest villains in Yan Shi Fan, played by the versatile Han Dong. Though Yan is somewhat human in his tenderness towards Lin Ling, he is a beast to almost everyone else. I like watching the interplay between him and Lu Yi, with each trying to read and outmaneuver the other. Very often writers would downplay the bad guy to make our hero look good; thankfully that doesn’t happen here. Yan is a true threat with a clear advantage over Lu Yi in terms of experience and influence in court. Even though Lu Yi smartly avoids his traps, it ultimately takes a group effort to end the stalemate and bring him to justice. It’s fitting that Yan’s own arrogance plays a part in his downfall.

The series generally does a good job in fleshing out the characters, their personalities and motivations. While the plotting isn't perfect, it manages to avoid many of the pitfalls. It doesn’t dumb down our couple or throw any stupid misunderstanding in their way. There are no OOC moments. Without giving away spoilers, I will say that the ending is one of my all-time favorites. It’s serene and simple, but effective in capturing the essence of Jin Xia and Lu Yi’s love. Theirs is a love story I will remember for a very long while.

The only thing that keeps this drama from being a nice round 9.0 was the secondary couple's romance. It drags the story down and forces me to use my FF button.