I started this show purely for wang yibo but stayed for the plot, The plot is not particularly unique but the setting and the cast definitely made a huge difference...

the good
The plot was very intricate and the cinematography was very good, i also liked how there were some morally grey characters like wei ruolai's neighbor who didn't hesitate to treat him like her son when it was beneficial for her and blame everything on him when she was in trouble. I also liked the fact that most characters are pretty normal, Wei ruolai for instance used his fiancee back home to reject women but at the same time when he started moving up the social ladder he became embarrassed of her whereas if you take lin qiaosong, he wanted jinzhen as his trophy wife when he was powerful and did not care about his "lowly" mistress but as soon as he lost everything he learned the value of the one that was by his side

the bad
The issue with this drama is that all the morally grey or bad characters are not communist, the communist are shown to be very upright and caring people. If you notice throughout the story there is not even one "bad" communist and all the non communists are shown to be morally gray or power hungry. Another issue which was purely from my point of view is the romance, If the show has no romance i'd prefer it if they didn't give unnecessary hope to viewers by showing cute short scenes, it makes it so much worse when you think they have a chance of ending up together(ToT)

conclusion:
overall great show but i wish they showed more "war" of faith by making sure that the non-communists also had valid points or good people because one side is never always right, but i get that they probably can't due to censorship and other issues but i wish that it was harder to choose sides because it makes the show more interesting (acc. to plot so far communist party is the only right choice)

the only thing getting me through the pain of a certain someone's death is this edit:
https://youtu.be/5ph57bSYMpg?si=hODy7zjm6ZOlpZ5H