I am probably the first one to criticise the MC here and I might seem like I'm siding with the paranoid ML but since this is a romance with a paranoid person involved then and there it's doomed to be different from what everyone expects ! So here goes nothing -

I don't know how to feel about this one! The story had an interesting plot and very good characters but for me these characters still seem somewhat missing that bit of development and edge ! Might be because I am an idealistic and decisive person.

I feel that the ML's thoughts about being the irreplaceable were not what bound him. What truly bothered him was nobody bothered to tell him that being replaceable doesn't actually mean that you don't have a place of your own in this world! He needed to understand that being replaced won't make him less valuable! But due to his twisted fate in first life and also the second life all he saw was betrayal! In his first life his hopes were crushed time and again by his parents. In his second life his hopes to save and be saved were crushed time and again by the person he wanted to save and be saved by. As a result of this we see him becoming the crazy person he was towards the ending chapters wherein he did very many horrible things. And I'm not trying to justify things for him bcoz what he did was truly horrible. Especially that last question to the original protagonist was really absurd bcoz he himself never asked the MC.

Queue in the MC here bcoz this guy ! He really lacked some serious communication. The whole innocent mu*der drama could have been avoided if he just told the ML that after some time he could control his human flesh cravings and that they should just afk in jungle and find demonic beasts to practice his hunting ! He could just be the jungle king a little earlier but no he had to go to that valley and realise he can't let go of ML then take the big hearted route to wait for ML. In the whole novel even after he realised his feelings he never took the initiative but just kept waiting for ML then at last he very high standingly lowers himself to search for ML but still ends up misunderstanding him and expecting the ML again to take the lead.

The whole plot about that ye person is just there without any real purpose but the MC in my opinion gives him a lot of importance. If there was no ML then MC wouldn't even know about the whole ye person saga and that valley and still die miserably. But he still says that the person who had most impact on him and because of whom he was standing here was ye person. Well if there was no ML then he wouldn't even have a chance to develop this opinion on ye person.

Finally while I do agree that there was some good character development but I don't quite like the way this happens. The whole point here being that the ML had to grow up from his obsession and MC had to let go of his naïve thoughts, what we actually see through the chapters is that ML suffers through hell to go through his character development and finally turns around to become this sunshine guy who radiates light ! On the contrary the MC although is abandoned left and right still has the ML to console him which in turn allows him to go on smoothly with his upright nature and accept people even though they betray him at the end. The MC towards the ending chapters even gets upset and misunderstands the ML just because of his upright nature ? How can this person understand other people betraying him and not feel upset but one time he finds out ML not behaving the way he thought and he gets upset! Then again he goes and apologises to that ye girl saying that ML's behaviour was due to his neglect but still doesn't have the guts to tell the ML about his true thoughts! Alternatively if he had found that ML died during those seven years searching for him then would he just shrug and let it go ? I am glad that he walked out of ML's manipulation but what if it backfired- would he regret ? And what if he regretted ? There is no medicine to regret!

The whole episode at the end regarding that waxing moon island wherein the author describes that it would be okay if MC explained to them seems really weird considering that everyone on that island had betrayed the MC twice! MC doesn't owe any explanation to them. The ML does owe them an apology bcoz he behaved horribly to them before.

The author did a good attempt at portraying the complexities of human behaviour and relationships but it feels like they couldn't control the flow after some time...... it's true that in real life many things remain unresolved and many decisions are unreasonable but this whole romance leaves a weird aftertaste which doesn't feel right even after breaking down each character ! Again there are also hole like extreme s*upidity by the characters at crucial moments wherein it's previously stated as a warning but they don't remember unless their life is on the line.......

The MC and ML lives together on an island for 30 years with no changes, and MC being horrible, conceited, nasty and unking toward everyone except ML. And the character growth of MC happen only in a few days after 10 years of separation? Unbelievable. This is why I hate timeskip. I don't feel that there is any evolution of the characters during the first long timeskip. It could have been 6 months, that wouldn't have made any differences, so why bother making it that long ? It looks like the characters don't talk to each other and are in suspended animation during this timeskip.... The second big timeskip is more believable in term of character growth for the ML.

Like how, that people are replacable, however as human you can make choices and decisions to stay, to leave, to create a new place for yourself, and to make places for other people in your heart.

See? What beautiful message.

Mind you, I never saw him as white lotus. But at some point, he was written like he whole-heartedly blamed ML for everything -- as if ML didn't accompany him saving and doing whatever he wants for more than 30 years -- he was written so distrustful towards ML as if ML never gave him choices. Made me feel a bit bad for ML. But in the next chapter he suddenly showed to have some guilt afterall, but still felt a bit ungrateful. I'm not completely on ML's side, but this make me understand why some reviewers on MC's side and some are on ML's side.

It's not written or explained explicitly how much or why people dislike spiritual beast. Did they actually hunted that much? Why some people seems to really hate them but at the same time still know that spiritual beast are sentient? If they know spiritual beast are sentient then why still hunt or dislike them??

Why in the end appeared a place where spiritual beast can live outside of human influence? Why they didn't think of running there since the start?

Why people in the little valley, one of place where spritual beast can live peacefully, didn't understand the difference how spiritual beast treated inside and outside?

If this stuff fixed or made clear I think a lot of things would make more sense or even some of the characters' choices would change accordingly