I started watching this because of FL, Zhou Ye. However after I started, I was totally drawn into the story of a FL being a villain desperately seeking redemption.

It’s my first time seeing the ML, Wang Xin Yue. I am impressed by the CP’s chemistry and ML’s mature acting skills despite his young age. And Zhou Ye is fantastic in this role.

The story…warning on spoiler.
Begins with dark setting, where the FL, Hua Qian(HQ) who was on a run but was caught by official. Her family, Hua family, had done lots of misdeed, hence her father was executed by the emperor and both her mother and elder brother were also put to death. HQ, FL was on the run but soon was caught and badly beaten up, injured and fainted.
The next scene HQ woke up on her wedding day, which was 2 years ago. So here we get a background set up on FL’s time travelling back to her past. But as we understand C regulation of censorship, this story has a twist.
FL, HQ with all her knowledge of her past, is determine to change her and her family’s fate. So she went on to plan to undo her marriage with Zhong YanLan (ZYL) which she obtained through unscrupulous ways. She tried to gather her father’s misdeed and attempt to make him change his mind and retire early to country side.
In her previous arc, she was a villain who manipulates and plot to marry ZYL. She is one track mind deeply obsessed with her love to ZYL. She lies and broke up ZYL and his childhood love with Mu Yao (MY). MY and her family were victim of Hua family(father)’s scheme to gain power. MY’s family is on exiled. MY was rescued by ZYL, so with his help in the previous arc, she found evidences, she exposes HQ and brought down Hua’s family, which we saw at the beginning of ep So HQ knowing all the likely events, she attempted to reverse her fate.
To redeem herself, in this second arc, she decided to tell ZYL the truth and her misdeed, she plots to divorce him and brought ZYL and MY together. She rescued a beggar, Hua Rong Zhou(HRZ) who became her loyal admirer and protector. Her revealing her true self caught ZYL’s attention and interest. As she lost interest and divorce ZYL, Zhong Xi Wu (ZXW) ZYL’s junior became bolder and decided to confess his long hidden love for her, which put HQ in a dilemma. As HQ would never imagine herself in Zhong’s residence and fighting with women politics. So she accepted ZXW’s mother offer to fake death.
With HQ’s changes, she made peace with ZYL and MY, knew about ZXW’s love for her. But her brother still died protecting her. And her father’s misdeed was still revealed but they weren’t executed, instead retired to a small town by ZXW’s order. ZXW realised at the end that he can’t keep HQ and make peace by letting her go.

Which we were brought to the end (last ep., major spoiler ahead): the plot twist - it’s all HQ’s dream. So after ep. 1, she has been in coma, for 2years, ZXW rescued her and have been nursing her, he manages to convince his Mom to let him manage the business and also take care of the comatose HQ. Finally she woke up but fainted back into the dream as grief stricken of the reality. Then hearing ZXW talking to her in her sleep, she decided to wake up and say goodbye to HRZ who is actually a symbol of herself in the dream state. She makes peace and woke up, calling ZXW’s name, and the story ends.

After thought:
The novel is slightly different and gave HQ a time travel arc, where she gets her redemption and gain her freedom, save her parents and she lives quietly with HRZ in that village. But in this drama, we knew in order to pass C regulation, the screenplay has to be changed to show that reality cannot be changed, and there is no possibility for time travel to reverse your wrongdoing. Hence this story has to add the dream concept and she has to wake up to face her consequences. I understand and felt overall this drama is quite well done, just felt such cruelty on HQ’s story. But with the end is a new beginning, and we knew ZXW will be there for her.