We have seen those psychopath, sociopath MC's who act all high and mighty in their cultivation novels, killing people for absurd reasons and robbing and doing all those morally questionable things... We have seen those MC's who seem like they are communist government leaders who go incognito to some organisation but everybody there knows who they really are but can't show that they know so they accommodate those leaders and act so they are satisfied... Basically, like when there's an mc which goes "this is wrong~" and the whole fucking world bends under their might to become a better one, even though there supposedly should've been thousands of years of cultural development there to make the world become the way it was before the mc entered the scene... (so don't recommend me "cultivating change" or "My Disciple Died Yet Again") =>(rant ends here) <= Anyway, back to the topic. I want novels where the mc has firm moral values(so no "Daoist Gu" okay? People rec it all the fucking time) that they cling to and that their surroundings don't follow. (So no "ascending do not disturb" and such. The world settings there aren't brutal.) I want not a story where the mc will impose those values upon their world (which would make the story unrealistic) but them doing their best to keep true to their beliefs despite the world they live in. And not being a sissy all the whole preferably. I hope they will have to question themselves, compromise with themselves, maybe go out of control sometimes and then regretting it and learning from it. Mind you, I don't want things like "bah, I killed someone I feel bad" "it couldn't be helped!""yeah you right" like in jack of all trades for example (not that I have anything against this novel) Also, please no harem or reverse-harem
Sounds like you're looking for Empire of Salt or something similar to Savage Divinity or Unfathomable Senior. Don't know if you'll be finding stories like that out of China that finished. The Author of Tales of the Reincarnated Lord had to drop his story because it didn't please his governments censorship about morality ie wasn't xenophobic enough and didn't have enough Chinese propaganda about how their culture was the best.
This's hard, you are basically asking for human being with moral standard that live in dog eat dog world, who is willing to compromise to do something dirty but still believe in right thing to do (the trope for this is Knight in Sour Armour) The closest thing I can get is Tales of Paul Twister series(free to read online) and The Witcher novel series