It could've been perfect if the production team understood the audience more.

Disclaimer that I have read more than half of the novel. I'll try to keep this mostly about the drama but there might still be references to the novel.

Let's start with my expectations of the drama.
I expected this drama to be about a second chance at life and a second chance at the leads' love story, delving into their backstories, motivations and relationships. I also expected there to be politics, which would be interesting as the leads are already seasoned politicians and are able to easily outsmart the old officials.

What the drama is actually about.
This drama is about the female lead learning that she was stupid in her past life, and struggling to choose between the male lead and the second male lead for the whole drama. Everything that I wanted explored about the main leads was explored about the female lead and the second male lead, leaving the male lead as more of a one dimensional accessory. The politics were okay, which was frustrating as they attempted to explore deep fundamental issues but fell short.

The positive aspects of the drama.
The acting. Zhang Linghe and Zhao Jinmai are not popular for no reason. They weren't just acting, they were living in their roles. You Jinwei, Zhao Peilin, Cheng Guo and Yi Daqian were all standout roles to me. You Jinwei perfectly communicating the loneliness and isolation of the emperor. Zhao Peilin had a much less significant role but her acting as the empress was also impressive, and it truly made me sympathise with her position and actions. Cheng Guo played Shangguan Ya to the tee, expressing all of her sides well. Yi Daqian was great at showing the personality of Su Ronghua. These six actors consistently gave an amazing performance in every single scene they were in. Most other actors had amazing moments, like Chen Heyi, Liu Xuwei, Karina Zhao and Chen Siyu.
The dynamic and chemistry between the leads. They always bicker like an old married couple, yet simultaneously always act like children around each other. Their scenes are always full of dialogue, whether it's playful and humourous or emotional and transformative. They care for each other dearly and their relationship spans decades. You can't miss a single scene with the two of them in it, it will always be either entertaining, or impactful. After 2 decades, I appreciate how the leads finally learn to openly communicate with each other.
The comedy. In a drama like this, the balance between light-hearted and serious is struck using the subordinates of the leads, and although it is not new, it is hilarious. Li Rong, Pei Wenxuan, Jing Lan, Jing Mei and Tong Ye are genuinely so funny and have me smiling and laughing aloud. They really seem like one family.
Pei Wenxuan. Pei Wenxuan is the best character. He's always unconditionally supporting Li Rong in any way possible, and he's always doing the right thing and caring about others. He has high IQ and EQ and he's also passionate about protecting those he loves. Zhang Linghe conveys a masterful performance.
Relationships. Something that this drama tackles is relationships, and all of the differences kinds there are. How relationships are influenced by power, how power can be used to destroy or protect relationships. How your relationships with others affects you: the decisions you make and how you think. It's really a deep topic and I applaud this drama for tackling it and managing to handle it well enough.
Li Chuan. Li Chuan is a complex character and it's unfortunate that his complexity was only shown in the last 10 episodes. It's bittersweet to see each emperor turn into a desperate tyrant driven to the edge of a cliff one after another in a never-ending cycle oversaw by the noble families. In my opinion, Liu Xuwei is not a horrible actor, but he just feels blank most of the time. He portrays the cute younger brother well, and I was struck by his acting when he tells Shangguan Ya that Su Ronghua is dead, but other than that he's very one note.

The negative aspects of the drama.
Su Rongqing. This is one of the aspects where the title of my review is the most relevant. The director, producer and others behind this drama fail to understand what makes a second male lead compelling and worth rooting for. They have to be better in some aspects to the make lead. This makes you think that they might be a better choice. But no, Su Rongqing is not better than Pei Wenxuan in any aspects. In fact, he's worse in about every single one. This drama dedicated so much screen time to Su Rongqing, much, much more then the male lead, for what? For us to feel sorry for his tragic backstory? For us to prefer him with Li Rong? For us to like him more? It's impossible. He's insufferable every time he appears on screen. His backstory never needed to be that deep, in my opinion. He's just an insufferable rich kid who thinks that he's the best because he shares some spare change, and that means that everyone has to bow down at his feet and respect him as the living angel on Earth. In terms of his screen time and scenes, the director made many changes from the novel, which made me even more frustrated. Chen Heyi did a perfect job if the purpose of the character was to make the audience want to kill him, but the problem is the purpose of the character is to be a tragic figure that we were rooting for. Chen Heyi does not do a good job. He looks sick and pathetic all of the time, and that makes the audience hate him, not sympathise with him.
Soundtrack. It's not so important, but it can break the immersion at times. There's barely any back track for the actual leads, and instead the only memorable track is specifically for Su Rongqing.
The wasted potential of Pei Wenxuan. I hate how the drama wasted his character. Imagine if they dedicated even half of Su Rongqing's screen time to Pei Wenxuan's backstory and his own dreams, besides supporting Li Rong. He just feels left behind and forgotten about. They dumbed him down a lot from the novel, making his ideas the ideas of other people and claiming that he doesn't know things that he actually should. Additionally, there's barely any buildup about the Pei family, which could have been such an interesting plot point, added to the relationships theme of the drama, and made Pei Wenxuan a more interesting and complex character with his own dreams and drive to do what he wants, not just supporting Li Rong.
How Li Rong's character was handled. Li Rong is such a complex character and there are parts of her character that I love and parts that I hate. Overall I really like her, but I disagree with some of the liberties the production team took from the novel. They made her feelings for Su Rongqing a lot more ambiguous, to fulfill their love for Su Rongqing. If they wanted to take liberties, they should have made her love for Pei Wenxuan a lot more obvious, rather then more subtle. She's just such a complex character who tries to do the right thing and cares about the people around her, but is always perceived as being heartless.

