heminasti

Here's another example of his "dark villainy" that is actually wholesome: "Wei Wuyin wasn’t a saint; he knew this about himself. That being said, he cared a lot for emotional attachments, even willing to subconsciously protect Bai Lin with his life before his own. After losing everything once, one’s heart becomes shielded by armor, but those that could leave an impression was unimaginably valuable to him."

Here's one of MANY quotes from this "grimdark villain" about ethics to illustrate how little he fits the label, "However, in the end, he wasn’t one to go against his word when he said it. That was a slippery slope that would start to attack his personal principles and morals as a person, principles and morals taught to him by his older brother and parents." See?

Don't believe this reviewer, the MC isn't very villainous after the first 30-40 chapters. He's basically a typical xianxia guy, so he'll kill, rob, and extort, but the focus of the story is usually on him rescuing or avenging damsels, being generous to his people, treating animals well, etc. The first 20 chapters are a stark contrast to the rest of the 160 I've read so far. It's gonna be disappointing if you go into thinking he's a villain.

Definitely not what the first few chapters would lead you to believe. The world is indeed dark, but only somewhat more than average for a cultivation world. The main character trends more neutral to good than evil. While he does some murder, robbery, and extortion, the content focuses a lot on him rescuing women from men far far worse than himself and being good to animals and marginalized races. So, relatively speaking, he seems good. If you're looking for a villain, this is probably not what you're looking for. The writing quality is meh, but the story and magic system is pretty good. The side characters are also pretty developed, but that also leads to a lot of cloying content like whole chapters about how much the MC and side characters care about each other. By volume 2, it starts to feel almost like a heartwarming shounen ensemble. So honestly it feels like the author did a bait and switch, but it is what it is, I guess.

It's not even after a few hundred chapters, it's almost whiplash. The first chapter is shockingly depraved and violent in its content... and then after that, we learn he's the kind of guy who likes to rescue people and that he also has a strong moral code about not forcing people into anything. It's not that he never does anything questionable or cruel again, but the predominant content is him being pretty decent—not just frequently doing good deeds, but also making sure to tell us about his morals at regular intervals in his internal dialogue. By the end of the first volume, merely a few dozen chapters in, this had become firmly established. It's a bait and switch. If someone started reading after seeing the reviews saying it's grimdark and saying the MC was darker and kept reading after the first chapter, that's probably because they wanted to read content like the first chapter. It's perfectly understandable to drop it. There are endless stories about guys like this MC, but comparatively few villain MCs, so the search must continue. Frankly, I found it very disappointing and misleading. You can't even call it character development because there's no process of him changing, just a process of the reader having to realize the first chapter was an unusual outlier in his life. Luckily the story is pretty decent so I found it worth sticking around, but honestly by chapter 150 it's straight up cloying. I am still regretful it's not as advertised.

I'm a woman and I've never done that

Fits with the whole internalized misogyny vibe so far

Grow lights, hydroponic gardening equipment, greenhouse glass, solar generators, wind turbines, water wheels...

she grew up and did nothing except continue to live under their thumbs, she didn't even volunteer for an organization to help abused women or something to make up for it. she just stayed home like a useless housewife being used to manipulate her husband. leave me alone and stop taking an offhand comment so seriously.

There are multiple kinds of power and having all of them is awesome