I didn't know anything about construction, but I really enjoyed this. It's tied for best Sun Li drama with Nothing Gold can Stay, for me -- the two protagonists have a similar feel.

The facts straight up: the first four episodes were no good. Too many people introduced and seemingly random things happening. That is why it doesn't get the full 10.

However, subsequently, the story really started to take on life and center itself on Su Xiao's struggle. From that point on, the plot was really well executed, especially building up to Su Xiao and Mr. Chen's epic conflict. Slowly it showed more and more of the whole company. This series is more tightly plotted than Nothing Gold can stay; being more introspective, having longer to flesh out characters and having only one male protagonist. Also it has a lot of time lapse sequences that are very natural to the plot.

The pacing is also great, unhurried up to the last minute. Up to episode 39 I was thinking to myself, there's no way to resolve all this within the next two episodes. And I was right, because it didn't give Su Xiao quite as satisfactory an ending as I would have hoped. It seems like some of the original content was cut, which is a shame. However the ending we got in that very last episode was still acceptable.

I do have small nitpicks. Everyone values Xia Ming so much even when Su Xiao is imo more competent than him. Maria and He Congrong's stories are incomplete. Wu Hongmei's ending didn't make sense. But these are small nitpicks, all in all, well done and impressive!