He earnestly believed that if he held on and showered the other with all his love and attention, his feelings will be returned one day. He endured all the pain he felt and held on because he didn't want his lover to be angry and was willing to be a prop for him to vent his anger so long as it ensured that ML will come back home a few more times and so he'll get to see him a few more times. He gave all the good things he has to ML, hid his scars so as not to disgust him and even in his last breath tried to exonerate him so that his brother wouldn't try to avenge him and cause trouble for the ML.

And after transmigration, as someone who hasn't gone out and dealt with the world, he was still very trusting and a bit simpleminded in his dealings with people. YiHui is such a precious cinnabun roll that you couldn't help loving and wishing all the good things in this world on.

you tie up a high achieving ambitious young man with a person with intellectual disability and force them to live together all for the sake of a contract and material benifits... oh let's not forget that he already had someone he liked and that he's not even of marriageable age (he was underage. just 17-18 at the time!) ~~ 🙂

Moreover I don't think threatening him- blocking his credit cards, taking away his cars etc inorder to ensure he follows this ridiculous contract is really conducive to nurturing any sort of romantic marital ties... Not to forget that there are people left and right who'll pressurise him if he doesn't fulfill his roles. In the end I feel like the ML was forced to accept MC's presence and considered him akin to something like a convenient nanny who kept his house (&bed) clean and warm for him. And the love was born mostly out habit and familiarity. I can't really blame him for that.

What I do have against him is his inability to take No for an answer and his ex-habit of taking out his anger on and abusing the MC (physically, emotionally and probably even sexually- (most of their love making episodes, though ?consensual, were alluded to as him 'venting.' and no I'm not gonna think too deeply into question about whether a mentally handicapped person with intellectual development matching a preschooler's is capable of giving consent and if that consent should be taken as valid, to save myself the emotional ickiness) and maybe his occasional and unintentional kindness that made the poor MC unable to extricate himself.

Ignoring all logic, cause and causation and directly convincing himself that it was his Yi Hui, desperately trying to ingratiate himself into YiHui's life, watching from distance not daring to come closer got the fear of disgusting him after seeing YiHui's rejection to him, praying to be hated rather than forgotten, scared of being rejected, pleading, pleasing... the scum-gong abuse and redemption arc was really satisfactory!~ 😌👌

P.S: this is fiction so his intense and dogged pursuit using questionable methods can fly... but if any of you face this sort of 'desperate wife -chasing' irl please call the cops at the earliest. Thank you.

that chapter where he tried telling his mom that he is not her son, Jiang YiHui, but is the transmigrator Yi Hui who took over her son's body, only to realise that his mom had already guessed it long ago. She just hugged him and comforted him saying "Dear, don't cry, mom is here... It's okay, mom is not sad. No matter what you become, you are Mama's good boy"... (╥﹏╥)

Off-putting/Offensive descriptions of mentally disabled (likely autism of some sort) MC ("Fool", "s*upid", etc), r*pe attempt from ML, Self-harm as a manipulation tool, Abuse of disabled characters, slightly insensitive opinions around su*cide, stalking, "keeping" a lover who doesn't want to be f*cking kept

ML risking his own life to save MC from his 2nd death, and in the process fulfilling MCs last wish from his 1st life, for "ML to come to him" - that he shared his possible demise with MC and his only wish was for MC to live well and not be sad or angry anymore is honestly probably the most 'romantic' (in a f*cked up, past-abuser kinda way) thing I have ever read in scum gong novels.

how to repay someone you killed, and the answer to that was to die yourself

r*pe MC - sure, we find out that he did it to make MC angry, and therefore fight back and pay attention to him - so it wasn't genuinely a r*pe attempt, but MC doesn't know that, and even then it would just make it worse. Manipulating someone into paying attention to u by pretending to attempt to r*pe them is so shitty I cant even start, like I'm half surprised the author didn't give MC trauma from that, and also half not surprised bec then it would need to be added onto the list of things ML did to give MC trauma and we'd have to spend another 15 chapters working through it.

pouring boiling water on his hand in front of MC thing was super manipulative and f*cked up too, but at least then it would be ML being in pain - raping someone puts the pain solely on the person not in control - if I wanted one scene to stay id choose it being the one where ML was at least in pain for his s*upid manipulative games (and this is coming from someone who has scars, I am qualified to speak on this issue, thanks.).

