I read this book to reminisce a beloved Chinese/Taiwanese serial I watched as a kid. I was a huge fan of Putri Huan Zhu (Princess Returning Pearl) and since the main actress/actors also played in Putri Huan Zhu, I was also an avid watcher. I remembered it was a sad drama, but everything ended happily. Apparently everything in the movie was sugarcoated. I was not prepared for the amount of sadness in the original book.