"Thousand Autumns" is my ... second? danmei novel that isn't by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu and I feel somewhat ghoulish every time I note that a new author doesn't live up to her high standard for hyper violence but.
Meng Xi Shi doesn't have anyone's skull bursting and their brains spraying out like fireworks.
This is something everyone is rating when they read these books, right?
"Thousand Autumns" is the first novel from this imprint where I really feel @montrith's disappointment that they're so anime marketed because I think Meng Xi Shi's writing would really appeal to the fantasy readers who want defined systems. It's marginally (all things are relative) more grounded in Chinese history and Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism and the conflicts between their philosophies seem to be, if not the core of the wider conflict, at least a significant component. The dynamic between the leads isn't as straightforward as good versus evil but differing beliefs about the fundamental nature of humanity.
Yan Wushi is the closest thing to your standard Regency romance rake that I've encountered in my limited reading of the genre, being a dude who is pretty shitty but completely acknowledges how shitty a person he is and doesn't spend time apologizing for it because his pursuit of his own interests is part of his acceptance of the fundamental nature of humanity. He doesn't (yet) have some traumatic backstory or excuse for his behaviour. He's a charming, charismatic troll. I'm not necessarily rooting for him and Shen Qiao to get together, but I'm happy to be along for the ride of their friendly animosity.
This book gets HEAVY on the Taoism/Buddhism/Confucianism comparisons and conflicts at times and there's a lot of talk about the moral way of life and if it's even possible to just be a good person all the time.
Basically you could think it as Shen Qiao being Jesus and the whole world being the Devil trying to tempt him, if Jesus had occasionally come to the conclusion that sometimes the best and most moral thing is just to stab a fucker.
Have you considered that stabbing a man is the Daoist equivalent of trashing the tables of moneylenders?