Overall it's an enjoyable drama. The strengths are the dynamic and chemistry between the leads and the acting while the weaknesses are the highlight on the wrong characters, misunderstanding their audience and their half-hearted attempts to delve into complex concepts.

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Qyestionable pacing but is still deeply enjoyable and touching

My expectations of this drama was a drama with good chemistry between the leads (it's Zhang Linghe and Jing Tian after all), with an interesting plot. Other than that, I didn't really know what to expect regarding this drama, and I was pleasantly surprised.

First of all, don't let the synopsis of the drama mislead you. Nan Yan was born into a world of immortals, she never 'entered' one, and I didn't sense any kind of dislike between Nan Yan or Ji Yang throughout the whole drama, light hearted annoyance at most. If I were to write a synopsis for the drama, it would be this:
Nan Yan is a practical, optimistic and down-to-earth poisoner who's working to find a cure for her mother's heart disease. She saves the life of Shao Cang, the former monarch turned fugitive of a righteous sect. Shao Cang is aloof, powerful and clever. They quickly establish a strong connection. Together, with the company of the naïve and humorous Young Dragon Lord Mu Zhanting and the pitiful yet witty fox spirit Yin Ya, they uncover conspiracies of the four seas about events that happened 100 years ago.

The positive aspects of this drama.
The acting is beautiful, especially the acting of Zhang Linghe, Jing Tian, Darren Chen and Chang Long. They're amazing actors and completely immersed me in the story. They really carried this drama in terms of pure hard work and skill.
The characters are all so real. They all had their own goals, fears and dreams. Nan Yan and Ji Yang are masterful characters. Their complexities were so well-written and portrayed. There was not a single character in this drama that I think was handled badly. They made me sympathise with them so much.
The OST. As a carat, I'm strangely proud to hear Xu Minghao's (The8's) OST for this drama. It always made me emotional and engaged.
The tone of the drama. I don't really know what to call this section. I basically mean the light-heartedness/intensity of the drama. The first half of the drama was pleasantly more light-hearted than I was expecting, I was laughing aloud in almost every scene. Then, the second half of the drama was more intense and darker, handling more complex and dark themes. However, the light-heartedness/intensity were mixed in with each other. The first half still had intense and sad scenes, and they were mixed in with the light-hearted scenes but were still impactful and taken seriously. The second half also still had light-hearted scenes, which was a nice breath of fresh air from the newfound intensity of the plot and characters. The tonal shift also made sense, unlike other dramas, where the shift comes out of nowhere. In this drama, it was extremely clear cut and had a justifiable reason for the shift. Considering the plot, the shift was barely jarring. Overall, the tone of this drama is one of the best I have ever watched. It has so much character, so much colour, so much tangible emotion and so much detail. It was genuinely a pleasure to watch.
Costuming. The costuming in this drama was super beautiful. I've watched four dramas featuring Zhang Linghe so far (Fox Spirit Matchmaker Red Moon Pact, The Princess Royal, Story of Kunning Palace) and I can confidently say that he had the best styling in this drama. All of the clothes are lavish and so much attention and detail were put into them.
The plot of the drama. Personally, I found the plot of the drama super interesting and enthralling, with lots of twists and turns and different aspects being introduced. Most things made sense and it wasn't just random events happening in sequence with no relation to each other. That being said, the plot was still messy and confusing at times.

The negative aspects of this drama.
The pacing. Well, the title of this review says it all. Honestly, the pacing of the drama is not all bad. For some people, the pacing of the first half was too draggy and too little was happening, but I thought that it was perfect pacing for the light-heartedness of that part of the drama. The second half was when the pacing really picked up, packing a lot more into the episodes. This pacing was also good for the more intense theme of the second half of the drama. My big problem with pacing is nearing the end, I would say about 8 episodes from the finale. This was when the drama realised that it had a lot more of the story to tell and not enough time to tell it all. So they started packing in scenes one after the other with barely any time to breathe and process in between before a plot twist is revealed or there's a new series of events. Instead of untangling the web which was already established, i.e. Nan Rao's heart disease, Shao Cang being framed for murdering the Great Path sect and the Evil Path sect trying to resurrect Sen Luo, they just added more and more convoluted conspiracies on top, leaving only two episodes to solve everything in reality.

Overall, this is a drama that I enjoyed a lot. It had amazing acting, characters and tone, but the pacing towards the end dragged it down. The characters and their struggles and emotions spoke to me. This is a nice, entertaining watch.

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