I came in thinking this would be a cute, sweet historical setting love story but ended up wasting my entire evening trying to find redeeming factors to keep going. It's 2 AM and I just watched the last episode to see how it ends (happy ending!) but I've decided not to waste more time on this.

- RANT SECTION -
I am INFURIATED. This is also probably because I started this after finishing two historical Chinese romcoms where the male leads were SO lovely and lovING, but the male lead of this drama is a B-R-A-T. I know he's young, and supposed to grow/mature, but I'm sick of seeing him treat the female lead, who is by all accounts very lovable and sweet, like TRASH. In the span of a couple of episodes, he uses her unwavering love for him (as she believes he is her childhood sweetheart at this time) to frame her as an arsonist, a thief, and worse. He pretends to befriend her but tries to get her off his back the first chance he gets so he can run away to play (in the brothel, casino, or whatever). He yells at her in public, embarrasses her, patronizes her, lies to her, and talks down to her. Just writing this makes me recognize how verbally abusive he was in only the first 6 episodes. This ain't hate-to-love y'all, this just straight up disrespect. And it wasn't funny to me.

At this point of the drama, they're not a couple, but they're "married" because of the female lead's antics. Even so, the male lead has no respect for her as a human being and demeans her (while sometimes acting like he cares in a tsundere way... NOT cute for me anymore). She, on the other hand, is still unwaveringly supportive due to her (misplaced, imo) trust in him.

Some of the reviews I read had reallyyyy high tolerance for him and brushed it aside as bullying, and that he gets better/more devoted to her. This watcher does NOT have time for that. I choose romcoms because they make me happy, and I love watching couples grow to respect and admire each other. I don't care, at this point, if the male lead does that in this drama. It's too late. When I'm a quarter into a drama, I want to start seeing RESULTS. Ooh y'all, I haven't watched dramas in a hot minute but I did NOT come back to watch a show filmed in 2020 to watch the innocent and sweet female lead get yelled at, smacked in the head, and called names by the male lead. I can't even begin to think of the ways he would have to grovel to make me like him...

Also - weird that the show had a couple of bare-chested scenes with the male lead actor. It wasn't... necessary and showed his (lack of) assets. So, um. Bleeding into my dislike of the male lead in general is his voice going super low (although it was also funny to hear). In serious situations, he would be yelling in a low voice but mannn did it sound forced/fake. Maybe that's just the dubbing. By all accounts, his acting was aight (how hard is it to act mean to a woman?).
- END RANT-

I think if you're okay with the complaints I had above, you'll be fine with this show. Personally, I have a low tolerance for characters that treat their significant others like ----.

I read spoilers for the actual plot and it seems fun and interesting. I really like the female lead, despite her naivety and cluelessness (which is low key charming, haha). She's very smart when it comes to autopsies and although I didn't see her conduct an investigation because I stopped watching right when she was about to, I read that she figures out a lot of things and is intelligent. I LOVE the male lead's father character (he's super goofy, with a big red nose and jovial face. Wonderfully casted!) and the second lead couple looked nice as well. I also read (sadly, after I started) that this was more COM than ROM, which is fine, but it's not fine when the male lead is pushing the female lead away and tells everyone she's his servant girl while we're 25% through with the drama.

A happy ending is nice, but this intro was RUINED for me by the male lead. Even if he is redeemable later on, I don't think any amount of groveling could make it okay in my books. I think it's okay that the female lead is forgiving, since that's her character, but I was VERY upset FOR her and I couldn't stomach past the first quarter of the drama. I'm super disappointed, as the jokes were cute and the drama itself seems light-hearted, but when I watch a drama, I need respect from both characters to really believe in their love.

(Note: All the ratings are set to a 5.0 default since I didn't finish the drama, except the music which I enjoyed. Thus, I do not take them into account when calculating overall score.)