It would have been 2.5 had it not been for the ending because I really did not see that coming

the fact that quishi was "senior" from obsidian who had almost completed the 12th door, the actual leader of obsidian who would've completed his 12th door had it not been for nanzhu's wish to relive all that by quishi's side was a little too shocking for me. Now as much as it shocked me doesn't mean I'm pretty happy with it. The thing is, the quishi we follow belives no one truly loved him before nanzhu (which again is the main premise on why I even liked their relationship because he proved he wanted to always be by quishi's side) and you put it in my face that oh well quishi had a loving relationship with everyone, nanzhu just wanted to live with quishi so he took everything from quishi and made him redo it all which really left a bitter feeling in my heart for the ship. Is the twist great from a story perspective? yup! Does it crumble the credibility of the trials they went through? Also yes.

I also did not like how the side characters were not placed in much importance and we rarely got to see them except main couple as if the entire story existed just to feed dog food which I won't mind most of the time if side characters feel human but honestly apart from cheng siblings, everyone else (zaozao and dongyuan included) did not feel real fleshed out character. Having side characters have a job does not make them good side characters btw. And I think in that respect the drama did way better because atleast the side characters left so much impression and had so much substance to them as characters

and their deaths actually mattered and made sense in drama unlike the book where they couldn't care less about the dead 2 hours after the characters died.