this is one of many chinese drama while having good, entertaining, engaging plot progress from beginning, then proceed to 'sad/tragic ending leaves deeper impression than happy one' culture.
It is great when it’s done right - such as if both characters communicate their different perspectives, argue…
and many of costume cdramas i've watched, revolved around 'how to escalate the internal conflict by not-communicating to fill the target of total episodes as dictated in contract'. and somehow i always feel that many cdrama follows 'started with good idea, maintain it with forced idea, and let it go with no idea at the end' pattern in plot progress.
i always 'like' it when cdrama prefer to make some conflicts between main leads, rather than fighting together against common enemies. they call it 'dramatic', a necessity in cdrama land. it's always good for treating low blood pressure.
is the writer's intention to give traumatic experience for the viewers at the end, in the name of ' I'm too fancy for commoner's happy ending', fulfilled?
C-dramas try not to have an amnesia plotline challenge: Impossible
maybe it's more like 'what !?? no amnesia? no annoying misunderstanding? no questionable ending? rewrite it or cancel it !! we need to maintain some trademarks'
they just have to force 'it makes sense to be sad ending' logic, rather than 'let find the some logics to make…
the just don't want for us to be fully satisfied. if the journey is good, let make the ending giving 'a little' bad after taste. if the ending is going to be satisfying, let make the journey more irritating . if the project time and budget are too tight, let just finish it and pray for the best.