First question: what was Yuan yuanyuan's background exactly? There were many foreshadowing in dreams that she might've been the reincarnated Seventeen, especially since he said he probably wouldn't remember his revenge before he fell into the red sand well and our protagonist has major memory loss related to how she became a demon/yokai. But this wasn't resolved AT ALL. Also Si qun has many unresolved questions. What made him dumb? Is he playing dumb or not? What happened that led both of them to have their lives tied to each other with each person swallowing half of the Gu Poison? Is he dumb or is he faking it? What happened with him and Li Wangchun aka his older brother? Some other questions like why his older brother smiled when he died, what exactly happened to Seventeen in the red sand well, what was the comic author's deal and what's his identity? Maybe he did want his manga to be the biggest selling one but it's definitely not as simple as that with the innuendos in the novel like the ancient demons knowing he's related to Seventeen. My guess is that he's the artist who painted the war painting and asked Seventeen why he always wore makeup before a battle, since I recall Liu An aka Fan Ling having a deep recollection of the artist's question and Seventeen's answer. For some reason I really wanted her true identity to be revealed but when that layer of onion wasn't peeled it made me feel empty. The story feels incomplete since we know as readers of the novel all the difficulties she's gone through after being forced to play Seventeen by the comic artist, but nobody not even the people closest to her know. Maybe only Si Qun knows and that's super vaguely suggested. Also I really wanted Yuan Yingli to meet her in actually flesh and maybe there would be an extra of them writing about the three hidden heroes: Circle, Fat Cat, and Red n Black. Anyways there's so many loose ends that I feel incredibly stifled rather than cathartic (what I expected to feel) when I reached the ending, especially since the author didn't disappoint which led me to have high expectations for the ending too, but I guess that didn't happen.

i made an account to mainly vent out my frustrations about this novel

i just dont understand why they put in the beginning her dream where she hears "dont forget" as well as many details showing she seems to have a connection to 17 maybe sis or 17 themself. Also why was four groups brought out in the end when they never really tell us the mystery behind him or his relationship with 17 and his sis as well as the reason for the white silk poison. Why was he struck dumb was it because 17 died or something else. Who is yuan at the end is she a being made from the red well hole or 17 or related to 17? Why does she have so many details that relate to 17 and why did the li family smile at the end. Was it ended like that on purpose or did the author have to end it there for some reason because of external issues. I felt since realizing that yuan may be more complicated then what she seems since the 1st chapter I was waiting for some of these questions to be answered but I just kept on having more questions and at the end after waiting patiently even when reading the lat chapter 400 and seeing it end ambiguous that we will never know and I just cant help but feel frustrated lik I wasted my time. It was a good story snd it was interesting to read but I'm angry with how it ended and wish to know why the author cut the story when there were still things that were never answered. To be honest I would have like to know that it would have been this type of story in the beginning because all I ended up with was a stomach ache.

But the ending feels a bit rushed, as there are still a few unanswered questions. Like what is the relationship between MC and Yiqi. Throughout the story, it feels the author hinted that MC is Yiqi's reincarnation since our MC will subconscious fends off her opponents, and she'll also seems to be influenced by unexplained emotions.

Our MC pulls a Lelouch. She traumatizes the protagonist twice. The first time occurs when she fakes her err his death (she's crossdressing, and was known as Yuan) by faking having a serious illness and strike down by the protagonist. The poor protagonist was shocked when he later learned that Yuan was his salted fish master. Of course the protagonist was relieved to learn that Yuan only faked his death.

But the second time, Yuan decided to become the final boss and have the protagonist kill him so that the war between the human and demon can be prevented. People who read the manga (and didn't know that the manga is based on reality) thought that everyone in the manga except for the protagonist will never know the sacrifice that Yuan made, as everyone (depending on which side they were in) in the manga either praise the protagonist of getting rid of Yuan, or curse the fact that Yuan is weak. However, the truth is that both the people and demons later learns the truth via the manga and choose to remain in silence. One of Yuan's fangirl (whose life have been save bey Yuan before), was upset and she believe that Yuan will never know that everyone know about Yuan's sacrifice. But the truth is the MC only fakes her death again, and she's having her happy retirement life

From the synopsis you'd expect a MC discovering they're in a manhua and then manipulate the events in the book to their advantage. Here however the manhua is more like a live broadcast of happening events. And not only the MC, all the people - both demons and humans who knows of existence of demons, are aware of it. Which leads to people from different interests in the real world trying to influence the characters that appears in the manhua.

