First, I thought the ML, given his traumatic history, fell too fast for the MC. I agree with many of the other commenters/reviewers that the ML's choices in the beginning frustrated me, because I feel the MC would've been more cooperative had he explained his goals and needs early on in a way that was a win-win. However, once the MC understood the ML's past and his mission--I can't relate to her acceptance of his approach, which lead to her suffering. Maybe I wanted a more explicit choice on her part to repay the ML for "giving her life" leading to her ignoring his initial desire to use her (and her body) for his benefit.

Second, the villains didn't deliver on the hype, because their world views/perspectives either weren't fully developed/explored or negated in later chapters. I'll explain: to begin, the best villain by far, Su Ning, the ML's "ex" had an understandable motive in tricking ML in order to save her loved one. However, neither her obsession with her past love nor her hatred towards demons was elaborated in the story. Besides for a few remarks towards the end, we never learn why the cold hearted Su Ning fell in love with the general--we don't truly understand his character either--did he play Su Ning--why did his reincarnation love someone else, etc. Moreover, the racism towards demons while common to these types of stories could've been grounded more had we learned that her family and/or, in general, many people's families died from demons in the past. This demon-human hatred's origin was not explored in any significant detail. Next, the true villain, the MC's grandmaster, i.e., her shifu's shifu, had a simple motive of wanting to use the demon's neidan to help himself ascend, which to me is too simple, especially since a more complex, nuanced reason was sketched out in the story. Wouldn't it have been more complex if he was also seeking revenge in part for the death of his master? When we learned that his master was the deceased human wife of the Demon Fox King I suspected this was going to be part of his motive for targeting the foxes, but instead he was portrayed as simply self-interested--motivated by power alone. (Contrary to his more humorous portrayal in the beginning.) To end this section, I hated how--at the last moment--the MC's master was written to be trying to protect the MC all along from his master and Su Ning. If that was the case, then why didn't he give any information to the MC prior to his death? His plan in regards to her was s*upid in my opinion. Instead, I would prefer the author to have made the hard choice to depict him as a hypocrite and/or someone, ultimately too weak or self-interested to do the right thing when it mattered.

Third, I felt there was a chance for this novel to become something great after the MC was rescued from her former sect leading to her deciding to pursue revenge for the death of her elder/senior brother disciple. To me, if the author allowed a time skip, or gap to happen--another cease fire between the humans and demons--we could've had a tragic love story develop wherein the ML witnessed his new love, the MC descend down the same path of revenge he pursued, i.e., the ML in the quest for his vengeance ruined the happiness/kind disposition of the MC leading them down to the same hell. I love dark stories where roles are reversed, revenge is sought, and, in the end, no one is happy. Would the ML find joy seeing the once kind MC become ruthless in pursuit for justice? Or, would he regret seeing her lose her kindness, because of his manipulations in the early part of the novel?

My one criticism is many of the mysteries behind character motivations are revealed quickly with little time to really ponder OR some we spend way too much time understanding their motivations. The clearest example of this is when you consider the primary antagonist for the majority of the story vs the hidden final antagonist at the end. One backstory was really explored and involved and the other was kind of thrown at us all at once.