l hate Mo Ran (the MC) so much, him constantly talking about how he wants to r*pe and ab*se the ML was agitating to read. The author writes r*pe as if it is just sexy interc**rse which makes it that much worse. I find what he did to the ML in his past life unforgivable. When Mo ran started getting his redemption arc was when l finally decided to drop it. No amount of backstory or regret from him could change what he did to his past life. I tried to understand why his fans try to defend him so much but I couldn't find any of his redeeming qualities. Maybe they will appear later, but if it takes more than a hundred chapters for me to feel an ounce of pity from him, I don't think continuing the novel is worth it.

I hate how much the author victimizes the him, he is a pretty strong character but all the angst really ruins him for me. I could not remember an arc where the ML wasn't a pitiful self-sacrificing victim by the end of it. Chu wanning just rubs me the wrong way. I tried to ignore that the 26 year old ML had fallen for his 14-16 year old student at basically first sight, but it gets harder to ignore when the ML wants the TEENAGE MC to reciprocate his feelings. Isn't this just plain pe*ophilia? Basically a teacher preying on his student? I can't wrap my mind around it.

Txj is a really complex character. I think one of the points of his character is whether or not you would forgive someone like txj, which is debatable (and really there's no right or wrong answer. The readers are meant to form their different opinions of him based on their own morals) So just going off of what I think of him, even if txj was manipulated by that curse that made him do the things he did, I still have a hard time liking him. The way things turned out of hand was just irredeemable in my opinion. I can tell the author tried to make him more likable because he tried to protect cwn in the end and lost all of his good memories of him, but I can't just brush over the things he did. I did feel sorry for him though after learning the truth about everything but that's about it. The ending kinda made me feel a certain type of way with him sticking around but he treats cwn better, so I wasn't too mad.

The story is very dark and includes a lot of depressing and twisted elements. I'm not going any deeper into this. Just beware that there are suicidal thoughts and r*pe. However, the writing is so good that will keep you reading and invested in the story.

There are knives for my Chu Wanning, but there are also knives for ML. So wait for it. You will cry your heart out for both Chu Wanning and ML

How can a guy who's supposedly smart enough to go from a bumpy teenager to a powerful, evil tyrant who rules the entire world in just a handful of years, and who is over 30 at the beginning of the story be so oblivious to his own feelings even when he's literally told that CWN is his fated love?! Fine that it takes him some time to figure it out, but he should have realized it sooner. The fact that the author had to explain why he doesn't realize it at CWN's death is unconvincing. When he finally figures it out it's so banal.

CWN is almost as bad. He acts like a teenager, not a grown man. He should have realized that even if MR wasn't in love with him, he still fancied him (since MR literally crawled into his bed, held him and kissed him). And he keeps saying that he's ugly, which is just s*upid. Literally everyone around him comments on how beautiful he is, but he thinks he's ugly because he doesn't have the same extreme beauty that Shi Mei does. Which just comes off as vain and immature. It's fine that he has low self-esteem and feels lonely, but it's not like he has zero friends. He could have tried a little bit harder, and his constant pitiful monologue about how no one has ever loved him is just s*upid. So you're single in your mid-twenties, that's not exactly the end of the world.

Then there's his love for MR. The fact that for the longest time the readers doesn't get to see why he fell in love with a bumbling teenager made it hard for me to sympathize with his pinning. He's a grown man, he's powerful, and drop-dead gorgeous - why in the world would you think you're not good enough for a dumb little brat? And why do you even like someone as dumb and annoying? I know that anyone can have low self-esteem, but it just unrealistic in the end. The MC confesses to him, something CWN has dreamed of for years, and his answer is that there's no way MR can love him because he's ugly?! I'm sorry, WTF, did you go temporarily deaf and blind all the 100s of times people were calling you beautiful to your face and oggling you? Is this supposed to be a grown-ass person of normal intelligence?

CWN's low self-esteem does eventually get explained, along with why he originally fell for teenage MR, but way too late in the story, and by then I'd already lost too many braincells reading about him being an idiot.

The whole issue with Mo Ran killing Xue Zhengyong's actual nephew and burning down an entire building, causing the deaths of hundreds. Or the issue with Shi Mei and his motivation for opening the gates to the Demon Realm.

I felt really strongly for Ye Wangxi and Nangong Si... Also Luo Fenghua kills me everytime, there were so many parallels I could draw between him and Chu Wanning, and I was really upset over his end (As much as I love Wanning, I do feel like he did get it easier in some aspects (though he suffered a ton in others which made me so angry)

Going into details about Mo Ran 0.5 life with Shizun did not need to be presented in the form of r*pe. I mean, I get that that was the main way Chu Wanning was tortured, but it was so frequent in the latter part of the novel that instead of feeling pain for Chu Wanning (which I did still feel initially), I got a little frustrated because I felt that there were other ways to reflect the torture on Chu Wanning.

e.g Mo Ran being able to come back to life because he's a special kind of Butterfly-Boned Beauty... It wasn't explained how he had this heritage, did it come from his mother?? What?? I was already feeling a little iffy that Mo Ran was one of the NanGong clan's descendant, though I can chalk that to a rather reasonable explanation, but the former didn't really make sense to me, apart from being a plot device to keep him alive.

He seems unnecessarily saint like...? Like, you can be kind and all, but going to the extent to blame yourself for everything that your disciple did... didn't really make sense to me? Oh yeah, the misunderstandings also drove me mad, because so many things could've be resolved if they would just TALK. When they say this novel is dog-blooded, they really weren't kidding.

I just feel like it was unnecessary to have him, I mean Mo Ran 2.0 already had his memories from the previous life, so it didn't really seem necessary for me. Ta-xianjun's actions really left a bad taste in my mouth; even if I knew why he was the way he was, I still couldn't bring myself to like him at all, even when the author tried to redeem him. Ironically, I ended up viewing them as 2 separate beings, which was why I felt so frustrated when Ta-xianjun still shared a body with Mo Ran 2.0 after his revival.