The romance is the main draw of the book, and was executed well. However, the draw of the romance is not primarily from the drama implied from the synopsis. The book starts off quickly establishing the premise over the first few chapters, but after that the relationship dynamic calms down significantly. Chu Zhaoqiu quickly understands and accepts her feelings, while Fu Lianxue is unconsciously significantly biased towards her, and thus the relationship quickly begins to stabilize into a much less explosive affair. Luckily, despite the events of the past, enough context and justification is done through the plot and characters that this feels natural in the book, rather than feeling like things are glossed over.

Much of the relationship building phase is spent with Fu Lianxue acting out in petty ways as revenge on Chu Zhaoqiu while waiting for her to regain her memories, Chu Zhaoqiu indulging her utterly, and Fu Lianxue being countered by said indulgence. A few factors help to maintain the fun in reading about their relationship and keeping things fresh. The two both have strong personalities; Chu Zhaoqiu's straightforwardness, kindness, and openmindedness meshes and clashes well with Fu Lianxue's tsundere attitude and heart of gold hidden by an endearing amount of selfishness and playfulness. This type of story feels like the type that can easily be derailed if a character is too silly and playful, but Fu Lianxue feels like she struck a great balance. The events of the past are always lurking in the background of their interactions, and are brought up at a well designed pace to add a bit of friction to give the relationship a bit of texture. Finally, the subarcs contribute well, providing both great foils or parallels to the FLs relationship as well as unique circumstances to develop the relationship in new ways. A great example combining all of this was the scene where Fu Lianxue finds herself realizing that she like Chu Zhaoqiu as well.

However, while the events of the past were used well to enhance the overall romance, it still felt like a bit more could've been done with it. While we do get scenes establishing Chu Zhaoqiu's inner pain over Fu Lianxue's attitude towards her and Fu Lianxue's deep-set feelings over the events of the past, most of these scenes felt like they could've used a bit more time to settle. While it makes sense that in the context of the dynamic of the two, these would never fully develop into major issues or plot beats of their own, it often felt like there wasn't enough time to internalize the glimpses of emotion before the scene moved on.

In addition to enhancing the romance, subplots also stood well on their own, and most of them not only were enjoyable to read but also managed to elevate at least one side character into being interesting in their own right. Ye Linlin is a great example, evolving from a minor love rival into someone questioning their own prejudiced beliefs and growing as a person.

The main plotline, however, was somewhat mixed. An element that was done great was Chu Zhaoqiu revealing that she had actually remembered everything on the day she saw Fu Lianxue. It felt like this was foreshadowed very appropriately, with enough hints and inconsistencies to suggest something was up and make the reveal feel justified, while not being blatant to the point of the reveal falling flat. Everything directly related to Chu Zhaoqiu's interactions with Fu Lianxue before their falling out was also well paced and enjoyable.

However, the rest of the main plotline had issues. Ultimately, the reveal of what happened to cause Chu Zhaoqiu to stab Fu Lianxue felt unsupported by the rest of the plot, and thus very abrupt. It also didn't really feel like a thematic continuation of any of the ideas brought up from the sideplots or romance either, aside from very surface level takes. Thanks to this, the red herrings ended up feeling flat or outright odd, because it didn't feel like there were enough actual plot points that could've been followed. The lost segment of her memories when she was saved by a divinity implied to be her grandmother especially suffered from this, feeling awkward and out of place. Ji Congyun was also not a good final villain, lacking interesting backstory, immediate motivations, thematic relevance, and not even acting as a force pushing other characters into interesting situations.

Honestly disappointed in myself not recognizing the “twist” sooner; thinking back on it, it was pretty obvious. The setting has a lot of implications, it’s one of the nicer cultivation world I’ve seen. It’s hard for me to suspend my disbelief that they were both hung up on this for thousands of years, that Lianxue never thought about it further, never realized her feelings, even though she’s a powerful charm demon, but oh well.