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Top Assassin Retires and Becomes a Farmer After Time Traveling to the Past
Type
Web Novel (CN)
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Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5    41% (41 votes)
4    31% (31 votes)
3    14% (14 votes)
2    7% (7 votes)
1    6% (6 votes)
Language
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Year
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2023
Status in COO
Status in Country of Origin. One entry per line
232 Chapters (Completed)
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Completely Translated
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English Publisher
One entry per line
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Release Frequency
Every 1.1 Day(s)
Activity Stats
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Weekly Rank: #7881
Monthly Rank: #8517
All Time Rank: #3911
Reading List
[Graph]
On 1534 Reading Lists
Monthly Rank: #2326
All Time Rank: #6356

Description

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Li Yao, a retired assassin, woke up one day to find herself transmigrated to ancient times and became a famous shrew far and wide.

With hands on her hips, she wailed loudly. Villagers called her the bane of ghosts, and even dogs would circle around when they saw her.

She had four children, her husband had passed away, and it was a disastrous year, leaving them poor as church mice.

Fortunately, River Bay Village was nestled against a big mountain, with wild chickens, wild boars, wolves, tigers, herbs, spices, corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes… it seemed to have everything.

Rely on the water to eat, and rely on the mountain.

With her skills that exceeded the times, Yao Li quickly became the wealthiest person in River Bay Village.

She was determined to stick to her original aspirations – retire and live out her remaining years in peace.

But as a widow, there were many things at her doorstep.

Her maiden family coveted her wealth; local ruffians lusted after her beauty; the magistrate admired her talents; the prefect wanted to rely on her to build up his political achievements; the scholar admired her literary talent; the chancellor respected her breadth of knowledge…

Wave after wave, wearing down her doorstep.

Even a Prince was amazed by her, finding all kinds of excuses to frequently visit and neglect his palaces.

Li Yao adapted to the circumstances, sparring back and forth, just wishing her retirement life would remain undisturbed.

But unknowingly, the world was changing because of her.

Associated Names
One entry per line
穿到古代，顶级杀手她退休种田
Related Series
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Recommendations
Adored Koi in the ’70s (1)
After Losing Her Husband, She Turned the Petty Villains in the Marquis’s Mansion Into Big Shots (1)
After I was Exiled, I Became a Noble Minister (1)
Back to the Sixties: Farm, Get Wealthy & Raise the Cubs (1)
My Favorite Manly Husband (1)
Transmigration of Mian [Reluctantly] Becomes His Man [Wife] (1)
Recommendation Lists
  1. Cooking/Food Novels (2)
  2. FN A Novels - Fantasy + Isekai (Random Order of Pr...
  3. Favorite CN novel must read
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Latest Release

Date Group Release
01/06/24 akkNovel c233
01/05/24 akkNovel c232
01/04/24 akkNovel c231
01/03/24 akkNovel c230
01/02/24 akkNovel c229
01/01/24 akkNovel c228
12/31/23 akkNovel c227
12/30/23 akkNovel c226
12/29/23 akkNovel c225
12/28/23 akkNovel c224
12/27/23 akkNovel c223
12/26/23 akkNovel c222
12/25/23 akkNovel c221
12/22/23 akkNovel c220
12/21/23 akkNovel c219
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19 Reviews sorted by


RuneOrthrus
RuneOrthrus rated it
October 27, 2023
Status: c113
Its a fun, smooth, read. The relationship with her family is cute. Don't know why she is a "top assassin" though, feels like out of everything she did so far like 5% is actually part of the assassin skillset.

Really, either the author neglected to inform us she was a huge nerd who looked up how everything works in her last life. Or the author is such a nerd themself and assumes everyone in a modern era shares such habits. Dont know about you, fellow reader, but I know jacksh*t about... more>> any of that. Would die a like poor peasant in ancient times for sure. <<less
32 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
zetnnik
zetnnik rated it
October 22, 2023
Status: c92
The author made the MC so unapologetically OP. 😏 She’s supposed to be a retired assassin from her original world, but how does she know so many things — I’d understand being an expert in martial arts and perhaps first aid, and maybe even cooking, but she knows soooo many other things? I still give it a 4 star rating, only coz she’s still not annoying at this point.
16 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
necromancernim
necromancernim rated it
January 8, 2025
Status: c233
It's solid for the genre. The scale and speed of development is a few years too fast, even if you can tolerate that the MC (an assassin) just knows how to build modern industry from the ground up. It would have been so easy for there to have just been a sentence or two to justify her knowledge, but alas.

I've written a checklist for what knowledge a good assassin should have:

  • The ability to train a 13 y/o into a captain level fighter (in 8 months)
  • Be an expert cook, able to recreate any modern dish after locally sourcing all ingredients
  • The know-how to farm rice, potatoes, and incubate livestock using modern agriculture techniques
  • Create and industrialize modern itch cream, scented soap, among other miscellaneous self-care products
  • Memorize all the ancient Chinese classics and disseminate them in such a way so that you can elevate your son into the top scholar, even beating out the hidden master teacher you hired to teach him (in 8 months)
  • Create cement from first principles
  • Industrialize ceramic floor tiles
  • Build flush toilets from first principles
  • Build a steam engine from first principles
  • Build a bicycle from first principles (variable gear)
  • Build the industry necessary to automate the production of bicycles
  • Build fireworks from first principles
  • Build a telescope from first principles (you have to make your own glass)
  • Know how to create kongming lanterns, hot air balloons, obstetrical forceps, and waterwheels
  • Discover how to refine steel from first principles
  • Do everything on this list in the space of a single year, with no starting capital
I know that checklist might seem like a lot, but these are just a few things that every assassin learns at assassin school.

