At first, I watched this drama because of frequent comparisons to The Untamed I saw people make. Then I watched for the heavy flirting between the two leads (it was quite enjoyable, and I guess part of me was curious how far they could take it while still passing the censorship). Then I watched for the side characters whose stories somehow became more engaging for me than the main storyline.

Then... I just watched on because of the time I already invested in it.

I'm not gonna lie. This series was a let down for me. The acting from two leads was average at best. Gong Jun is very pleasant to look at, but his performance here was simply switching between three different facial expressions. I found Zhang Zhehan's repertoire of facial expressions richer, but they often felt kinda... off to me. Like they didn't align much with what the story tried to convey? I think I prefer him as a musician.

The story itself would benefit from being cut shorter, I feel it dragged on towards the ending and lost its grip on me for that reason. I definitely enjoyed the first half of the drama way more.

As for positives, I liked the costumes and overall visual character design, especially for the Ghosts. They looked like they belonged in an anime, which was very much to my liking. I found some of the side characters intriguing and charming, e.g., the Scorpion King and Luo Fumeng. I would've Ioved for their stories to be explored further.

I also enjoyed fighting scenes. I've watched a few wuxia and xianxia dramas and Word of Honor had some of the more interesting fighting sequences. People in charge of choreographies did a good job.

Music was nice...

All in all, however, with all the hype I'd seen this drama receiving, I expected something better. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't really great either.

7/10, hugely due to the vivid, charismatic side characters, fighting choreographies and costumes.

Cross-posted with Viki.