Story---terrible. The story plays out to taking forty episodes to stall around and up to one scene. The first episode was the context establishment and the last episode was the plot point---which is a situation that needs to be solved and not the ending but it's the last episode. Basically the writers told themselves, "we know we want to have a powerful prince and another powerful princess who disguises themselves to go out into the world. Then after years of bonding, their identities are eventually revealed and they lead their respective kingdoms to ally and fight another power." Sounds intriguing.

Now ideally, the reputation of the established characters would be introduced in the beginning, check. And they would show their journey and how they walked to this day, sorta-not-really check in that they've known each other for years as they walked Jianghu (which is just told to the audience and never really shown or seen through their character development as the throughout the show they're bonding so basically they never bonded before). The rising action and climax is they need to use their real identities to solve problems while maintaining their aliases to deal with each other. The fight between kingdoms would take place before the climax, after which the third power is revealed, and the falling action would be an acceptance of each other, and the end would be dealing with combining and bringing peace to their kingdoms and their two identities.

Then how they executed this is they introduced the characters in episode one and the fight doesn't take place till the last episode. The in-between was I-don't-know an investigation show? A historical political show? A wuxia show? All of those. Oh and a 'tianmi' romance. No. It was not.

This leads me to discuss production.
Production---TERRIBLE. They took a scriptwriter for a Xianxia show, and placed the characters from those shows into a Wuxia show, except the execution of the long fighting scenes and rival clans was non-existent. They tried to have a historical political setting, except none of the characters carried the attitudes of royals. What kind of prince (first prince) is not interested in the throne? What kind of prince (third prince) is so ineffective and shallow? He would have died long ago by the schemes of the court members and not even needing the main character to take him down. As for the main character, what kind of prince can extract themselves from the fight for the throne so cleanly? The only way you are not part of the game is if you die. What kind of king doesn't care about his sons? He needs a successor! What is the point of being king if your kingdom cannot last past you? But he is somehow against the main character because...why? The scriptwriter could not come up with a reason! And the main character had some existential crisis that his father the king hated him or something. Have some respect for the authority of a king and the law. It IS a crime to lie to the king, and you lied about being sick and you feel like he doesn't care about you when he wants to find out the truth?? As a person with a right to the throne, the scheming WILL risk your life AND the lives of your supporters. Why are you so people ARE against you?? In conclusion, the writer tried to be deep and combine aspects of wuxia and period dramas into what is really a xianxia drama and did not achieve the authenticity of either, making it a disgrace to both genres.

Acting---I had a good impression of Yang Yang after watching him in the Once Upon A Time movie with Liu Yifei (the movie version of Ten Miles Peach Blossom) which gave me the impression he was a top-rated actor because of his looks, his casting partner, as well as being chosen for the role however this show has completely reversed that perspective. His acting in the show is terrible because he doesn't hold the gravity of a prince, nor the gentleness of a love interest and he gives the impression he's constantly mocking, which lessens the dimension of his character---because that's just himself and not the character written in the script. Zhao Lusi created some character development in the first episode with her attitude, but that was quickly doused away after episodes of intensive dialogue lines where she quickly fell into a role of recitation.

Music---All the music in the show sounds copyrighted, namely the ost from Ten Miles Peach Blossom and Pirates of the Caribbean for the adventure and sea scenes.

The only thing watchable about this show is from the visual effects. This is due to the well-known actors of Zhao Lusi and Yang Yang being the face of the show, and the editing which makes appealing effects that don't appear too fake.

Out of the 34/40 episodes I watched, the best scene was in episode 34 (?) when the third prince failed at executing a coup and grab for power. Just before he was brought away, when he confronted his father about the way he treats his sons, those were the most logical lines ever said in the whole show. Except, funnily, it comes out as ironic---because it's so logical it seems out of character. It makes him seems omnipotent and not present in his character and the situation. (You'd have to be a god to say facts so true in this cringe of a situation the writer forced the characters into).

Truthfully, in the beginning I thought the third prince would become king because he was being manipulated by his mother and his advisors but he had good character. I stand by this statement by the fact he spoke such truth (as I mentioned above), but sadly he was written into insanity by the writers. RIP