Look, I tried, really hard.
Also, when I say I've watched about 15, that doesn't mean 1-15 - I was on the verge of giving up when I came here and read that episodes 17/18 onwards rev up the momentum, and so I did my utmost.

I can honestly say that the rating of 7/10 is earned, in its entirety by the fact that:
1) they kiss
2) their friends talk about sex in a realistic way*
3) they actually have sex: note to future c-drama makers: SEE? It doesn't need to be explicit, just a lot of kissing and a tasteful cut to the fireplace/candles etc.

See, it always bugs me that in these dramas someone invariably says - "nope, even though we're married, we're not having sex" and I'm like: that is the entire purpose of your arranged marriage? You know, babies? that's what uniting families means?? We're human beings, we don't reproduce through parthenogenesis?

I mean, I'll accept it in something like Nirvana in Fire 2, in which the love story was in the background, though it was frustrating. But a romance has no excuse.

*Before I go on to my critique, I'd just like to stress how much I loved his buddies and their advice - I actually found myself agreeing VOCALLY, OUT LOUD with Song Jin Yu when he was like "Dude! She's pissed off that you didn't bang her yet! WTF is wrong with you! A woman has needs- no wait, the last bit was me. I love a drama and a character which says that sure, we love all the romantic stuff, all the riding through a blizzard to beg us to come back and then kissing in a pavilion while the snow floats down - but we also love all the other stuff. And THEY'RE MARRIED.

Anyway, back to the criticizing. I appreciate that most viewers really enjoyed the songs on the OST, but I couldn't, because I don't understand the lyrics and the subtitles were terrible. In fact, I started turning the subs off once the songs started, and I enjoyed them more. Look, the word "reschedule" should never be in a love song of any kind. NO. "We'll meet again one day" = yes. "We'll reschedule" = no.

Anyway, that wasn't the music I meant when I was giving my one star. I meant the background soundtrack - which was really really loud - so loud that it should be called the FOREground music (see what I did there?). It was all really obnoxiously loud, and added to the tonal problems, especially the jazzy trumpet stuff (weirdly reminiscent of an infamous instrumental song called "The Stripper", from 1958) which was signalling THIS IS A FUNNY SCENE - ENJOY THE HILARITY. THAT'S AN ORDER.

For something that was meant to be a comedy, I sat through most of what I watched with a stone face - except for the scenes with ML's buddies - which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I found Mingyue annoying for the most part - having recently finished The Story of Yanxi Palace, I kept flashing back to Wei Yingluo imitating all the baby-voiced concubines and making the Emperor (and me) laugh - I really hated the baby voice. I did feel bad for her because Li Qian started out as such an asshole.