This was a shocker to me, since stepmothers are usually depicted as plotting against the MC and favoring their own son. At first, the stepmother came off a bit like that in the beginning, but as the reader learns more of her character, she truly loves the MC in her own way, and pretends to be long-suffering and strict on the MC -- but is like a lioness towards anyone who wants to hurt any of her children -- stepchild or not. Essentially, she's a tsundere.

A perfect example of this was when MC's his past life's real mother slapped him for digging up his past life's grave and leaving a hand print on his face. MC's stepmother happened onto the scene, seeing the MC shed tears, and went batshit-crazy, you-do-not-touch-my-son on her, swinging her arm with force to leave an equally red imprint on the woman's face. (This horrible woman, who abandoned MC as a child during his past life at a mass grave to climb the social ladder, so in his past life, he never experienced the true affection of a mother.)

She has a hidden sense of humor as well, and was the one to slowly convince MC's father to accept MC's relationship with the ML, despite initially claiming ML was "too good" for MC, lol.

There's so many gems of interactions between the MC and the stepmother that build so much depth between their affection for each other, too many to spoil. I actually feel she shows more depth in her love to the MC than his own father does.

The other thing I like about the story is the MC fights using his own abilities, and the ML mostly stays out of his battles, except the final battle with a powerful zombie.

Another big spoiler is the MC's original father is Yama (sometimes known as the King of Hell, King Yan or Yanluo).

there's this scene were they confronted an offender in the ghost market and one of MC fan just farted in the middle of such a tense confrontation. I almost died laughing.

One of my favorite scenes is when the MC’s previous life’s mother (who had abandoned him) came to find him to take the MC’s previous life’s belongings back with her. (The MC robbed his own grave.... lol) However the MC obviously refused and asked her what relation she has to the deceased and what right does she have to take back his things? However even though he is dead, she still doesn’t dare to admit that he is her son, because if she does she will lose her current position and wealth. Yet at the same time she wants to take his things away to comfort herself that she had once had a son. Disgruntled she slapped the MC. At this time, the MC’s current life’s stepmother (no blood relation) came in, saw the MC being slapped, and went all gung-ho “oh no you didn’t just slap my son” and beat her up one sidedly. It’s just so poignant that one mother is blood related but abandoned her son to die on a mass grave, not daring to admit that he is her son even after he is dead, while another is not blood related but treats him as her own son and is willing to do anything to protect him. Familial love is not determined by blood relations, but by whether the other is truly considered family in their hearts and treated like family. I’m very glad that the author didn’t go with the typical “evil stepmother” cliche.