The world of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and its characters are heavily inspired by Chinese culture and mythology, closely following the ways of cultivation clans and evil spirits hunting along with the blooming relationship of the main couple. If you have expected some twisted version of a spicy mystery novel with bits of BDSM CNC porn under the heterosexual male perspective (consisted of primarily watching hentai and hating on women for whatever reason), you’re probably on the wrong side of the internet. Talking about the whole story, I could with certainty say that it is highly immersive. The world building is complex, it takes anappropriate amount of time to unfold with various details being slowly presented to the reader, which is exactly how narrative in books works rather than the whole concept of the novel being lifelessly thrown at you just for the sake of your poor attention span and thirst for satisfaction like that of a horny teenager. Even my elder cat has a more common understanding of patience when it comes to unravelling the mystery of a book series than some of you, but you might not be ready for this conversation.

Before I start commenting on each character that had left a strong impression on me, I would like to bring up a little bit more about the universe and how accurate it is about what a patriarchal society looks like in the past and perhaps even in the present. It is clearly visible that the author of the novel had concentrated her focus on establishing mostly a male centered functioning habitat within the series. Additionally, it is evident that the majority of female characters lack the so called ‘screen time’ and could be better written off or much more diversely presented and interpreted, however, that would be a little bit of a discrepancy, bearing in mind what MXTX probably had in store for portraying your average patriarchal society. We all know that women have been, and still are, oppressed by their male counterparts, and I think that this is one of the reasons why the creator had taken the decision of not giving more to the females in her novels rather than what she deems necessary for pushing the narrative. Women are just not a focal point here. It truly is a shame, yet this is what MXTX wants to write about - about men, and this is okay, it’s called ‘danmei’ after all. Nevertheless, the women in the novel, although not sharing as much amount of time as the men, I believe are greatly written. Each one of them is actually strongly presented, but not in the grandiose, spectacular way you might expect. What MXTX had done instead of putting the same theatrics as on her male characters, is making the females’ actions, major or minor, quite impactful for the story to the extent that some main events involving the rest of the cast wouldn’t have even happened to begin with. Providing a few examples: if Madam Yu hadn’t pushed away her sons during the Wen Clan invasion, both of them wouldn’t even be alive right now and the Clan of Yunmeng would be no more; Jiang Yanli is not just some ‘food dispenser’ (as some might think), but simply a substitute of a mother figure to both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, always there to link the other two otherwise on edge siblings; if Wen Qing hadn’t done favours for the Jiang boys numerous of times (especially the extraction of Wei Wuxian’s Golden Core), Jiang Cheng, (as a person, whose cultivation is the whole world), wouldn’t even be the present leader of his sect at all; if the proclaimed blind A-Qing hadn’t seen through Xue Yang’s facade sooner or later and her ghost hadn’t helped out the protagonist and friends to figure out the whole ass mystery in Yi City, Wei Wuxian and the rest wouldn’t even have gotten a clue on Jin Guangyao’s grand plan; and so on. Fairly speaking, these women’s ‘minor’ actions turned out to be a fucking butterfly effect later to the plot.

Going back to my honest opinion about the story, I believe that this is quite the strong piece among books of such character. It is engaging and mysterious, has various plot twists and heavy thematics. The romance in it is an accompanying subplot and only present here and there, yet, nevertheless, it makes sense once you remember that the core of the series is, in actuality, cultivation gangs and fighting off evil, so you can lower your expectations and not whine about how unromantic it might be.

Let’s begin with describing some of the characters now, starting off with Wei Wuxian. Honestly, for once the main lead of a story is my favourite character. Usually, I somehow resonate much more with the sidekicks and secondary members of a narrative instead, hence this one definitely got me pleased every time he was present (which was if not all the time), making the books even more enjoyable. It is crucial for me the MC to be likeable enough, thus otherwise I could not stand the incel type of self-insert some creators come up with. Wei Wuxian is the main protagonist, who has come a long way and gradually has become stronger for the sake of protecting the ones he loves. By no means is he innocent and righteous all the time, yet he believes in his view of justice and stands his ground. He has of course made mistakes, let impulsiveness get the better of him under the unstable emotional influence triggered by outside factors to the point of committing crimes and that is what makes him a truly complex character, who is not simply black and white, because some of you might be daltonistic. Wei Wuxian appears to be some kind of an antihero with his morally grey personality at times, his way of thought and the methods and manners with which he extracts his decisions when faced with a grave predicament. It saddens me to sometimes see how mischaracterised and misunderstood he could be because some could not push their brains just a little bit further in order to see past his silly, flirty and antiprotagonist facade. Wei Wuxian had always been content with what he had during his teenage years until everything went down the drain and all of a sudden, while trying to help the cultivation world, and mainly the innocent, his whole life turned upside down. Most of the time he’s being outcasted, framed and accused due to his pursuit of the demonic arts, with which he prefers to deal with things and defend the people he cares about. Of course, he’s not flawless by any means, yet he always seems to acknowledge his mistakes, apologise and make up for them no matter how much it takes as any other radically thinking human being would. Overall, he’s not a saint, but just a human, carrying flaws and merits, burdens and accomplishments.

