The story starts with the return of Jiufang Changming, the world greatest cultivator (yet also infamous), from dead through the yellow river.

Actually it's not clear whether he's actually dead, it's closer to badly injured (so it's not reincarnation or transmigrated into another body).

At least the world thought he had died for a long time, along with many other great cultivators when they were sealing the demon world boundary together.

The sealing obviously failed, and moreover the world thought that JFCM was the cause of it.

Confused why his shizun suddenly became the traitor, the first disciple, Yan Weishi, who has long lost contact with him, came to the site to investigate it.

The sealing site became a realm of its own and called Nine Layers of Abyss and somehow Yan Weishi became the lord of the ninth layer. He has been safeguarding the place for a long time, and he also sacrificing his memory to guard the place.

Anyway, when JFCM returned from the yellow river, he didn't know all this and only wanted to recuperate his injured body. He first wanted to find his natal sword who hold part of his power.

His search led him back to Nine Layer of Abyss, met his amnesiac first disciple, and discover bit by bit the big conspiracy behind the failure of demon world sealing. In this adventure he is also accompanied by his other disciple's subordinate, a badass but relatabale female demonic cultivator.

Jiufang Changming is really cool and kinda dandy character imo. He is calm, collected, my-own-pace and quitely-slap-you-in-the-face type of character. He is a fun characters on his own. He is shamaless not for the sake of being shameless, but because other just have too much shame. He is the biggest motivator to continue reading in the initial stage.

For me the most interesting point is that he used to be really cold and strict teacher, but he was still the same unruly man who go against the common beliefs.

He just happen to pick up disciples whenever he changed his life course in the past, so his disciples ended up from being different community and even one of them was mortal and didn't know that his teacher was a cultivator. He only knew that his shifu died of old age.

It's a bit disappointing that throughout the story he constantly spit blood because of his injury, giving him a feeling of damsel-in-distress. But since he's not ashamed of being one, I'm not ashamed either!

Yun Weishi is the first disciple of Jiufang Changming. He is of orthodox cultivator. When JFCM left the path of orthodox cultivation, their relationship became (drop title) Estranged. Because he couldn't accept part of himself related to his shizun, Yun Weishi split his personality into two: Yun Hai and Yun Weishi. This happen when he stayed in Nine Layer of Abyss. Yun Hai doesn't have any memory of his shizun meanwhile Yun Weishi only remembered that JFCM's death is beneficial for him, so when they meet later he only wanted to kill his shizun (not because hatred).

When JFCM arrived in Nine Layer of Abyss, he first met with Yun Hai who doesn't remember him. Anyway Yun Hai's personality is mischievous, sometimes childish, but still cool and capable. His dynamic with JFCM is not boring, but it's quite generic and not interesting enough to motivate through the initial story.

Only later on, when he finally realized who JFCM is, and started to want to remember, that the story also began to be more exciting.

Compared to Yun Hai, Yun Weishi's character is more generic. At first he is kinda like a mad dog who only care to kill his Shizun, but he slowly has more stable personality. And his longing towards his Shizun made me want to hug him.

Oh and as the ML he appeared quite late too and he kinda come and go compared to story where ML quickly became mainstay.

His life itself began with his shizun. I meant his whole purpose of living/existance is his shizun. Initially it wasn't like that though.

Actually maybe I just don't like the plot in nine layers of abyss because it felt like they will trapped there forever. The setting suddenly felt so small although the scheme is so big. Fortunately it's only a small part of their journey (which actually span one and half a book volume). It felt like it'll take so long to meet another disciple or characters that aren't destinied to die a canon fodder

I actually kind guess it. Because his 3rd disciple always complain about how partial his master toward his 1st disciple. Even the way he give dao name to his disciples is different 😂. And his disciples always complain about how much master love to compare them with the 1st disciple. Even though MC doesn't admit it, but his inner monologue in later chapter, make me think that mc's 3rd disciple jealously definitely not unreasonable 😂

I love the plot where MC and his disciple travel to the past and future. So interesting

after she goes into detail how she'd mol*st/feel up/ take advantage of the MC like a voyeur in what could've been a scene where some significant improvement in MC and ML's strained relationship finally takes place. Like here you have ML who hates MC initially trying to help him by applying medicine on his back. But she just had to be there, and go on about her thirsting needs to feel up the MC and what not.

became that way cause learned the Heartless Dao following his teacher's last instructions and in doing so, threw away his emotions and memories, except the one about his teacher which gets twisted into the idea that he has to kill him to finally be free of him.

The ML. I know he's also the model ML but I actually liked him. Because he is more flawed in his desires compared to the MC. That, typical again, it becomes a heart obsession. Also, the romance as of c130 is almost non-existence so this is really just a mystery action book.

Not much to say about the rest except the 2nd had a falling out with MC, the 4th willingly left to fulfill his goal and the 3rd really hates MC too. In fact, I felt that the most pitiful one was the 3rd. Because MC was so cold to him when he was young in a tough love way that made him go astray. Like that is not the way to communicate with a child. And MC would have had experience with 2 disciples by then so have no idea why he could neglect the 3rd to that point. And all 4 disciples do not train together because they were each under MC when he practiced each dao and left when he pursued the next.

I think it's a personal preference but half the time I can't stand XJX. Like I quite liked her at the beginning because of her strong attitude. But when she began the coquettish act of trying to self-insert herself as MC's disciple, it kind of got a little irritating.