Child sexual abuse, human trafficking, torture (these 3 happened to side characters) ; f*ck or die situation BUT none of the people involved in the interc**rse were responsible for the drug that affected the other - it was a drug given by a third party with malicious intent. I cannot stress that enough. It is discussed and explained 2 chapters after. Mental torture plays a big part as well.

"I'm Jing Lin."

Jing Lin said in a hoarse voice.

"I'm Jing Lin."

He struggled against the chains, murmuring repeatedly and ceaselessly into the empty darkness.

"I have a beloved, over the mountains and across the seas. I'm his reverse scale. My name is Jing Lin. Ming Jin Stage. City of Huaishu. Qixing town. He and I, he. Who is he?"

Jing Lin irritably grabbed his hair with his forehead pressing against the wall. "I want to form a marriage alliance with him. In Qixing Town. Ming Jin Stage. Come for me, for me."

The pattern of the curse instantly materialized on his cheeks, and the motif of thistles and thorns wound around his neck and tightened its grip around it. Jing Lin slammed his head hard repeatedly like a trapped beast. Blood trickled over his eyes, wetting them. He shouted in a hoarse voice, "At Ming Jin Stage! I'll wait for you at Ming Jin Stage! Wait for you to take me home. Who, who? I have a beloved, over the mountains and across the seas, I have"

Jing Lin's throat tightened even more until it was even hard for him to gasp for breath. He clawed at his throat, and the chain swayed along with his gasps. Jing Lin's eyes widened in despair as if he was watching a heavy fog pervade the air before him to separate him from that man. He sobbed in a hoarse voice. All of a sudden, he turned over and crawled by sheer force to scratch hastily on the wall with his fingernail. His fingernail broke. Leaving a long, long trail of blood on the wall as he dug and dragged his finger across.

A dragon.

Jing Lin placed his palm and cheek on the blood trail. Amidst the stabbing, penetrating pain, he suddenly laughed out loud. His cheeks were already drenched in tears. He clung close to this trail of blood, as if he was clinging close to a dragon.

"Gege."

Jing Lin cried out in grief and aggrievement.

"Take me home."

JL's torture and his phrase "Gege... take me home".

JL's desperate request to go home.

"The blood droplet trickled down and dripped into his slightly concave back dimple right before Cang Ji's eyes. It was as if Cang Ji could hear the intriguing sound of the drop of blood sliding down. Carrying with it enough power to kill a man, it gently and delicately slid into the dent that could accommodate the caress of his thumb.

Desire.

Cang Ji recited the words silently. It was as if he did not recognize it. Yet it also felt as if he was well acquainted with it."—c37

I think my mouth watered. This man is t-h-i-r-s-t-y

"You are just like my reverse scale. You live, I live. You are my life. Therefore, no matter how difficult things are in the future, or how arduous life becomes, I want you to live."—c93

Probably the most popular quote aside from the infamous, "Gege, take me home"

"This one smile turned all the pandemonium into a mere illusion. That thousand and hundred years of pain and suffering all vanished like smoke into thin air. This was how the exchanges of gaze between lovers should be—as if they had nothing to fear, even if it was the end of the world itself. All the words they had to say lay concealed in their eyes—words that no one else in this whole world, other than the other party, would ever understand."—c122

Ahhhh I am so single my GOD

s/o to the character I hated most: Tao Zhi. Hope you never reincarnate or better yet become a dung beetle in your next life.

Dongjun, Li Rong, and Lord Jiutian had serious potential to be complex characters. It's such a disappointment that the story didn't explore these characters more throughout, and instead opted to info-dump their perspectives in the last handful of chapters. Especially Dongjun, his struggles could've very easily been worked into earlier arcs. Li Rong's character got butchered, and his ambitions were so back-and-forth. You have to pretty much lean on assumptions to interpret his actions. In fact, the pattern is: he does something out of the blue, you're like "Why the heck did you do that?" and then some half-assed explanation is offered later in passing.

Got a bone to pick with Qingyu's (the white fox) arc as well. It was so anti-climatic. We followed the protagonists to stop his wedding with Feiluo, then suddenly in the middle of the battle, we're launched into a 30 chapter flashback. Which alright, whatever, fair enough. Very interesting flashback, just about the only thing that really captured my attention this entire book. But then we come back to the current time, and it's already the next day. And the entire thing just ended up with Qingyu going, oh yeah, skipped all the action because a deity got us out. Btw, suddenly found my dead boyfriend too, so it's time for me to permanently exit. There were soo many different ways to tie that up better instead of just in a quick paragraph.

And Zongyin + Shanyue and Shantian? There should've been some foreshadowing or references to them earlier on lmao. Important plot-turns like these shouldn't just suddenly pop up, especially not in the final stretch of the story.

Also, Dongjun? Dongjun's born from Bloody Sea. Bloody Sea is Qingyao. But Dongjun is Qingyao's gege. So who came first? Is this a chicken or the egg question? What's going on?

But whatever. I'm a huge sucker for dragon male leads, as well as kill-the-god stories, so good enough. That one long smut scene was also nice, no complaints there either.