the final boss and pity him a lot... I totally get where he's coming from and found him to be such an interesting character because he genuinely respects Cui Buqu (though others may argue that he just wanted more allies), and it's a pity that there wasn't much more about him.

if they are the commanders of the king and empress secret groups.... Why not own up to that cui? Like he purposely tortured himself and made the investigation for both of them longer just to contrive a sense of hatred beteeen them that would have never happened if they were just leaders who were willing to be upfront. Ok even if they wanted to solve this first for glory, cui could still be honest about his identity and still motherf*cking do sh*t in the background without getting caught bc imo Feng's group seems incapable despite all their hype lol it's just. Overly contrived. It comes off obvious to me what thee author was trying to do. I wish I could not see it lol. I wish it came off more natural for me. But it doesn't make sense.

Cui literally was like ok I'm gonna sit in this black box for 5 days and get poisoned for 2 of those days just because I want to be secretive against an (technically) ally government group, just so I figure it all out before them. like make it make sense. The only logic is that the author wanted them to have a reason to "hate each other" bc ppl love banter and "enemies" to lovers dynamic. Imo overly contrived bc illogical.

It's unfortunate bc the writing is good but I dont think the character and world building is that great.

I think this author does best when they can reference a world background to anchor their characters and stories from. Because I think making their own world is too much for them to handle. I really recommend their other much better book which is more focused on the cases (which I like) & has smarter characters called um the minister one of the 14th or something lol. Anyways unfortunate bc I think thee author could've done better. This author is capable of such great heights that I do feel disappointed with this one.

I will say the ending was very abrupt, but the extras made up for it. One issue I can say was the villain of the story, Xiao Lu. His ending and buildup were fine but for me fell down towards the end and I felt he could have been developed some more. Some other side characters I felt could have benefited from some more developed.

Especially the main villain, Xiao Lu, there is some buildup (as shown how the cases are linked to each other), and Xiao Lu as a character is compelling (he has a reason for why he does the things he does), but his presence felt really disconnected from the rest of the story, and only at the end did he actively play a role. But then again, the ending did have me on the edge of my seat, seeing Xiao Lu and Ququ working together and understanding each other, I had a lot of complicated feelings lmao, if anything I quite liked Xiao Lu as a character