The biggest let down is probably how selfish she is, how she played everyone like instruments, to the extend that her own son's life or death was an afterthought. The novel explains that part of her indifference to other people stemmed from her denial that the world was real, that people around her were real human. She was just a bystander! In fact, even after she realised how real that world to her in actuality, her indifference was only reduced instead of completely diminished. To be fair, in the end the author revealed this story is about a long dream (hence the title!) instead of a transmigration, it's sort of justifiable that none of these people were real. I say sort of, because the dream world started to crack after some years, and this puts the ambiguity back.... so what is real and what is not real? FL was aware of the cracks, but by that time she had become so attached to this dream that she refused to wake up.

Another example of the ruthlessness and cruelty of our FL is how she played the grain market in order to prove to her new master that a country could fall by means of food instead of weapons. Thousands of people, the innocent commoners, died starving from her actions.

If we talk about unlikeable people, let's bring up the second ML. In many novels, second ML are usually portrayed as the kind and ideal heartthrobs. The second ML here, lol, isn't. He served as a comparison tool for the ML, they had different motives behind their betrayals, and it makes scummy ML's motive somehow slightly nobler.

There are some boring parts, like how the c*ckroach-like Wen Wan keeps coming back and after the milionth times, I started to feel she is boring. Her tenacity is admirable, she's the kind that won't die even if you spoon-feed her rat poison. There are parts that are too unbelievable, like how easily the FL gained the trust of her new master after the complete fall in the 1st part, and how quickly she returned to being wealthy and influential.