The novel this drama was based on actually had two sections -- a historical bad-end love story and a modern-day reincarnation. The reason this got split into 2 dramas (One and Only, then sequel Forever and Ever) is due to mainland Chinese broadcasting rules -- apparently reincarnation stories are banned? So they got to do it like this.

Hence I came into this knowing that this is the sad part I'll have to sit through before the happy stuff in Forever and Ever... and despite knowing how the love story ends, it's still very much worth a watch for the acting, the feels, and the character chemistry. You have seasoned actors Bai Lu and Ren Jialun who are KNOWN for how well their eyes convey emotion. And then despite the bad end being well-known, the surprising attention to detail in the script will amaze you -- motifs and themes being brought back to add to the emotion of the scene (and to cheat you out of more tears). I think part of this can be attributed to the fact that the novel writer had a hand in the drama script. And the director / production team really knew what they were doing. I'm not very prone to crying while watching dramas, but I absolutely lost it in the last 2 episodes and was loudly bawling from the plot, the directing, and the insert songs... Oh boy the insert songs. They added so much feeling to the scenes.

Also, if you're an Under the Power fan, you will appreciate the return of several actors like Xie Yuanyuan and Lin Yi. It's fun to see them work together again :) And one of Shengchen's generals is Linda from Never Say Goodbye!!! (ie. all of them are Ren Jialun's former co-stars? LOL)

PS: the rewatch value is purely for the 2 episodes of sugar before the big sad hit. I can't put myself through those sad scenes again -- hurt too much T-T (in a good way)