This is an ensemble drama that had to balance so many pieces of a puzzle and characters to make a complete piece. The cinematography is gorgeous and the costume and sets are beautiful as well. This director really knows how to shoot actors, the lighting in the dark Gong residences was excellent. Instead of looking dull the actors looked ethereal and darkly beautiful. Gong Shangjue is often shot like a viper who sits in the dark on first watch, but on a second watch he looks like a lonely man who holds a lot of pain and responsibility. Ryan Cheng was a stand out for me in this show. He had to bear two weeks plus of everyone hating his character, poor him. I never doubted that he was always rooting for his gallivanting brother to get responsible and protect their family.

Esther Yu especially impressed me in this show, in LBFAD I liked her character towards the end but in this one she handles a meatier role in stride. Her crying scenes are actually heartbreaking and not grating, you get the sense that she put a little of herself in order to bring out the grief, not the persona she wears for the character. I'll definitely follow her projects after this. I must commend Lu Yu Xiao as well, in another drama she appeared in this year I found her annoying but in this one she is electric. You never really know what she wants even in the end. She kept the audience guessing, if c dramas were not so reliant on flashbacks I would have never known what she really desired or cared about. An excellent spy in that sense.

Now, the writing in this show was a little wanting. I liked that all the characters were taken care of, instead of using the supporting characters as tools to prop the male lead, each of them holds weight that creates an emotional heart of the story. This always gets a plus from me, no matter how messy the main plot is. The writer/director was able to make us care about the supporting characters so that a big loss is felt if we lose any of them, even the ones we hated. The humor was not my style at all and I skipped many Gong Zishang's scenes. Sorry but she was overdoing it. The main problem I had is that not enough time is given to the part of the plot that moves the gears forward. Ziyu's actions move the plot forward, the three trials he must take are how we get to the next bit of the story, yet this part was the slowest moving part of the plot. This is why I found the third trial and Master Hua's arc wanting. Often important developments were paused after making the audience think there should have been an immediate consequence. As much as I hate to admit it, Yun Weishan was often conveniently covered by plot armour. In C drama writer fashion, the villain is revealed in a cartoon like fashion who describes their plan and declares "if it wasn't for you meddling kids!" And so much exposition. But I hardly think c drama writers will ever change this style of writing. The final act needed either tighter writing or the drama should have done the full 40 episodes. It is as if the writer was rushing to solve the mystery by writing twists in for convenience (some of which were predicted by the audience, but still). However, probably this could be justified if that ending means there is going to be a season 2. How that will work in the C-ent industry would be nothing short of a miracle. Unless all the actors signed up knowing it might end this way. If there is no season 2 then I'm afraid that ending was clumsily done.

It is absolutely worth watching even twice, the first to work out what is going on in the plot because the drama was good at leaving clues for the audience to figure out, the second time to decipher the truth from the lies. The ending will not be satisfying for all, but I thought there were great enough elements in this to deserve a 9. This is one of the high quality outputs from c drama in 2023.