Lan Wangji, on the other hand, possesses some opposite characteristics of those of his romantic partner. It truly disappoints me, however, that some people find him boring just for the sole reason of him being the silent and stoic type of character. It is not wrong to view him dull or uninteresting, hence my agitation for that opinion is based on the hypothesis that it probably comes from introvert hating extroverts, who believe that if you’re not a social butterfly and the soul of the party you’re to be deemed flat and uncool. God forbid a character to be calm, poised and quiet, expressing themselves with subtle gestures and outside of the screen actions! Shame on MXTX that she didn’t present Lan Wangji as a toxically masculine male lead abuser! Behind his cold and collected exterior, however, Lan Wangji is a gentle and kindhearted individual, who helps people with or without Wei Wuxian being in the picture, but I guess those little details might have come too shocking to some readers persistent on hating on him already to the point that they have erased such a fact from their memory of the story.

Deep diving into the main couple as a potential romantic pairing now, I must say that it is quite enigmatic to me. From Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s hot and cold beginning of their relationship, through a somehow mutual bearing and understanding of each other, to the final escalation point of them going past thick and thin and coming true with one another, I believe their whole journey as a get together pair is quite the emotional rollercoaster ride. Apparently, some would say that there was no romance present and the two of them ending up together is completely out of the blue. Such statements make me utterly confused and push me to the point of sometimes wishing the internet to be a forbidden place and the sole freedom of expressing whatever opinion to be a punishable act. You might find the previous sentence way too harsh as everyone is simply free of sharing their feelings and thoughts. You might think that I’m some crybaby, who pisses gas whenever someone criticises my favourite show or character. Not far from the truth, but not quite there yet - what’s irrelevant here is that those who share that very same ‘constructive criticism’ are none other than disgusting hypocrites, saying one thing as they do completely another behind the scenes as some kind of guilty pleasure. I guess sacrificing your morals, principles, reputation, feelings, goals, even your family (as some subconsequence of your actions) for another person is not considered romantic enough! MXTX, you loser, you better stick to the original way of how romance books work - make that damn pair go on lame ass dates and throw away that action, life threatening bullshit!

Having diverted enough from the original topic, I’m going back to the main pairing’s dynamic yet again. Expectant or not, the author obviously has some main preferences for one of her male leads - an utter, total simp. Some might find such character trope, with whatever other major or minor personality traits in addition, quite repetitive and exhausting, since apparently this leads to certain characters revolving like a moth to a flame around another, but in all honestly, I find it reasonable enough, considering Lan Wangji’s childhood and background. As someone who has grown up in a highly strict patriarchal cultivation clan with tons of rules and restrictions, Lan Wangji seems to find some kind of freedom in being in Wei Wuxian’s company. Our demonic cultivator is young and free-spirited, open-minded and mischievous at heart, a person, who the esteemed second Jade of the Twin Jades of Gusu had never met that much before and forced to tolerate to the extent of which Hanguangjun actually becomes once he’s drunk, because apparently that’s one way of him expressing himself and his suppressed desires freely. Another example for that could be… his shared BDSM CNC tendency with his romantic partner. Firstly, when I was introduced to WangXian’s domestic and intimate life, I was quite confused, since that happened to be a thing I was not expecting or ready for. Consequently, as soon as I dived deeper into that rabbit hole, I found that a little bit forced and uncomfortable, but then I started to think more on that, somehow managing to find more sense on to the question of why would they be portrayed exactly like that aside from making a quick accusation of the author simply self-inserting their kinky desires on their own characters. In addition to the sentence above, people would praise a male writer self-inserting himself among a harem of emotionally and sexually exploited women, where basically there would be a male MC gathering all the females available like Pokémons, but God forbid a female writer to borrow the body of a character she created and own to express herself sexually! Back to the topic at hand and why WangXian’s BDSM CNC dynamic makes so much sense, could be simply told: Wei Wuxian is always desperately trying to control things around him and suffers grave misery when he can’t; Lan Wangji looks as if he’s in control of his own decisions, yet he has to bear too great of consequences hence he diverts from the right path he’s strictly supposed to follow. Now, you’ve got the equation - one gives control because he trusts the opposite individual, while the other craves it and responsibly holds onto it. If you’re crying over the fact that they represent gay people inaccurately due to the lack of switching, for example, you should note that this couple is not supposed to be an adequate example for LGBTQ+ relationships in the first place. Lastly but not least, the rape jokes in the novel were not funny, they really threw me off track and I do not support such humour. At the back of my mind, I’m still hoping that there must have been some mistake with the translation.

