This drama is about the love story between a smart and beautiful woman and a royal, morally grey but secretly softie man. The female lead suffers from amnesia and has a secret identity while the male lead pretends to be her loser husband for his schemes to catch a bandit.

I loved the first half of the drama that focused on the everyday life of the main leads. We could slowly see the male lead from constantly deceiving and manipulating the female lead, to subtly falling madly in love with her. Even though there wasn’t much going on aside from watching the daily interactions, somehow the two joking and teasing each other but also caring and nurturing each other, really warmed my heart. I love that sometimes it felt like a cat a mouse game or Mr. and Mrs. Smith vibes due to the double identity of both leads. To the outside public they are known to be ruthless and cold, while at home they are both cute softballs. The comedy was fantastic, with the male lead being a capable and high ranked leader but having to pretend to be a complete loser in front of his fake wife. A big part of this fantastic dynamic I have to give it to the main actors Zhang Wanyi and Wang Churan who did a fabulous job portraying their roles.

However, the drama felt short for me in the second half where it becomes unnecessary draggy. I felt the political plot was cliche and the main leads not being together took away from my enjoyment of the couple to the point I stopped caring about them. I feel like the charm of the drama was the main leads and their secret identities, which should have continued to be the focal point of the drama instead of the court stuff.

POSITIVE:
- Hot chemistry between the leads.
- Morally grey leads.
- Secret identity (both leads).
- Great comedy and light-hearted scenes. The jokes revolved around the characters and their actions/personality rather than some random jokes. And despite all the laughter, the drama balances well, the maturity of the characters.
- Mystery backstory plot.
- Truman Show vibes in the first half.
- Smart, mature, composed female lead.
- Fake marriage trope that’s written well.
- Business scenes that provided the female lead’s character to shine with her intelligence.

NEGATIVE:
- Second half of the drama was a snooze fest. The amnesia plot in the first half felt well written but once the female lead regains her memories, she feels too much of a different character. Even though I liked her cold-hearted nature, I wanted to see more of her inner thoughts to connect with her more. The drama felt very draggy (ep 24-30) because for many episodes she was cold towards the male lead while he was grovelling and trying to win her back. By the time the main leads got back together, the drama had already lost me and I started skipping lots in order to finish it. From absolutely loving the main leads, in the end I simply didn’t care about them.

OVERALL:
The plot of the drama starts off great and the first half delivers in terms of romance, comedy, character development and everyday hubby/wifey vibes. But the second half being draggy and boring, took away all my enjoyment and care for this drama and characters. So, I don’t really know if I would recommend this. It’s all about personal choice I guess. For me, this drama is very forgettable.