First half, he was a solid balance of a hidden romantic, then went into full blown romantic, before going back into a repressed, controlling romantic for the last few episodes haha. I love a fluffy cheesy romance and have seen my fair share, but in the latter half, moments got so trope-y (ML went into full overbearing CEO mode with some scenes) that my eyes rolled to the back of my head too many times to count (still squealed my fair share though for some scenes). Qing Wu and Qi Nian's conflict should've been resolved earlier! That would have made Qing Wu's relationship more palatable, but also her commentary about her partner being legal to marry was so worrisome (smh!). I would loved to see the girls gang up on the ML for being a dork and putting the FL through (albeit brief) anguish. FL's love rival had so much potential to be a supportive rival/sister and that was annoyingly destroyed.
I would have loved to see more of a sisterhood between all of the ladies - sooo much potential there that the drama barely cracked the surface. There were a lot of unrealistic scenarios! While I'm glad for some quick conflict resolution, these new conflicts were unnecessary! The first half had plenty of other conflict that could be flushed out and resolved! While the two other pairings were cute and acceptable, how the drama went about creating one relationship (Si Qi's) and creating conflict in another (Ji Qiu's) was out of nowhere and hard to buy in. After ep 15, a lot of the vehicles that drove the main romance were ignored, while a monster pile of other conflicts with new characters that were thrown in and resolved within minutes.
I binged all the way from ep 15 to ep 24 with growing disappointment. Around ep 14, I could even justify some of the ML's antics to provoke the FL, hoping that he would have a frank discussion with the FL in ep 15, but. The ML wasn't your typical overbearing, unreasonable, cold ML.I loved his interactions with Ji Qiu. They were a lovely combo that caused me to binge straight through to ep 14 (amazing tension) and made me anxiously wait for the next episodes. It was lovely to see certain conflicts resolved with such speed without repeat, but still have the male lead give her more opportunity to be around him the more he fell for her. It also had a no-nonsense, rational, and caring male lead, who reacted realistically! The female lead knew when she should cut her losses and own up to her schemes quickly. The beginning half was funny and had a refreshing, lovable-without-being-cringe-y, clumsy, and amazingly BLUNT female lead, who was brave enough to do things that would only happen in a drama.