okay, so the story has 4 love interests and 1 real ml.

so of the 4, only Jiang Yi will not irritate you to the point of dislike. Nangong Xuan-no, the general will make you want the run him through mud but not out of complete hatred.

so from the very beginning, the FL tells us that she wants the general (forgot his name because of how boring his part was) but the romance between the two is really half arsed yeah! You don't even see the FL putting in real effort to hook this guy. You just know that he finds her pretty and woman like and dresses up like a man- well, 70%favorability. The general ignores the fact that hundreds of other men are also losing their lives for them and feels that her pursuit is the only meaningful one. Like all the other people just become numbers. Example 3000 of 7000 men died but killed 60, 000 of the 100, 000 strong Mongolian army.

this was just bogus. First of all the numbers- but I can ignore that- if her special charm was rescuing the general, then he should have had a 70% favorability for all the men that risked their lives just so he can write a report back to the palace and claim all the victory and be rewarded.

what kills me the most is the fact that she said she wanted him the most. I thought, for a second, she'd put in a bit more effort than the rest but, Grandma!

they saved the most boring for last

so the ML is Jiang Yi. Why she liked him was because her time with him was the most peaceful yeah! Also the longest of all the male leads. 4 years but she spent 3 with the general.

it's like a pick-him-up-when-he's-down thing. But again, the romance is really- bleh! You just know they are together, you don't really get to see their interactions or what they say to each other. You just know that the favorability increased because of the care or conversations. You don't really get to read them.

overall, I wasn't moved by the ML but followed the fl's choice yeah!

So when the final arc finally comes, you'd expect to see them getting comfy and fluff and what yeah!

no.

the tragedy continued.

they were together in such a depressing way that I couldn't read her actual life. I just skimmed over it and found out that they finally met in the real world. But I couldn't even be happy.

there's this huge ???? How a video game character managed to cross over to the real world but op! You know what would make me not care about all the millions of plot holes? An actual good ending.

the worst part is that little apple (still love you) could have told her that there would be no time difference in her world if she stayed the gaming world for a second or 100 years more but declined to because of fl's mood. - I can't understand the s*upid here. So we had to go through pages of depression just because.

i honestly don't get it, yeah! I mean, she freely walked into the game, no one pulled her in to transmigrate, what exactly was her point of ensuring she must return? Yes I get she had her mother and all but she was acting like they threw her in there instead of herself.

she could have had a few loving months with Jiang Yi. Yeah! I wasn't asking for years, just promise each other time when you have it but Eh! Amen. They gave us depression.

it was at that point I felt sorry for Jiang Yi for his love. Anyway, love is a choice. For some people, it doesn't make sense to be happy.

now here is a topic the author completely avoided. Nangong Ye. (Can I have a romance with him please?)

his only fault was that he looked exactly like Nangong Xuan.

i can see why the FL would not choose him. His love for her was love for the original character, so okay. In fact, the author put up a (half arsed) extra with him and the original Yan Yiming (who turned out to be utterly pathetic for the daughter of a Duke)

it's okay yeah!

but, maybe he was just my type, I don't know.

but I'm sure it was because I saw the interaction between the two characters. The talking, the hope, the everything. It was beautiful.

honestly, I had so many points to dislike this character. Normally I don't believe in falling in love with someone that is a brother or friend to your ex, because birds of a feather...

to make it worse, he is younger and his love was for the og FL and HE LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE HIS BROTHER AND HIS BROTHER IS NANGONG XUAN.

when I saw his attack route, I kept shaking my head no. But by the end. I liked it.

i think I read till the end because the author kept hinting on him. She'd bring him in one scene, then they'd have a chance meeting where he'd almost recognize her, then they'd arrange for him to see her but he'd be like she's not the princess.

his love hurt me the most. Sigh!

The author made sure to make them avoid each other at all costs. All the times Nangong Ye saw her was when her face was different. When her face was similar, he didn't even glance at her.

the worst part was that the extra was half arsed.

maybe he is just my heart throb, so I won't ab*se the author.

i mean, there could be someone out there that fell in love with the general 🤣🤣 or that Jian something (🤣🤣🤣) worse Nangong Xuan.

Novel ends with an idiotic bad ending (romance wise) but also story wise. After being tortured by the various scum ML’s and dying 4 times, female MC finally gets to go home. Her system is absolute tr*sh that forced her to suffer with no consequences toward the system.

Mc’s guilt trip gaslighting adventure with Jiang scum.

The male lead was really really smart, he find out the purpose of everything and does Loved her to the point of being old till his last breath. He was hurt when he had to decide whether to let go of her and go back to her world, though he wants her to stay with him, he loves her so much to the point of not allowing himself to be selfish.

I found the schemes and strategies pretty entertaining, but the main structure has some problems. Halfway through, her system's requirement for returning home changes for no good reason, and the OG FL, who seems to start blackening as she loses the affection of the MLs, goes back to normal and practically disappears from the plot. As the reader I'm left wondering what the point of any of this is. It's hard to care about the romances when the FL has such shallow feelings and the many of the MLs are scum. For the ones who aren't, I feel like they deserve better than the FL who is barely sincere to any of them.

The real ending is bittersweet and ends with the only ML that discovers her true purpose letting her go home, and then there's a tacked on modern-day "HE" that is stuffed with exposition on the FL's past, which would of been more important to know back when she kept insisting she had to go home as soon as possible with no explanation as to why.

The modern day bit actually felt divorced from the rest of the book. It took some time for me to tie it in with the FL and how this affected her decisions. I wish the author spoke about this during the actual novel. It feels like an afterthought tbh.

I like Jiang Yi most of the MLs. He didn't harm the FL like the other leads did and was sincere to her throughout. His possessiveness was a bit uncomfortable at times but I really felt for him. Nanggong Ye too. The rest were just selfish pieces of -

As for Yu-er, she just weirdly went AWOL. As one of the other reviewers said, there was an excellent opportunity with her starting to blacken. Alas.