Not rating, although I completed reading this novel at some point (I remember too little to comment on entire novel), but I have a bit to say about disabled characters in the novels. This will be the place for my outburst.
Personally, I'm not a fan of seeing disabled characters in the novels, at one point it felt almost like a trend and this is the main reason why I didn't like. But one disability or another might be mentioned in the novel, in modern novels it's always someone in a wheelchair after a car accident. We also know that at one point they'll heal anyway, so it leads some to think what is the point? But authors try to make it "diverse", that someone devastated after a tragedy can find love and strive to come out from the shadow. The thing is I don't like most of the executions of these novels (not this novel in particularly, but in general, I've read a bunch).
But, there's a big BUT. Many readers might go through this stage. Most commonly we forget that Eastern and Western cultures differ and they differ a lot. Let's also face the truth, too many countries are not accomodating when it comes to disabilities (from accidents, born, veterans), so let's not point fingers on who is who, you can't point fingers and say that every corner of your place is accomodating, while others do it wrong, especially when it comes to mentality. Have you forgotten the stories how disabled cildren in the past were thrown away, abandoned and left with no way to survive? It's only in modern times we changed our thinking and became more open-minded. But don't expect every place to be like that. But don't expect every place to not be like that.
So while I was reading many novels from bits and pieces here and there the picture slowly emerged. It won't come as a surprise and I will say the obvious, but like in many cases it has a lot to do with mentality. I'm not even touching Taoism. I don't expect the modern Asians to be this bad as it was described, but I can understand where the sentiment comes from (except the reproductive organ disability joke along with leg disability, that one was bad). It's not that I accept, but I can see that most of it has to do with fate/luck/fortune. The most basic example how integrated some things become is that remember how in Chinese film industry they start before filming with sacrificial ritual or give red envelopes to anyone who dies on sreen to ward off bad luck, they believe in hexagrams and numerology, there is still some superstition going on etc. etc. So I wouldn't jump people who believe in feng shui and karma and all the other stuff, since we discuss it from the point that treating people with disabilities like that is bad, while others might mean it from the point that what happened to a person is a bad luck. Yeah, I know it seems ridiculous, but what can you do? I also was at the stage of wondering once. Although I must add, not all authors put the disability in such a bad context, some try to put it on the opposite scale, that such old-fashioned thinking does not belong in modern times, it's harmful and someone who suffered should not be treated like they won't be able to do anything in their life if they lost ability to walk. This novel should be treated as one of the bad examples of "let's not write it like this". Especially when it comes out so one-directional and simply bad. Even the rates on JJ aren't that high, so...
PS: As a redemption arc for this author I must say, I've read several of their novels and not all of them are bad. They have flaws, some were fine. They might have a problem with omnipotence of their characters and lacking depth, they also wrote several works with similar framework. Just saying.