I’ve always had kind of a love hate relationship with Chinese historical BLs. Some are genuinely excellent, but then there are others that cram in so much plot that keeping track of all the layers of betrayal and scheming gets exhausting, and I end up checking out mentally. Part of the issue is also just how much content is out there in this space, so something really has to stand out to keep me hooked. In this case, the production value is genuinely impressive, top tier stuff, but story wise, I just couldn’t bring myself to actually care about these characters. There’s a ton of political scheming and backstage manipulation running throughout. Somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, a hostage ends up falling for his own Prince Charming. The show runs eight episodes, each around 50 to 60 minutes long.
After spending three years guarding the border, Fifth Prince Yin Qi gets called back to the capital because of a secret letter, only to end up walking straight into a deadly ambush alongside his closest companion Pei Yanzhi, and both of them get killed. Right as he’s dying, he finally understands just how deep his feelings for Yanzhi actually run. When he wakes up again, he discovers he’s been sent three years into the past, and surprisingly, his mother is still alive in this timeline. Determined to rewrite his fate and keep the people he cares about safe, Yin Qi starts playing things carefully to win his father’s trust and favor. At the same time, he quietly digs into the wrongdoing of his older brother, the Crown Prince. He also starts growing suspicious of Yanzhi’s motives, and once he suspects Yanzhi might be working with the Crown Prince, he starts working to sabotage those efforts. In reality, Yanzhi’s only goal is protecting Yin Qi, and he’s committed to keeping him safe no matter the cost. The Crown Prince has already killed off all his other brothers, leaving Yin Qi as the last one standing in his way. Yin Qi’s mother, the Empress, is deeply ambitious herself and keeps pushing him to go further than he’s comfortable with.
The story itself is fairly straightforward, and while there’s a time travel element built in, it doesn’t really end up mattering much to the overall plot. The two leads have decent chemistry and the acting gets the job done. Funnily enough, the secondary couple involving the villain actually had more heat and chemistry than the main pairing did. Yin Zhou’s character is written as openly gay without any shame about it, to the point where he’s got an entire harem of men around him. He’s particularly close with one of them, who ends up sacrificing his life to protect him and stop him from committing further crimes. When Wei Zi Ming dies in his arms, Yin Zhou completely unravels and ends up taking his own life, which felt like a strange choice to me. Like I mentioned earlier, I’d pretty much checked out by around episode three. There were just too many twists and too much back and forth for any of it to hold my attention. I’m guessing I’m in the minority not liking this one, especially given how much praise it’s getting online. If this sounds like your thing, definitely go for it. It just didn’t click for me personally, and part of that is probably because I’m not that big a fan of this particular style of historical drama from the region to begin with. (3.5/10)
