the time travel plot has the potential to be really interesting, it was too full of plot holes to make sense.

loop

The time travel arc was pretty weird and random I’m kinda confused why he did it? Like if Rong Bai willingly decided not to live why are you forcing him to live by going back in time??? It would have made more sense if someone was trying to kill him and not that he willingly decided he didn’t want to live anymore??

Jiang Liangs (is that even the name? I’m sorry hehe) story with his marriage and the red silk gown : (I was crying so hard when he found out the truth

In the third act at least 3 different plot devices were used in sequence so the MC could get the full story in illusory realms. All of this after half the arc was spent with every character just acting over the top ridiculously mysterious and going "ooooh we could tell you but it will so much better for you to figure the mystery out yourself!!! " to the MC. In the end, he did not figure jack sh*t out! He just watched it like a TV show! What was all of the preamble even for!

After this arc just gets WORSE.

The MC goes to the ML's for a reason but it ends up feeling like just another plot device for us to see if all, almost as bad as just a flat out illusory realm. In the past we then have the following:

• The MC and ML share dream realm and this is how the MC realize the MLs feelings.
• A character bewitches the MC so he is stuck in a dream.
• Another character mid conversation casts the MC into another illusory realm for like two chapters as like, a part of the conversation.
• The MC decides to read a scroll on the supposed History of a clan of some Deities except WAIT in the divine realm you do not read words -
  you go into an illusory realm inside the scrolls! Also the scenes recorded in the scroll are exclusively the story of the ML and his mother which could be summarized more poignantly in like three or four lines of actual real world dialogue.

All this was one arc, just one thing after the other. Each chapter either started an illusory realm segment, ended it, or was fully inside one.

When the arc ends, the next arc starts and half way into its first chapter the MC gets trapped into... You guessed it, an illusory realm.

This is MADDENING.

A simple example:

The most egregious case - the scroll you go into to see the full story with the mother. Two of the MLs siblings are introduce in the story, one who despises the MLs mother and another who seems to like her (and likes the ML). If these two had commented on her from different views, and then the scroll with the History of TuShan had a simple READABLE LINE that said something like 'Year XXI of the Peaceful Era. For failing in her childrearing duties and allowing Tu Shan Bai, heir of the Tu Shan clan, to come into mortal peril, Rong Sang was sentenced to death. " we would have half the story told.

You could then keep her corpse in the MLs dreams, and just have him mention the flowers he tried to foolishly get for her. Include a portrait of him with black hair next to the his mother in the book, and a few rude comments from a clan member about his childhood and you could have the whole sad tale. If done well, it could even hit harder.

There are just so many ways to tell a story that do not involve like four or more dream/illusory realms PER 20 CHAPTER ARC.

MC drinks the blood of the demon king by accident and becomes a fox demon himself. He goes on a quest to find this demon king in order to become human again. He meets ML in his travels and they go from town to town hunting down clues of the demon king's whereabouts. Then MC realizes that ML was the demon king all along, but ML is weakened because his soul is incomplete. MC travels back in time to find a solution, but ends up romancing past-ML instead. Because of time contraints, their affair gets cut short and past-ML is left devastated. So he decides to lock the part of his soul that fell in love with MC in order to preserve the memory forever -- but at the cost of forgetting MC. Back to present time, MC reveals his identity and that successfully unlocks ml's memories.

what I do appreciate is how earlier on we were misled to believe that song ci had a picture perfect rich life in the capital, loved his family and didnt want to leave them behind -- when in fact the whole 'demon blood corrupting him' was probably his excuse to run away. He suffered from childhood ab*se, neglect, and ridicule from peers, and readers didnt get an inkling of that until it was laid bare in his flashback. Song ci compartementalizes a lot and that makes him an unreliable narrator, BUT I like this little twist because it adds a bit of flair to his character.