I loved this show! Here are some of the great things about it:
-Shang Xirui ranging from subtle and highly skilled actor to over-the-top emotional to peevish to childishly amused from moment to moment. I loved every single one of those moods.
-Cheng Fengtai's facial expressions, especially whenever Shang Xirui did something to surprise him.
-Shang Xirui and Cheng Fengtai's many scenes of just eating and drinking together or going for walks in the late evening or talking for hours on end... it's so intimate and lovely and so often a little melancholy, with the sense of longing.
-The operas. The only other show I've seen with Chinese opera as a major plot point is Granting You a Dreamlike Life, but in this show the opera is far more essential to the plot. I loved watching Shang Xirui brainstorm how to stage and perform various shows, various characters, and watching the troop rehearse. I loved each and every performance involved in the show. My one grudge is that sometimes the show would play unrelated music OVER the opera shows during important emotional moments--what's the point??
-Bandits!
-Opera circle petty drama, mostly in the first half of the show.
-Family drama both serious and less so.
Idk everything about this show was basically great. I loved every episode (...except one where a Certain Character died but I won't go into that).