This is the author, Shui Qian Cheng's first work. She wrote this novel in 2010 when she was a 3rd year University student. Later on she wrote my favourite BL novels like Professional Stuntman, Years in Intoxication, Beloved Enemy, In Love With An Idiot and My Little Poplar.

What I enjoy reading this author's bl novel is to stomach her strong flavourful recipe of angst, pent-up frustrations, betrayal, violence, r*pe, passion, obsession, love and s*x. When reading her novels, I get to experience all sorts of feelings - when you hate..... more>> you really hate it a lot. When you love, you really love it to the point of blinded obsession. When you feel sad and desperate, you really break down and cry shamelessly. She just stirred all sorts of emotions in me with her novels being so engaging.

This novel has all of these ingredients - obsession, love, passion, betrayal, angst, frustrations and circumstantial r*pe.

There are a total of 118 chapter + 1 extra. The first 40-50 chapters are more of the relationship development of the MC and ML. How the cold and arrogant beautiful ML fell in love with the good-for-nothing fatty MC. After their honeymoon and thereafter, hold tight and prepare for a roller coaster ride of emotions as the story picked up tempo as the plot thickens and more characters are added.

The ending was satisfying but I would have wished the author could have tied up some lose ends with regards to the ML's status as a prince and punished the scheming empress. At the end, the Emperor met his long lost son, the ML. But as we know ML only wanted his relationship back with the MC and nothing else, the Emperor let him be and nothing else developed which really made the fact that ML is part of royalty pointless, since there's no leverage on his status and birth as a prince with lineage to the Emperor. The author could perhaps improve the plot for example, the Emperor disguised himself as an old farmer or trader to get close to his son, mentored him about human relationships, rescue him during his times of need and let him leverage on his army to fight the Tong Sect, or direct confrontation with his ML's adopted father. Develop a close and warm father-son relationship and make up the lost years with his son. And in the end, support ML's decision to live a carefree life with MC. Lol! ? why am I soliciting for more screen time for the Emperor? Haha...

ML grew up without any parental love and guidance. His adopted father made use of him selfishly to complete missions and eventually to kill the ML's biological father and take the throne. So it's no wonder why the ML is cold, arrogant, aloof and lack of EQ for human relationships. Until he met the wealthy, kind, happy-go-lucky, cute, gullible and good-for-nothing, fatty MC who loved him blindly.

The MC is kind, filial and gullible. He was smitten and in love with ML and chased him shamelessly until he was betrayed by ML. As a result, his family lost all their riches, his adopted sister was kidnapped and he himself was tortured and his body poisoned. The MC lost a lot of weight during his bout of illness and hated ML to the core. But eventually, ML perseverance and sincerity won MC's heart back after a long, perilous journey.

There's no right and wrong n both MC and ML's behaviour and stance in their relationship since circumstances and upbringing made them act and behave this way.

Spoiler

Read the spoilers in detail in Facebook, search for Chinese BL Novels.

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Actually I love it so far. The shou was such a foolish perv whom can't keep his eyes off the gong. The gong is kind of cold though and its obvious that there's still more about him than meets the eye.

Just a question though, is this project has been dropped or something? Where did you guts read the rest of the novel🙏

I love this story,
the characters are so funny, made me laugh a couple times,
and I'm quite addicted to the story
I can't stop reading it until the end....

for the level of sadness it's not too bad for me...
it's still tolerable and I shed one or two tears...
it's still safe for a fragile heart out there...

I found this novel on forum which said that this novel is "Hilarious bl novels"
then I accidentally found the audio drama....
so I try it... and I am in love with this couple....
You should try it too....
There is other cute couple in this (JinBao & Que Siming) that the author made it into another novel....

Update 30/08/20

I finished this novel sequel "进宝娶媳妇儿" "JinBao marries a wife "
This is a story about how Que Siming and JinBao met, Their first childhood love...
Give you another perspective about the story line...
Same as before, the author provides an interesting comedy element in the novel
For the level of sadness is very low, I am even more touched about his (Que Siming) father's love story

if you finished reading "Blooming Flowers, Silent Sorrow"
I suggest you continue to this sequel,
Give you a explanation of some of the things that were hidden at the beginning.

In SQC's debut novel she unfolds the themes that she later developed in her 188 series: kind and upstanding MC, cold and brutal, but extremely gorgeous ML who gradually learn what love is through his contact with the caring and kind MC.

The plot is thin and doesn't amount to much, but the angst and heartbreak are as always the author's strong point. The MC is a silly, not-too-bright and spoiled wealthy second-gen rich kid in a wuxia setting. He falls in love at first sight with the beautiful ML, who... more>> he thinks is a woman. The story is basically a short crematorium novel in ancient setting with some martial arts stuff thrown in. The political intrigue never amount to much, and the ML's secret heritage is kind of pointless (although this is also what the ML thinks). The core of the story is the love story which starts one-sided and abusive (SQC really liked to write excessive noncon in her early stories), but ends up being the typical heartfelt I-can't-live-without-you romance where the ML is transformed through being loved for the first time in his life. Which sounds cliché, but SQC always makes this trope work, and it's satisfactory to see the CP getting their happy ending.

It's fine for a first novel, but nothing special. Jin Bao and the doctor, two of the side characters, got their own sequel. <<less

Adding on to melongoh's review, I like how the characters develop throughout the story. How Xiao Bao went from a 吊儿郎当 person to a more mature person because of his relationship with Huai En, and how Huai En learns what love is when he bonds with Xiao Bao. This story gives me a feel about how love can change people to become a better person <3

I love how humorous the story is and how the 2 of them have 默契. Those who don't like super long novels can give this... more>> a try. I've read it a couple of times and it always made my heart warm. <<less