This 40-episode costumed Chinese drama sure takes a while for me to complete. I mean, it takes any drama series a while for me to complete even if it’s a “normal” Korean drama of 16 episodes. The reason why I even started to watch this was that one of the OSTs was sung by a member of a K-pop group, NCT Dream. He’s a Chinese member just in case some of you guys got a little confused why a Korean person is singing for a Chinese drama. No, he’s Chinese. Anyways, even though it took me a while to complete, I finally did and did not regret watching this at all. It made me laugh, it made me cry and sometimes it increased my heart blood pressure.

So, the premise of this show is a game of Go. If you don’t know what that is, it’s this:

According to Wikipedia (because yours truly really don’t know what this game is after 40 episodes), it is an abstract strategy board game for two players in which the aim is to fence off more territory than the opponent. The playing pieces are called stones and each player will take turn placing their stones on the vacant intersections on the board. Once placed, it cannot be moved but the captured stones are immediately removed from the board. Captured stone(s) are when it’s surrounded by the opponent’s stones on all orthogonally adjacent points. The winner is determined by counting each player’s surrounded territory along with captured stones and komi (points added to the score of the player with the white stones as compensation for playing second).

Understand? Yeah, me neither. But anyways, that’s the premise and you will see this game being played by a lot of the characters in the show because yes, the characters are like the stones on a board and the players are the two main characters, Xue Fangfei (Wu Jin Yan) and Xiao Heng (Wang Xing Yue) and the villain, Princess Wanning (Li Meng). But like the game, there are other characters intertwined and honestly, I do not know where to start for this review and I will try not to make this sound like a recap.

Xue Fangfei is the daughter of Magistrate Xue who was betrayed and buried alive by her husband Shen Yurong. She somehow got herself out and was saved by Jiang Li, another betrayed daughter of Chancellor and Chief Secratariat, Jiang Yuanbai, who was locked up for 10 years since she was a child as a punishment for a crime she did not do in Zhenny Hall in Qingcheng Mountain. Unfortunately, Jiang Li died after the head of the Zhenny Hall beat her up so bad she did not survive. But before she died, she asked for Xue Fangfei’s help to seek revenge for her. Xue Fangfei then decided to pretend to be Jiang Li and clear both hers and Jiang Li’s reputations. While trying to strategize her way out of Zhenny Hall, she met Xiao Heng (or Duke Su). She used him to get herself out. However, Xiao Heng is a very smart man and the Emperor’s right hand man who could see through her pretense. He played along with it because their goals were found to be intertwined with each other.

Of course, it’s not that simple. If it’s that simple, it would not be 40 episodes, everyone. There’s a lot of politicking, mind games, etc. There’s also the familial relationships and friendships that Xue Fangfei made as Jiang Li as part of her strategy to clear hers and Jiang Li’s reputations, which made it hard for us as the audience to watch because we know she’s not Jiang Li. At the end of the day, how is she going to reveal to these people that she became close with as Jiang Li that she’s not Jiang Li. Well, it was heartbreaking for one of the characters that led me to sob while clutching my soft toy.

If you are into strategy, political, costumed Chinese dramas, this is the drama for you. Like I said earlier, it does make you laugh because there are characters like Jiang Jingrui and Wen Ji that brings in the laughs and makes the drama not as heavy as it could be if it is without these two characters. You also just want to root for the two main characters, particularly Xue Fangfei, to get the revenge that she wants for herself and Jiang Li. Yes, Xiao Heng does have his own past that he wants to seek revenge for.

I like it so I give it a 4.5 out of 5. 0.5 is deducted because what is the ending. I’m not going to tell you the ending, no spoilers, but if I don’t go searching up for a special episode (of 5 mins), I would have thrown my remote control towards the TV out of sheer frustration. It’s a happy ending, no worries. It’s just… Yeah…….. anyways, you can watch it on Netflix. Catch it before Netflix removes it.