Immortal Longevity in a World of Cultivation

The writing conveys a sense of melancholy. Originally, immortality was the protagonist's golden finger, but now it has become a shackle. In the past, when reading about mortals cultivating immortality, even if the protagonist was cunning and unscrupulous in his development, he would still act without hesitation for the sake of profit, using any means necessary but still having a bottom line.

All I want to say is that if any of you here could time travel, 99% of you would be better at surviving than the protagonist! The remaining 1% is left for fools as a margin for error. Rebuttals are welcome!

You can play it safe, but you have to act when the time is right, or you'll really become a turtle.

The protagonist is a real dog, and a real pervert, capable of having women do "that" with him regardless of their age. He's also quite loyal.

Cultivating oneself into a tortoise 🐢, detached from everything, devoid of emotion and desire, without family or friends, without entrepreneurial passion—such a life may indeed be miserable, but it's utterly tasteless and devoid of flavor. For a psychologically normal person, the longer one lives, the more torture it becomes.

I couldn't continue after reading more than twenty chapters. First, the background is an allusion to the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, a period of history that is difficult to write. There are few readers, so the sense of immersion is weak. The addition of the immortality setting makes the later development even more problematic.

This book is not enjoyable to read at all. The protagonist follows the path of survival, but he is also involved with the people around him. He is not completely surviving, nor does he engage with the world. He sits and watches the world descend into chaos, with cannibalistic demons running rampant, or he simply stays put. To be honest, there was no enjoyment at all (to put it bluntly, the protagonist is an extremely selfish bastard).

This actually reflects a shift in netizens' ideology. Before, they were all fiercely competitive; now they're more laid-back. The end of the world doesn't concern them anymore.

Ninghua would rather be a dazzling firework than a pathetic dreg of mud. Immortality is merely a form of capital, but is it really that important? If one's path to immortality is merely a means to survive, what difference is there between them and a living corpse? Even mortals know how to struggle for a living.

Personally, I think starting with a reflection of late Qing Dynasty history is a mistake. The main character is an immortal being, and if he starts from the late Qing Dynasty, the next one will inevitably be the Republic of China (although history may change). Would he dare to write about the next one? The immortality trope next door has already backfired in modern times.