This series holds a special spot among many series that I have watched. This is a series built by the characters, what I meant to say is that, different from most of the series with characters behaving according to storyline, which sometimes makes them behave out of their personality, this show is built and moved forward by the characters. Each character has their own personality, motives and demons. Some characters have more frightening demons than the others, but they do have their own storyline.

Let me give a brief of the characters:
- Ling Buyi:
A boy who witnessed his entire clan slaughtered in front of him, his best friend die in his place, his only remaining family member is now stuck with her past memories, and he had to endure all of this trauma alone, without any help, not knowing who to believe, surrounded by people who scheme and the main culprit, yet trying to do things by following the law. It is not absurd for him to prioritize his revenge even if he has to betray the only person he loves.

He is the main character that drives this story. He starts all the schemes or issues and then directs the main storyline. Till the FL gets involved, he is always a cold hearted and cruel killer, burning with hatred.

- Cheng Shaoshang:
The girl who believes that she was abandoned at her birth to live with the horrible aunt and a greedy grand mother, who only cares about the money and leaves them alone. Unlike the ML, she is wilful and only wants to escape from this hellhole that she was in. She builds up an attitude that makes it hard for her to trust someone. She only cares about her happiness and the happiness of someone who has done her any favour. She will go to any lengths to repay any favour. This is the main reason that she gets involved in some unnecessary troubles.

Because she gets indebted to the empress and the crown prince, she tries to help them at any possible chance. But, because of her inexperience in the large game that is being played, she doesn't take all the other implications into consideration. She doesn't get the whole story from the ML, and when she figures things out it is already too late. Yet, she is also unforgiving, which makes it hard for her to trust the ML again.

- Emperor Wen:
Honestly the best emperor in the history of wuxia dramas that I have watched. He is the guy, who hates schemes, is easy going, and tries to help Ling Buyi get his girl. He is basically an all powerful wingman. He trusts his family and remembers his shortcomings. In this aspect, one thing relevant to the story is the guilt he feels to the deceased General Huo and tries to make up for that with the ML as much as he can. Most of the comedy is centred around him, and honestly, I became a fan of this character.

- Empress Xuan:
She is the mother that the FL didn't get. Well, that is the summary of her role. There are many connections with her clan and the clan of the consort that run the story and get the schemes rolling.

- Consort Yue:
She is the consort and childhood sweetheart of the emperor. She knows about all the stupid schemes her family is making and opposes them at every turn. She is the character that puts everyone in their place, irrespective of them being a prince or princess or even the aunt of the emperor. She puts them all in their place. She supports ML because she feels sad that ML's mother (who was someone she used to hate) has suffered a lot, but still remained a great mother. She feels sorry for the crimes her clan was committing.

- Young Marquis Yue:
The younger brother of Consort Yue, who dreams to make his clan the best.

- Crown prince:
A kind hearted man, who values his family and friends but is not so suitable to be a king of a scheme filled palace.

- Third prince:
The silent winner, who wins the throne at the end. He is impartial, and also cunning enough to identify the schemes.

- Xiao YuanYi:
Fl's mother and the advocate of "tough love". This makes the FL lose faith in her mother.

- General Cheng:
FL's Father, who is kind of a people pleaser, and can't figure out who to support, his wife or his daughter, and ends up with trying to comfort them after everything is over.

The character list goes on and on. Each character has an importance. Though I have only written only one or 2 sentences to try and compress the review as much as possible, I have left out a lot of characters, like A'Yao, the fifth princess, Wang lin, etc, who are sometimes frustrating but are key for the story to progress,

Overall this is a thrilling story to watch, and I highly recommend for someone to take their time through the story.