the happy ending kind of feels out of place. A bad ending honestly would have matched the novel's themes much better. And even though it's nominally a happy ending, I almost doubt that the ML Sheng Lingyuan is even able to feel happiness at all, his whole character is extremely depressing. It's like, he's willing to die for the MC, but not willing to live for him. He just gives off the feeling that he could let go of life at any moment, and just leave MC to live the rest of his immortal lifespan alone.

basically souls don't continue on after death, living is a precondition for having a soul, so there's no second chances if you waste your life, hell at some point in the novel, it just casually remarks that average people who just live 9-5 lives like cogs in the machine, just eating, sleeping, sh*tting, working barely have souls at all. One theme that aspires to be hopeful (but really isn't) is that everything that lives/is sentient has a place in the world (paraphrased), except the plot contradicts this idea, in that the yao and the human-like races all got genocided, then their remaining survivors had to hide amongst humans and interbreed with them in order to survive, so that 3000+ years later only humans and humans with 0.00001% nonhuman bloodline are left. Which is, like, what, humans don't have the capacity to coexist with other races/species/supernatural creatures unless humans assimilate them like the borg??

He wanted to seal off all doors and windows, isolating himself from any "real or imaginary" beings, even blocking out the spring scenery. He urgently wanted to materialize and grasp that person in his hand.

If that wasn't possible, he was willing to turn into a cloud of smoke and mist, occupying every sense and orifice of Lingyuan, making him only able to see himself, hear himself, and touch only himself -

"Wake up!"

A thunderous voice suddenly roared in his ear, nearly giving Xuan Ji a concussion.

Xuan Ji cries and begs when Lingyuan hurts himself

mother and teacher are both the worst scum on earth

MC and ML meet and are forced to work together to subdue the various demons summoned by a mysterious mastermind. MC awakens more of his ancient powers and realize he is the physical embodiment of chiyuans seal, as well as the last descendent of the now extinct vermillion birds - a powerful beast from ancient times that guarded the chiyuan. He regains memories of his past life showing how he and ML were bonded together in a sacrifice to became a pair of heavenly demon and heavenly sword, for the sole purpose of defeating the evil yao king. After fulfilling his purpose as the heavenly sword, MC was shattered. ML was devastated and tried to revive MC in vain, and in his agony he gauged his heart and severed his earthly tethers thus becoming a ruthless tyrant. Later, ML jumped to his death in chiyuan. In an astronomically unlikely chain of events following, MC was reborn in chiyuan and became its guardian. Whenever chiyuan becomes unstable, he would sacrifice his life to seal it again. MC lived the next 3000 years alone, sacrificing and reincarnating 36 times.

MC and ml's relationship improve as they both learn of each others identity. ML regains his heart and emotions. They become lovers (kinda).

in the climax of the story, they find the mastermind; someone who knows their past lives intimately, and they narrow it down to one person: ml's half yao mother. She is defeated, but at the cost of reigniting chiyuan and letting spiritual energy flood humankind once again. Post-script, society adapts as humans of all walks of life gain spiritual powers.

ngl I hard time getting engaged into the story. Jilings chemistry wasnt very exciting. Any crumbs of romance or s*xual tension gets swept aside, doused in water, buried ten feet deep, and unfortunately it just made their dynamic a drag to read. I DID really like the backstory however. Sly shows his humanity and weaknesses which all revolves around tong, and when the story reached the part where sly becomes mad trying to revive tong, and the insane desperation he felt? Honestly that was the most emotion ive seen coming from this guy so it was a real treat.

that said, jiling's present interactions, at least up to book 5, was SO lackluster in comparison. At this stage, their relationship was murky in the sense that xj couldnt understand why hes having so many dreams about sly, and sly not understanding why certain things about xj affect him the way they do. Neither understands howor why the other person is special to them. Their relationship only starts to improve after the memories came back, but even then sly was extremely avoidant, and any affection thrown his way was like talking to a brick wall. I suppose there is a plot reason for this (sly's lack of a heart, literally), but still, nearly a whole novel where one side of the relationship does not reciprocate isnt very fun to read.

jiling in the post script were a little more affectionate. Usually priest couples get together in the middle but I felt that with jiling, theirs was left to the end so theres not a lot of time left to explore their lives after getting together.

(im still iffy about is sly's memory loss. My impression is that he had his memories altered so he couldnt remember tong. But that wasnt the case at all, he knew who tong was and despite all the similarities between tong and xj he never connected the dots?)

zhichun x yan qiushan side ship was pretty good, knifey as heck and I thought they were gonna end up tragic like ruchun, but the story ends on a pretty hopeful note.

personally, best part of the novel is trying to guess what is danli's role in the big scheme. Its a fun guessing game because priest throws in a bunch of misdirection around. In the end his allegiances was a mixed bag, balancing sly and princess wanfei against each other while ensuring that his ultimate goal, reviving his clan, could be fulfilled. On that note, despite danli being seemingly omnipotent (for the reader) he is flawed and taught sly that the more calculated you become, the more you open yourself to flaws, and he fell victim to that himself. A very nice touch.

the magic system was a bit hard to follow. Heavenly law and heavenly axioms mumbo jumbo made no sense

Partially because most of the story occurs in XJ POV, the reader really resonates with his feelings and confusion. And his feelings are very deep. Whereas when it comes to that gradual slow boil to the revelation of his true identity, I don't feel the same gradual realisation on SLY side who seemed more nonchalent about it. So there's an imbalance in emotion that kind of left me unsatisfied. And for most of the story, XJ seems desperate to find a way forward together but SLY is stuck in the past (or that's how I feel). I kind of get that it's part of his character and how the years have worn him down but it's just kind of sad. Lucky there's a HEA. The extras gave a tiny bit of fluff to put them on a somewhat more equal footing but looking back I suddenly realise I don't even know when did SLY even fall for XJ? I might have missed the moment in my reading but it was so much more clearer from XJ's side.