This is a drama that deeply explores themes of obsession. It is a 'forbidden love' story between Bones, a girl who was born with an unlucky fate, and her shifu (her blood also causes flowers to die, probably a metaphor). Incidentally, she is Bai Zhu Hua's fated calamity. A calamity is a trial that one can only survive by killing without hesitation (all this you learn in episode 1). Failure to do so inevitably results in tragedy. It seems they are fated to be foes. Because Bai Zhu Hua falls in love with Bones, he tries to find a way to save her (it is my opinion it is love at first site, because his episodes of jealousy occur very early on in the series) by teaching her to cultivate and be more like himself. Bai Zhu Hua is rather emotionless, so he is able to conceal these feelings very well, even he does not realize that his actions are motivated by love until much later. Alas, she is also falls in love with him and struggles with hiding these forbidden feelings. This wuxia tells their story and their struggles (she suffers the most, in my opinion). In addition to the love story, there are several important subplots all related to the overall theme of obsession, like revenge, and jealousy. What I Liked: 1. As my first 'wuxia' this series opened up a whole new world for me. I loved the costumes, the fantasy, and I enjoyed learning about things like cultivation. It wasn't until later, watching other series, that I learned these are common themes and essentially define a wuxia. Prior to this, I almost exclusively watched Kdramas. Not so much anymore. 2.The subplots were all entertaining; I enjoyed that the Holy Ruler was not the actual villain of the show. I also enjoyed his shameless narcissism. In many ways he is a foil to Bai Zhu Hua. I liked the sets, the costumes. 3.This drama is able to achieve a nice balance between comedy and melodrama, I think because they left most of the comedy for early on in the show and then steadily built in plots that increasingly made the show more serious. Once things became serious we saw hardly any comedy. What I Loved 4. The transformation of Bones from a sweet, adorable, at times extremely dense girl into an extremely resilient woman, overcoming some of the most awful trials, all because of her ill-fated love. I mean people really have it in for her. This transformation continues as she also turns into a very direct, at times ruthless woman, something that she didn't necessarily wish to be but was forced to become in order to survive. She finally reaches a point where she eschews the rules and values of everyone else in order to protect herself. 5.The steady deterioration of Bai Zhu Hua's image. He is the leader of a sect dedicated to protecting the world. Words like pure, perfect, god-like, and selfless are constantly used to describe his person. But as the series progresses we see that there is an extremely dark side to his personality (very subtly presented): his selfishness and greed can be compared to no one. He does everything in his power to keep Bones at his side, even if it means placing her in painful situations, insisting he is doing it for her, but truthfully he is doing it for himself. He can't let her go, he can't allow anyone else to have her, and so he traps her in this hell all the while presenting himself as her respected Shifu. Very devious. Even more so because he believes his own lies. I mean it isn't like he is two-faced, pretending to be nice and then behind the scenes the mask comes off. He really believes his own b.s. 6.The final confrontation produced feelings that I have not felt from any other dram. It was extremely satisfying because I think it showcased who Bones was, and where she was coming from, and it also completely showed Bai Zhu Hua's true colors. What I hated 7.This series has the annoying trope of 'every man loves the female lead'. Those who don't fall in love with her (with the exception of maybe two people) are either in love with someone else or despise her for reasons that are never really explained. 8.The women in the show (with the exception of one or two) all detest the female lead. If they don't in the beginning they wind up hating her. And with the exception of 1, it is never really explained. It seems to be a case of stereotypical female jealousy. I would be exhausted hating someone for that long. Final Notes This may be the only drama that I have seen where I would have been okay with the leads never getting together because Bai Zu Hua was such a great villain. He was meticulously created and I think designed to make the viewer at first like him but by the end you hover between feelings of revulsion and outright hate. He is just unforgivable and the best part is he is so subtly evil! This isn't a guy who is violent or disrespectful to our leading lady. He has hardly any lines. But he is just...awful. If you watch 3 Lives 3 worlds 10 mile peach blossom you might see parallels between Fengjiu and Bones and Mo Yuan/Shifu (in terms of personality; these characters have no romantic links). This show is based off of a popular novel. I am still looking for a full translation, but here is a link to what I have found so far: https://dorayakiz.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/the-journey-of-flower-author-fresh-guo-guo/