To each their own I guess. XD
I really love this novel. Maybe it doesn’t come across so well in translation, but in Chinese, this novel is very beautifully subtle. Hardly anything’s told to you straight-up and it does a wonderful job of building up the mystery and tension (esp with royal intrigue and war). At the same time, you can make the same deductions as the characters if you pay enough attention.
I actually liked that aspect of character building lol. They’re all 3D rather than 2D characters this way. And in my opinion, Jiuling becomes a much more relatable character when she interacts with Zhu Zan. It’s like she’s behind her court mask all the time and only pulls it off for him.
As for Zhu Zan taking too long to show up for the face-to-face meeting... Love in this story is like fate. It’s about two people being connected even if they might not see each other and being brought inexplicably together again and again.