Theres a lot of fans conspiring and deducing, running to scenes in the Manhua that they recognize (lol). They root for the supposed villains in the manhua, make fanarts and and fanfiction, some ancient demons even buying phones to read manhua online. Our MC and protagonist even met and lived together in real life without realising the others identity. But in the end we never find out if Yuanyuan was really Yiqi's reincarnation (which I was really convinced she is QAQ)

It was never explained why Yuan Yuan sometimes felt strong emotions as if she WAS really Yuan. And the character "four groups" (his name in the mtl) seemed to be a major part in the story but he barely appeared at all?

Even so, this was me reading the mtl so maybe it was explained? I don't know.

1. 1. Ji Qiu. WHO IS HE? How is he related to the whole situation? Why did he orchestrate and draw this entire story? Since the early stage I was convinced on this point, that Ji Qiu was plotting to make known to the whole world the true history behind 17's death at the Red Sand Well. Then near the end I was convinced that he had even larger plans - to use this story to put an end to the divide between humans and demons. Even doing a live-action drama could just be so more people know and pay attention to the story. Add to the fact that he had 17's jade talisman and I STILL strongly suspect he is somehow involved in past historical events. All the threats & messages to our 2 MCs (the real and the... meta?) could just be manipulating them to how he wanted things to progress. Or... he could really just be screwing around so he can write a story he likes... LOL
      • (Side note I thought Ji Qiu's name was quite interesting - could be "Autumns" (plural) but if you add a question mark it could be "How many autumns?" a la how many autumns since then - or till then? Though CN author names are often either ~poetic~ or just random nonsense so)
   2. Si Qun's health/mental state and the whole hullabaloo about his and 17/Yuan's fates being intertwined. So why did he do it!! And does his diminished state mean that 17 was indeed in some way alive? Especially since the story ends with the white butterfly (guessing we're supposed to think it's Si Qun) flying away from where it was in YYY's garden. IS HE OK??? Is he checking in on YYY? Does him being a butterfly mean he's better or worse??? Or is it that he is no longer tied to him bc his hair is black? Idk man.
   3. 17/Yuan: I'm strongly leaning towards the idea that YYY is 17's reincarnation in a slightly botched-up way - since she suddenly became a half-demon for no explainable reason, making a face that looks exactly like 17 despite never seeing him before, the dreams and dream-like fugue states, her "illusion transformation" ACTUALLY transforming her into a DIFFERENT PERSON since the jade turns red, her body being affected by the curse even when not in Yuan form, perhaps even her original best ability being illusion-based...
   4. Yuan's health: Somewhere in the middle Yuan sees two doctors - all giving her the same diagnosis (and one of them twice) that there is something wrong with her body and advising not to use her powers. YYY dismisses this (despite being downed by huge fever two times that she overuses power), but author drops a line that she would come to think differently about this later. It was not revisited. Unless referring in advance to the poison/curse, where Li Family Head says the poison/curse will cause Yuan's body to melt from the inside out... And throwaway line that YYY discovers her body CAN SHIFT ORGANS AROUND because some parts are EMPTY... (mostly to hand-wave how she escaped death tho). SO IS YUAN OK OR NOT?

a female pretending to be a male pretending to be a female

why did the li family smile at the end

he died thinking that things would go the way he wanted - with the king killed by Yuan, the demons would definitely push him into being the new leader and bringing them to war against the humans, just as Li always advocated for human genocide. Plus knowing that Yuan did not support killing all the humans, yet would be forced into doing something he despised... Yeah Li zhuzhu probably was feeling very smug.