I quite liked this one as well! It reminded me of a lot of the palace-centric cdramas I've watched. I was the most impressed by the big spoilery ending decision - I thought from the setup it was the only way it could end and be narratively satisfying, but how Tao pulled it off and the twists that happened were fantastic. A solid sleigh-of-hand magic trick is a great way to describe it!
My main quibbles were 1) for a book called The Poet Empress I was wishing for more on-page poetry than what we got and 2) some parts of the ending/epilogue were a little too neat and tidy. But I'm definitely looking forward to Shen Tao's future works!
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Date: 2026-02-05 07:02 am (UTC)My main quibbles were 1) for a book called The Poet Empress I was wishing for more on-page poetry than what we got and 2) some parts of the ending/epilogue were a little too neat and tidy. But I'm definitely looking forward to Shen Tao's future works!