The graph of my interest in this show will definitely resemble the cracks left by an earthquake if I ever plotted it. So why/how did I finish 40 episodes? Because this show is strangely addictive. Even if you want to bash your head or pull your hair out for forty minutes, you are eager to see what happens next (no matter how cliché or absurd you know it's going to be) and that is this drama's strength. And that comes from the marvelous performances of the cast, who make you believe in their emotions when the story doesn't. Because the story doesn't do anything here. The only one holding all the cards is the writer/director and we see the scenes they wish to show us, how they show us and when they want to show us. That is this drama's downfall. Maybe the three directors took a thread of the story each and went their way with them and faltered when it came to tying them all up. Add in poor screenplay and editing and this is a recipe for disaster waiting to happen.

Yet, the story is engaging. The main plot is scattered in pieces somewhere in between all the mess that happens but manages to take an integral part in the episode so it doesn't feel like we are wavering away from what we embarked on. The cases could have been better written or at least better presented. They often began in the last one third of an episode and continued till the first one third of another. I can't reason out why, unless it was dole out some cliffhangers and make the audience wait. Well, it worked. Episodes 10-20 are easily the best in the show. Midway through, you can take guesses at how each character's ending is going to be so it's not that shocking when the end does arrive. There are heaps of things we could have done without, though.

The actors are all amazing and the characterisation is one of the few good things, be it the two leads, SID, the humans or the Dixing-ians. I like how everyone has their quirks unrelated to the job they do. Those at SID are well sketched, but not well shown. In that respect, Zhu Hong, Sang Zan and Wang Zheng are the weakest. They appear when the directors want them to appear instead of always being a part of the group even if it's just standing in the background. Wang Zheng's story was drawn out a bit too much, and the Crow tribe leader's too little. Still, everyone is given a chance to tell their story and that keeps the plot going when the writers have used up their repertoire of cases.

Music is good and I'll only re-watch the edited portions of the two main leads for their sparkling chemistry. It's there right from the moment they first make eye contact with each other and I rewinded plenty of their sweet scenes to gush over them. This was a BL despite the lack of explicit or implicit words of romance between the leads and despite the love triangle they tried to build. I mean, if someone did for me what Shen Wei does for Yun Lan, he is definitely going to be tied to me for the next seven births as well. Shen Wei is open but silent about his feelings and Yun Lan openly and silently enjoys all the teasing he gets. Their love for each other is scattered in the story just like the plot has been. However, I'm disappointed that some of the most emotionally charged scenes are haphazardly placed at the end, which in itself is a mess.

In a nutshell, this show left me wanting for some actual BL scenes so much that I watched two others in succession but I still remember how the cat behaves like a cat even in his human form and how Guardian was reminiscent of a bad cross between Power Rangers and Supernatural. It's worth watching for the two leads, though.