1. I only read about half of this because that thing with the poison-curing fruit turned me into a sobbing wreck and I wasn't prepared to d22 Dec 2023
1. I only read about half of this because that thing with the poison-curing fruit turned me into a sobbing wreck and I wasn't prepared to deal with the emotional aftermath but that does not change how much I enjoyed this shit.
2. My hastily scribbled notes on this one: The one where the FL is a fake concubine hiding in a PM's mansion for her own purposes. Starts off slow but gets really good later on. Made me laugh and made me cry a bunch. Pausing bc I'm still emotionally ravaged from some plot developments and the arrival of a new love rival has me mildly un mooded. The FL is great in this one. ...more
22 Dec 2023 CW: Less homophobia than you'd see in most straight Historical CNs, but boy that is a low, low bar to clear so Homophobia is a CW. Offscree22 Dec 2023 CW: Less homophobia than you'd see in most straight Historical CNs, but boy that is a low, low bar to clear so Homophobia is a CW. Offscreen rape. General violence and fucked up thought processes.
1. I ship this ship so much you guys. SO MUCH.
2. I know this story by its original online webnovel name, which is Power Minister, Idle Wife (权臣闲妻). Or something like that. I read it via google translate and that means there are probably a bunch of things that got lost in translation. But whatever. MTL does not stop me from repeatedly diving into this world.
3. This is a story where the FL (Xie Anlan) is a transmigrated super-agent with a specialization in disguise and the ML (Lu Li) is a rebirthed power behind the scenes kinda guy. Or, as Xie Anlan puts it, a wild ghost meets a lonely ghost. Xie Anlan transmigrates into the body of Lu Li's wife with the same name after she drowns, and Lu Li wakes up in his old body from like ten years ago after it passes out (it's strongly implied that it did in fact, die) trying to save his (its?) wife from drowning.
4. What follows is two remarkably smart people (CN protagonists are almost always OP. This is a fact of life.) discovering that the other is not the same person they once were, and teaming up to get ahead in life and have a bunch of politics-related adventures. You know the drill. Succession crises, quest narratives, political scheming, lots of dance battles, and super-secret family revelations. The usual portfolio for your average Histrom CN.
5. I like a lot of things about this story. Xie Anlan and Lu Li are the kind of ship who join hands to make problems for everyone else and the way they work together and the tacit understanding they have is great. They are very straightforward and touchy-feely with each other and they are pretty much an old married couple by the first fourth of the book. It's great. I could take like two more novels about them stirring shit up while being in a relationship.
6. One of the things I liked best about this ship is the division of power.
Xie Anlan: In the face of absolute power, all calculations are bullshit. Lu Li: That just means your strategies aren't comprehensive enough.
Lu Li is a Non-Action Guy. A man who, as repeatedly stated in the narrative, does not have the strength to truss a chicken. What he does specialize in is knowing far more than he's supposed to know and using that knowledge to anticipate and solve problems while being incredibly smug about it. Multiple characters, including his beloved wife, express their desire to punch him in the face and I don't blame them even a little. Xie Anlan, the idle wife, loudly aspires to being idle, but when push comes to shove she gleefully throws herself into doing marital arts battles and large scale social and economic changes.
Anyway! Division of labor in a ship is great. This is also why Feng Qing's other book with a division of labor (where the FL is the brains and the ML is the brawn) is my second-favourite novel of hers.
7. The side characters are also great! A lot of CNs, even when female-led, suffer from all non-lead female characters being kinda wimpy. This is not the case here, my favorite child darling baby Zhu Yan being the prime example. Shen Hanshuang also grew on me, and my Ning Shu needed far more screentime than what she got. She's a heroine of her own story, dammit. And the male side characters weren't slacking off either. My love for Liu Fuyun ended up being so fucking intense for something that grew slowly over time- I think it's partly because it's so endearing to see a character with a very strong moral code in a situation where he has so many temptations not to have one.
8. There are still a few elements that cut into my enjoyment here and there. There are the usual love brained treacherous minor villains. Lady whose name I am not even going to bother to remember, you are a disgrace to women everywhere. I am also still unsure about my feelings for Baili Xiu, but I kinda feel like the story would have been better without him? I mean yes, he's an actual threat in a story where the protags are way too OP, but he's also kindof annoying idk.
9. Goodreads tells me this story is 821 pages. This is a complete and absolute lie. It's probably 821 chapters in printed book form (the webnovel version I'm familiar with had 817) and it is FUCKING HUGE. The Chinese word count is more than 3 million words. ...more
1. Transmigrated FL, stone-faced warrior god ML. There are some fun elements, especially at the start but I got less interested in bits in 22 Dec 2023
1. Transmigrated FL, stone-faced warrior god ML. There are some fun elements, especially at the start but I got less interested in bits in the middle. My favorite character is the FL's shixiong, who is an asshole but a hilarious one. My favorite subplot is the one where the FL's older brother is running a long-term con against his own dad for purposes of revenge. I can take or leave the ship, but the individual characters are pretty fun. Lots of family drama, which I like. ...more
1. This one's fun. A transmigrated FL who only got her memories later in life. You'd think she'd be the usual secret agent kinda FL and par22 Dec 2023
1. This one's fun. A transmigrated FL who only got her memories later in life. You'd think she'd be the usual secret agent kinda FL and parts of that is correct but she mostly uses her knowledge to train really powerful special elite troops and ngl the way her skills made the whole military situation drastically change made me fan myself a little. Explicitly a story about the FL and ML ousting old kings and forming their own empire....more
1. FL comes from a family of powerful dynastic ministers who were framed and killed by an unwise (tm) king. She self-immolates in a scene t22 Dec 2023
1. FL comes from a family of powerful dynastic ministers who were framed and killed by an unwise (tm) king. She self-immolates in a scene that is frankly kindof impressive and is reborn into the dead body of her younger cousin the day after that. Basically a vengeance narrative against an entire empire, as well as a huge political thriller about four countries fighting to see who's the last one standing.
2. The ML has some MAJOR family drama in this one. Fun family drama, though. Gave rise to a whole bunch of great scenes.
3. The other FQ novel showcasing a ship with a clear division of labor. ML is the brawn, and FL is the brains. ...more
1. Histrom with a questionable romance featuring questionable consent. Might as well be hentai, tbh- the sex scenes are way22 Dec 2023 Skimmed, Unrated
1. Histrom with a questionable romance featuring questionable consent. Might as well be hentai, tbh- the sex scenes are way more racy than you'd expect for a softcore smut comic. Anyway, I kinda lost interest the moment the FL turned out to be a Faux Action Girl.
2. I'm sure there are stories that can make the premise of a major age gap + political thriller + questionable romance ft. a seasoned politician ML and a wide-eyed innocent FL work, and for all I know this may even BE one of those. But I'm not the target audience for such a story. The tropes are too much of a turn-off and there are too many stories out there I'd rather read....more
1. This is a beautifully drawn Korean Historical cross-class romance with an omnipresent feeling of impending doom (it's n22 Dec 2023 Skimmed, unrated.
1. This is a beautifully drawn Korean Historical cross-class romance with an omnipresent feeling of impending doom (it's not actually a tragedy, but every chapter feels like it's leading towards one) that was a little too slow to keep my interest. No shade though, because what I did read was pretty competent. ...more
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