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??

Xuan Ji cries and begs when Lingyuan hurts himself

mother and teacher are both the worst scum on earth

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.