the very few last chapters in case u wanted to know

draw paralells to MC and ML and give ML a chance to do his good guy talk at the very end - (very forced btw, I cringed out of my body)

He mistakenly believed that if he loved enough that his love would be reciprocated, and because of his intellectual limitations, he wasn't able to rationalize and understand that his love was taken for granted. Until he died and woke up in another person's body, whose name happens to be Yihui and also has a milder version of a similar intellectual disability. Though MC still retained his innocent and pure character, this new body has a brain that's able to detect and interpret situations and events that MC could not have in his previous body. Through waking up, MC was resolutely determined to start life anew and stay as far away from the ML as possible.

ML slowly fell in love with the MC and gained a dependency on him - he used to think he often thought of the MC because he hated him, yet he'd be compelled to want to "go home" and see him after he wrapped up his projects. He'd vent his anger on the MC, mistreated and abused him, but his heart was slowly softening to his surprise until one day when he returned to an empty home and all signs of MC was gone.

Watching him go from a popular, rising actor full of haughty arrogance to then slowly falling to the bottom as he's enveloped with regret and remorse for his past actions was supposed to be satisfying, but there came a point where I thought he's repented enough. He tried so hard but his approach was wrong up until he could finally accept that there was a loss and he was not entitled to getting it back. His delusions at the beginning of snatching the MC back was rather annoying, so it was satisfying to see the MC turn him down. However, after he finally gets it and attempted to change to get back together with the MC, I really felt for them both. I feel for the MC for the pain and suffering he went through, but also for the ML. It took the MC's death for him to appreciate the MC's presence in his life - as he was still plotting to separate amiably up until his white moonlight (FYQ) returned. But even after meeting with FYQ prior to learning of the MC's death, he was resolute that his feelings for FYQ were only platonic. It's like, you can really feel the gears turning in that noggin' of his, it's just unfortunate that it came too little too late.

actually told the original body's mother and sister about how he wasn't actually the original and reconciled with his sister-in-law and brother from his previous life.

he harmed himself due to desperation

how he was established to have physical mental illness in his original body that made him think simpler and better suited his naive character set, which changed to an outright genius with a 'normal' brain after reincarnation which facilitated his subsequent character growth & mindset change. Convenient, unique for me, and it kind of works in this story setting

The MC was originally mentally challenged with a mental comprehension of a 9 year old but he deeply loved the ML. His cause of death was a side effect of the way the ML treated him. The ML was indifferent and hated him and everyone knew it that was why outsiders were willing to "help" the ML out and playing the "prank" on the MC thinking that there was no consequences. After his death, the MC was reborn into a person with the same name and with similar looks. Because this new body had a normal brain, the MC slowly adapted to life as a normal person and slowly learnt to think for himself and realized how awful and wrong the ML treated him. Throughout ghosting learning process, he slowly matured and learned how to stand his ground. But he's still silly and sweet most of the time expect when it comes to the ML.

I loved loved loved how this is a ML who realised that the one person who he treated with disdain and hate was the person he loved the most. He had the MC so deeply engraved inside of him and did not even realise that he loved him until he actually died. Only taking out his anger (because of the situation he was forced into) on the MC and treating the MC oh so cruely to the point that the MC became so traumatised. But at the same time, as you read you'd related that the ML knew the MC's various quirks and habits which was also how he confirmed the MC's identity. Never once did he doubt that the MC wasn't the MC

We get to see how awfully the ML treated the MC and how inferior and distressed the MC felt when they were together. There was also those moments where the ML felt those waves of regrets and hate that he didn't treat the MC better.

the MC definitely did not forgive when they first met. He wanted to deny his identity and he held on until the very end until the life and death situation. The ML did a very decent job chasing his wife back. He used another identify to approach him and talk to him online when he realized that the MC did not want to even tak to him by he even roped in the MC's orgianl body's sister to give him gifts. The ML was persistent and even when he was found out, he continued on and even used drastically measures which were kinda toxic but I loved it hahaha. But it was also what forced the MC to see his sincerity in a way? Life and death situation was the ultimate turning point