Such mixed feelings.... I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either. There are good things and bad things...
As many people before me, I almost stopped reading during the second arc. The drop of the MC IQ was too brutal and the plot seemed derailed. As suggested by other reviewers I kept on reading and the quality didn't go back to the rather high standar set by the first arc but it became better so at least there was improvement.
My biggest "problem" is that the writing (or the translation) was subpar. The author planned this to be a long game (4 books) hence the little foreshadowings and slow burn, so far so good but and this is a big BUT there's so much that the author left out and the worst part is, the author notes say that she didn't even outlined the second book yet! (yet meaning the moment she ended the first book, I believe we already have the third with only the forth missing) This is not a tetralogy because of the high content value but because the author just wanted to! So she is deliberately under developing her book in order to make it longer. To me, this is unacceptable.
This sadist author plants all kind of seeds and the only one with a smidge of evolution is the insta-love-turned-into-straight-guys-must-bend-first- one. Which is nonsense! Because this insta love is built on the dumest misunderstanding. (The IQ of the MC was on vacation for the entirety of this arc).
I don't even want to read the second book. The cliffhanger doesn't feel that cliffy. Its just another misunderstanding. I feel bad for Ning Zhou... He had to be written into this novel. The only highligh of this book tho.

Oh and the horror of this book is Nonexistent . The author thinks that gore and horror are the same, they're not. This novel has a lot of gore but no horror perse. Mostly because the author (or translator) failed in atmosphere setting. The elements are the there but the execution is... Yep, on vacation too. Everything is missing except the misunderstandings and lack of information.
The more I write the madder I get and the more I want to give this cero stars....... Anyway 2.5 rounded up because Ning Zhou is best boi and even with all the complaining I did this is still and IF novel and I'm a sucker for this subgenre.