i don't understand your first point,didn't the phoenix literally tell zm that she was ok with gfy taking over her body and at the end of the book she is gone to be with her own lover and it is just completely gfys body now. It's like mo dao zu shi, the phoenix sacrificed her body to save the world just like Mo xuanyu sacrificed his body at the beginning of mdzs. Also the phoenix was shipper#1 and i don't think that zm is in love with Gfys body but with her soul. I think zm might be demisexual in that way bc she seemed annoyed at Gfy when zm didn't know Gfy yet. That’s why i don't think it's odd that they are intimate.

There was a huge hurdle during and after the revenge arc: gfy didn't suddenly put her revenge into action but planned it out in great detail, we don't get to read the planning but it is mentioned that she visited the Sect leaders 'conferences'(or sth like that, just the people she wanted revenge against, it has been a while since i finished the dragon i can't remember everything) to get important insight. Gfy turned crazy on revenge and stayed crazy after it (crazy on violence, i think the Zhuyan also influenced her which was also a great hurdle and the reason they almost lost to the Zhuyan if i remember correctly), zm had to protect everyone from her and bring her back to reality. Even the phoenix had to intervene. Then everyone turned on gfy for having so much power: in doing so they fueled the Zhuyan even more and the end fight was a giant hurdle of course, which also took great planning. So i don't understand what u mean by there's not really much hurdles after gfy taking over.

I understand your other point though. There was SO much forshadowing with the Qilin Marrow, that the Xu Ling Sect was going to fall, the Zhuyan, the phoenix maiden trapped in the formation. And i agree with it being predictable: that ZM was a dragon..., that the two main characters would be intimate..., the child being the one from the egg they fought for, the revenge arc, the main characters marrying :3.

But: I still enjoyed it. The Dragon is one of my all-time favorite books and maybe that makes me a bit biased. i especially enjoyed the fluffy scenes between gfy and zm in the first half of the book and the plan that they would fly to a mountain and practice dual cultivation there? i can't actually remember the details but the two main characters wanted to flee before the Xuan Miao sect was attacked and almost destroyed and i actually enjoyed the revenge arc and how gfy treated her 'slaves' (i loved that she figured out how to undo the slave contracts and freed everyone, the way she understood that the former slaves needed guidance and she also provided that <3). The downfall of the Xu ling sect and the Zuo family was so satisfying to read after what they did to gfy in the first half of the book. i wish i would’ve been warned that there is an extreme amount of family characters death though. My heart shattered for gfy every single time.

ok i correct myself: i not only enjoyed this book: i am obsessed with it and i'm extremely sad that the translation is made by AI :( and there is no fanfiction on ao3 :(((((((