Erm... Did you read the novel? Do you understand the cultural aspects of the story?
It's set in ancient china where debt and gratitude (a major, MAJOR theme in the story) is very much present. In the cultural framework of the novel, his actions completely shatter the concept of karmic retribution or a justified 'eye for an eye'.
If we look at the literal exchange of debts, the scales are horrifyingly unbalanced:
The Debt: One seven-year-old’s finger, crushed and severed by a carriage wheel on the orders of Chang Ci'an.
Xue Yang’s Collection: Fifty lives of the Chang clan, the eyes of Song Lan, the lives of everyone at Baixue Temple, the sanity and life of Xiao Xingchen, and the lives of an entire village of innocent people he tricked Xiao Xingchen into slaughtering.
That isn't balancing a karmic debt; it’s unleashing an infinite, compounding interest of cruelty on people who never owed him a thing.
It’s incredibly telling that during their final confrontation, when Xiao Xingchen learns the truth and asks him why he had to slaughter the entire clan over a single finger, Xue Yang’s response is pure, unadulterated entitlement. He basically argues that because his finger belonged to him, it was worth more than the lives of fifty other people. He places his own pain so far above the humanity of anyone else that a fair exchange becomes impossible.
By turning "an eye for an eye" into "your entire bloodline and everyone you ever loved for my finger," Xue Yang doesn't just avenge his childhood trauma—he becomes the very monster that created it.
Your post completely ignores what Xiao Xingchen actually represents to Xue Yang.
Xiao Xingchen is the only person who ever treats Xue Yang with unconditional kindness without knowing his identity, giving him a piece of candy every single day. For three years, Xue Yang is given the ultimate chance at a clean slate and a life defined by warmth rather than resentment.
Instead of letting that kindness heal his old wounds, Xue Yang drags Xiao Xingchen down into the mud, tricking a pure, righteous cultivator into committing the very atrocities he despises. Xue Yang doesn't want justice for his seven-year-old self; he wants to prove to himself that someone as good as Xiao Xingchen can be broken, corrupted, and made just as rotten as he is.
That analysis turns Xue Yang into a misunderstood victim fighting a systemic class war, when the text explicitly portrays him as a tragic, but ultimately irredeemable, monster who chose destruction at every single turn.
If Xue Yang's rage was truly an indictment of the cruel, powerful class that crushed him, his vengeance would have stopped with Chang Ci'an. Instead, he wiped out fifty people of the Chang clan.
Did the servants, the distant relatives, or the children of the Chang clan command that ox cart when Xue Yang was seven? No. By killing them, Xue Yang wasn't balancing a debt; he was creating a brand new, horrific deficit of blood and grief. He became the exact same high-and-mighty oppressor he hated, deciding that his personal pain gave him the right to dictate who lived and died.
Any "systemic trauma" argument completely falls apart the moment Xue Yang turns his malice toward Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan.
Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan do not represent the corrupt, oppressive system. They are the literal antithesis of it. They are rogue cultivators who explicitly refused to join the powerful, wealthy sects so they could walk the earth helping the defenseless—people exactly like seven-year-old Xue Yang.
When Xue Yang blinds Song Lan, slaughters his temple, and tricks a blind Xiao Xingchen into murdering innocent, living villagers (who had their tongues cut out so they couldn't scream for help), he isn't fighting back against his oppressors. He is actively destroying the only people who actually care about protecting the vulnerable.
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