One of the VERY rare stories that do not create a mentally damaged character and just write him off as the unredeemable villain. But even if that point was actually adressed well, there are still flaws to the writing and especially the art makes me dislike this quite a lot.
The art is SO horrible inconsistent. Their faces look like a solid head form and a vaguely attached pair of eyes, nose and mouth is just randomly wobbling and floating about (you know EXACTLY what I mean of you read it and pay attention to the faces). I get not being good at this, but these mistakes vary SO much that it almost feels like multiple people just attempt to slap a face onto a blank head. And even then...the headshapes change at times as if there was no set shape for THAT either. It is SO incredibly annoying to look at. It's one of the many times in a chinese comic that makes me want to read the novel instead...and that's just sad. Idon't know if they paid someone to draw this, someone who does NOT give a shit, but it sure feels that way.
The story itself is also not written well for the majority of the time. It's incredibly childish, mary sue-ish at times and just feels weird, like a teenagers highschool romance musical plot that they are convinced is THE most epic story ever told.
At times it seriously feels like a teenager was told a basic script by their younger sibling and they tried to string it into a story.
It's ok as a page flipper IF you ignore the horrible art issues and don't mind the childish writing, but it gets annoying easily and I find myself quick-scrolling through entire chapters just to catch a glimpse of something interesting looking (which there is not much of tbh).
The story drags, the characters are not interesting except for the mysterious mage dude and the art makes it unpleasant to read.
Maybe it's good for younger readers who have little to no standards of quality, but this goes onto my list for 'why reading chinese works is usually a huge waste of time unless you find that ONE in a million copycat plots or LO AND BEHOLD something actually selfmade with effort put into it'.
Seriously, the only positive point about this is the fact they bothered adressing the emperor's mental issues and that he has a reason to be the way he is. That's the only reason I can't give this a zero rating, but that's really ALL to rate positively. :/
I Became the Sacrificial Princess