Be careful with which male lead you root for because this drama really hyped up the second male lead and portrays him as almost perfect. It’s hard to not fall for his noble idiocy and amazing visuals. But don’t let that hold you back. It’s a pretty good drama. But first just let me say that some of you might find this review a little bit of a spoiler but in the synopsis it states that one of the male leads rejects her. So my analysis below of the love triangle shouldn’t be too much of a spoiler.

That being said, I completely agree with the female leads choice. The second male lead would do sweet things like personally handcraft jade earrings for her then push her away and reject her confession. Then he would again do things like buy her carrier pigeons to send notes to her or handcraft a flute for her but then again reject her. This went on for 3 years and the female lead was in constant emotional turmoil, often crying. Even though the second male lead rejected her for a noble reason, he should have drawn a line and made it clear he wanted to only be friends. But instead he chose to leave things very ambiguous and let her think they might be together. He lead her on and hurt her a lot for a long time.
But all along her ray of sunshine, the main male lead, would always appear to take her out to play and cheer her up. He supported her decision even though he loved her and never abandoned her despite her poor treatment of him. His devotion to her and their cute little arguments when he teased her was adorable. I was happy with her choice.

But then comes along the second male lead to start pursuing her and putting her into turmoil again. And again she’s crying over and over again because of him. She feels guilty towards him every time he does something nice for her which happens all the time. But it’s obvious that she’s now very much in love with the main male lead. But second lead just won’t let go which hurts both of them a lot.

Then comes along a lot of political intrigue and family drama. The palace drama gets pretty intense. What this drama teaches is that love doesn’t wait forever. And if someone leads you on or expects you to wait for them they may miss out. And finding the right person has a lot to do with timing and meeting the right person at the right time. It also teaches that letting go of the past with all of its hatred and moving on with your life is the only way to find true happiness.

In the beginning this drama reminded me a lot of The Story of Minglan. The love triangle was very similar in that the female lead starts out liking the second male lead first then later realizes that the main male lead is her true love. So if you like this one definitely go watch Minglan because not only is it similar but it’s better.
Overall, I liked this drama. It started out very sweet and cute. It got even cuter with lots of kisses and skinship. But towards the end it became very angsty with lots of sadness. The main leads have a happy ending and all of the loose ends are tied up. But it was hard to be happy for them when everyone around them suffered so much. And seeing that the bad guys got away with everything they did and even prospered while a lot of the good guys suffered or even died just killed me. My happiness for the main leads was dampened by all of this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good drama, but it’s just a little too melodramatic and sad at the ending for me.