Having wrapped up what I think of the two main characters so far, it’s time to yap about the rest. Another character I strongly resonated with was none other than Jin Guangyao. Seeing people complain about him and finding his story boring is completely incomprehensible to me because this is truly a greatly written villain with his past and motives explained. As a reader, you’re being guided through his terrible childhood, you’re shown how toxic his relationship with his father is and how the rest of the cultivation world treats him because of his poor background despite his skills and talent, you’re seeing how he puts up with everything unfair just so he could prove himself, so he could more easily extract patience in order to reach his goal. Jin Guangyao has nerves of steel, cunning and charming personality and unhealthy coping mechanisms, which later lead to his doom one way or another. Sincerely, I’m not saying by any means that the previous leader of the Jin Clan of Lanling is not guilty of the crimes he had committed, I’m just saying that… I totally understand him. Having only the ignorance of your father, the disdain from various sects, the constant reprimands of your teacher just because you have strived to do the right thing but in a wrong way and later, on top of that, finding out that the love of your life is your half-sister and so on… Man, I don’t know how he hadn’t ended it all sooner. Despite him hurting a lot of people, especially his closest and most trusted ones, I deeply sympathise with him. At the end of the day, it takes a monster to turn another. Jin Guangyao might be a monster in everybody’s eyes, yet there is one individual, who chooses to view him differently, to accept him the way he is with both his virtues and flaws - Lan Xichen. This is another doomed yaoi from MXTX’s side, which I’m very salty about. For Lan Xichen to go into seclusion after Jin Guangyao’s betrayal and death… I needn’t say more, the facts are obvious.

Moving on to Jiang Cheng: as a future leader of the prominent Jiang Clan of Yunmeng, Jiang Cheng had a lot on his shoulders and the constant comparison he received from people to Wei Wuxian surely did not help him. Mainly Jiang Cheng’s parents seem to be at fault for this - his father and mother having established their relationship purely out of duty to the their respective sects and the fact that Jiang Fengmian still had feelings for Wei Wuxian’s deceased mother, being no less than biased, and Madam Yu projecting her displeasure because of it over both him and every one of her children. This is what furthermore complicates Jiang Cheng’s relationship with Wei Wuxian, all and all from somehow being forced to accept him in his family, growing to develop feelings of familiarity towards him, only in the end to suffer by trying to justify him and honour his dead family’s memory at the same time, two things happening to be in quite the oppositions. His breaking point was when he had to come to terms with Wei Wuxian’s Golden Core sacrifice, making him yet again feel as if somehow indebted to him.

I could brag on and on some more, but I prefer to wrap things up by honourably mentioning a few more characters. First, Nie Huiasang… Oh, how you turned out to be, you deceived me! Never trusting an innocent looking face ever again! What more can I say - he came, he delivered, he ate, he slayed! Although I feel quite bad for the things that had pushed Jin Guangyao to commit certain things, Nie Huiasang really did return the favour for the murder of his brother tenfold. This diva not only refused to stick to the macho cultivator taboo, but he also played his cards extremely well by exposing the Jin Clan leader’s wicked nature and crimes without even lifting as much of a finger, simply pushing the first piece of a domino composition only for everything else to fall into place in his favour. Moving on - Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen - man, another doomed pairing here. It was fucking painful and despite me secretly wanting for their ending to have never happened like that due to how nice they had it (nevermind how unreal it was), I think, as enemies-to-lovers, there was no more fitting outcome for their relationship than this.

This review ended up being pretty long and I guess it will be beneficial to stop here before I stretch the gum even wider. In summary, if you’re quite new to the danmei genre and are looking for something to read, wondering from where exactly to start, I strongly believe that Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation could be a nice introduction for you to this highly engaging, groundbreaking and emotionally triggering novel type of literature!