You know, I didn't expect much but this drama  managed to surprise me but as my  satisfaction grew  so did my expectations.  I don't exactly remember where I've read it but someone here on MDL commented that this is a drama of unrequited love and I agree with them but then not really. You see,  while this drama did mainly focus on the not mutual love our female lead had for the main lead it is only an unrequited love as far as Shao Xi is concerned because we as viewers clearly see that Li Zheng is in love  with her even if he doesn't exactly realize it himself which is a shame really because the feelings we get to see Shao Xi experience have way less of an impact on as as viewers. We know for sure that they'll get together. And I guess it's the same with every drama no matter what it might seem like, the main couple always gets together but It would have been more interesting if they at least tried to keep us on our toes.
Nonetheless the dynamic our main couple has is nothing I've ever seen before. Li Zheng is cold and not willing to date Shao Xi, but cares for her deeply and the struggle of the female lead to keep up an act of a friend hurts to see.  The way Li  Zheng's past connected to the personality of his  present self was pretty well done and the facts that he cared so much for Shao Xi made complete sense, it didn't feel forced at all and didn't overshadow his personality. Unfortunately it's another case for Shao Xi. Especially towards the end her personality consisted only of the facts that she liked Li Zheng and he didn't answer her feelings. We had a little bit of forced drama with her career as an athlete but that was cut very abruptly like it didn't really matter overall and was there because it needed to be for the structure of the story.  While her struggle to deal with unrequited love did give her character some development she still felt kind of bland, but I by no means hated her, I have seen wayyyy worse, for a rom-com she's a pretty fine female lead. The supporting characters and their dynamics were interesting too, I liked that Jin li actually had a pretty significant change in his character even thought it wasn't very complicated. I am pretty pleased that I was never really upset when supporting characters had scenes to themselves because I do tend to feel annoyed but I guess this is a proof that they were an interesting bunch.
Two things that bothered me the most. First is that it dragged, the second half consisted of many scenes and even episodes we didn't really need of  evil love rivals, misunderstandings and drama.  The second thing, that I'm really sad about is that  *sigh* you see...at the first part of the drama you see that Li Zheng is kind of overprotective of Shao Xi and acts kind of like a yandere and it's never adressed until the last episode where it's just brushed off as just something not that important but to me the way he acted in one certain scene (you'll know if you see it) it seemed like he wasn't really mentally stable. I'm not saying he's crazy but, I fell like, you do have to be sort of psychologically crooked to act the way he did and I wish wish wish they would have addressed this more seriously because while it was surprising it went along with his personality just fine and it would have made this drama 10 times more interesting but alas it was only a rom-com, which is, you know, like a one night stand - there are good ones, there are bad ones but in the end you forget them all (I'm a fucking virgin wtf am I talking about).
In the end I would say that if you want a rom-com but like, while not by much, something a little bit unusual then go ahead and watch it. I had a fun time throughout this drama mostly because of how lovable all the characters are and honestly that's enough.