The biggest unanswered question for me is: Why sheep? Why not pigs or chickens? It feels like a thematic choice. Sheep are followers, docile, and "baa" a lot. Maybe the mage is mocking the customers for being mindless animals chasing pleasure. Or maybe it's just a funny animal. I’m leaning towards the mockery. It fits the "cunning" description.
Guan Yi feels like a classic 'reincarnated with a system' MC, but the family drama adds a nice layer of spice. He’s a bit of a wiseass with his friends, stonewalls his teacher, but visibly freaks out when facing his dad. That range is good. The fact he feels genuine guilt over lying to his mom makes him way more sympathetic than your standard 'I am super cool and calculated' protagonist.
I'm curious about the "nine Meteorite Jade fragments" mission. That's a huge task, and it basically means she has to follow the main storyline or risk getting killed in dangerous places. The fact that she can't just rely on knowing the plot because she forgets details adds a nice layer of tension.
Okay, I actually really like the way the novel handles the “princess” title in a collapsing country. Instead of political maneuvering or dramatic escapes with hidden identities, Xiang Ying just… goes full loot goblin and doesn’t even pretend to be patriotic. That’s refreshing. She openly admits she feels nothing for Western Zhou and even jokes about wanting to raid Southern Yue’s treasury later. The contrast with Xiang Qianqian who harps on about dignity but then steals her sister’s hairpin to save her own skin is delicious hypocrisy. Xiang Ying sees through it immediately. The class/status dynamics in the exile group are interesting – how people with money can bribe, how the poor get violated. It’s brutal realism under the fantasy surface.