Let us tackle what really is the highlight of the story. Liu Haoran played the youngest of the brotherhood and he was not allowed to fight in the battle until his older brother died. He was a prince, naughty, but clever and wise. His task was to provide the much needed protection for the empire and his close family especially to the younger heir to the throne of which he should be in that throne as the true real crown prince but he is not that very ambitious. The emperor was very sick of a certain ailment as if without cure. What could be the problem? He had hundreds of wives and concubines, that maybe is part of the problem. He was being poisoned, slowly until he died. One of the villages with thousands of people, mostly peasants were wiped out due to epidemic. They thought it was an epidemic. It turned out that the village's water well was contaminated. The water they drink and used for cooking and bathing was contaminated. The vile and vindictive creepy sorcerer was the villain and source of such "epidemic".
How he infiltrate the empire is beyond means or he was such a man of great power and influence. His motive and purpose is actually revenge for his family, clan and his whole village was wiped out too because of the emperor and his men's wrongdoings from the past. The sorcerer was the hero for the old villagers and his family and clan who were massacred before. Simply it was matter of revenge. He died. The emperor died, the generals died. So many people died. The wife of the emperor died, she was killed because her mental reasoning doesn't resonate with the empire. She forbid the hunting of animals at the time when millions of them are starving, the medical and food supply didn't arrive because the ship sunk. They were at the point of eating themselves. If this is based on true, real historical facts then probably some of them have eaten rodents and what could be more disgusting that maybe they tried cannibalism. The empress died, she killed herself because she will be put to death anyway.
Thank goodness the ending is much better to bear. Too much tragedy.
Lessons learned from this tele-drama/action series that epidemic or pandemic doesn't really revolve around virus. Harmful chemicals, poison, toxic fumes and toxic air all the pollution could be the one to be blamed and how these toxic environmental hazards got in the way? Yeah, the villains did it. For one thing, some heroes can be the villains and some villains can become heroes. Choose your viral.