I'm not dissing the novel, it's still a lot of fun, especially if you like these build-up novels where the protagonist introduces tech to the ancient era. I just wish it didn't feel like I was watching one of those... more>> youtube videos where two men are digging out a swimming pool or whatever "by hand", while claiming not to use modern tools (when we know damn well they got heavy machinery off-screen). <<less
9 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Fictionaddiction
Fictionaddiction rated it
October 2, 2023
Status: c13
This is a great novel about a MC who has a strong personality and good business sense.

The novel has a spin, in which the MC is a widow with 4 children and a daughter in law.

I didn't think that would be fun, but it was.

... more>> The family is like her army, they work together and they achieve good results.

What I like the most is that it's not overly descriptive and doesn't lag and leave you hanging.

The story is very fast-paced, you don't get bored or want to skip paragraphs.

The translation is also pretty good. No annoying mistakes. <<less
7 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
dramamonster
dramamonster rated it
January 23, 2024
Status: Completed
4.5 stars. Relaxing, easy read about an OP female assassin who transmigrates into a poor 31-year-old widow with 4 sons in ancient China. There's no romance - it's essentially a family/farming/business/civilization-building kind of novel, rather than an emotional story.

Wanting a salted fish retirement life in this new life, the FL makes money, invents important/lucrative items from modern times, plans for everything, out schemes all villains, and saves the country. The FL is strictly focused on pursuing her retirement life by pursuing wealth, prosperity, and peace for herself, her family, her... more>> village, her prefecture, and her country. As with many novels, towards the end, events and time pass faster and faster, until it feels like the happy ending came too fast. If it were just a bit more in depth in humour, character development, or less OP-ness, I'd give it an extra star.

A huge plus is that there are no jealous, scheming female villains like in other novels. <<less
4 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Miyacherry
Miyacherry rated it
January 8, 2024
Status: Completed
This is a type of story that boost one's vanity. An escapism after reading angst story.

The MC is OP, she didn't meet any significant trouble along the story due to her strength and experience as a former assasin. The characters around her depend on her, and she was solving the problem in the nation. No one bat an eye lashes whether seeing her inventing gadget or sharing strategies. Super OP.

Storywise, despite the super OP MC, it quite entertaining. The build up is good too. From the part when she... more>> build her village until when she save the military and emperor.

It's a good story to read when one's mood wants to be happy. <<less
3 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
to_caramel
to_caramel
July 15, 2024
Status: --
I have just started reading the novel Top Assassin Retires and Becomes a Farmer After Time Traveling to the Past and found it quite interesting. However, I’m bothered by a recurring trope where a character becomes "dark-skinned" from being in the sun, causing them to become tanned. The author often follows up with phrases like "I can't even recognize myself because I am as dark as an African" or "their parents won’t even recognize them anymore because they are as dark as an African from being in the sun/field."

Historically, I... more>> know some cultures looked down on people with darker skin, associating those dark-skin with being lower class or impoverished, while associating people with pale skin as being rich or well-educated people, striving to empressed others into thinkint they were well off and educted by trying to have skin as "white as snow".

In today's age we are no longer limited by these thoughts, so are these evaluations really necessary to appear in books anymore? Novels are meant to educate reads, entertain readers. The novels that entertain reads create an escape into a world of imagination which in my opinion only gets disroyed with these stereotypes that shame a skin color and while elevating another? <<less
2 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
LemmonPaii
LemmonPaii rated it
January 29, 2024
Status: Completed
A very good novel. MC is a little OP and seems to know things out of her field of knowledge but anyways It doesn't bothers as it is presented very early on the novel and continues til the end. It is a barely dramatic story, not that deep and very slice of life kind of novel. I recommend it.
2 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Nadelyn
Nadelyn rated it
January 18, 2024
Status: c233
Giving it a 4☆ cos idk how to feel about MC being too op.

I gotta say though, it's interesting reading a novel where, even tho she had kids already, MC never got into a romantic relationship with anyone lol
2 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
zekund
zekund rated it
January 7, 2024
Status: c233
This novel delivers exactly what is expected. OP main female lead with light tone, decent pacing and story arcs with good conclusions. If you like novels with cheat modern knowledge in ancient era or cooking novels, you might like this one.

On the other hand, her assassin skills seem to too OP and although I don't find it too jarring, some of the applications of modern technologies seem superficial. So suspension of disbelief may still be required depending on how forgiving you are. Another thing regarding second-chance novels with female protagonist... more>> is that they usually involve romance and drama which can ruin the tone of the novel. But this novel doesn't have romance subplot which in my opinion is suitable for what the novel intends to deliver. <<less
2 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Lovetoread82
Lovetoread82 rated it
October 11, 2023
Status: c44
It's surprisingly funny and good. FL isn't pretentious and she treats her sons and daughter in law as coworkers/subordinates. She isn't a Mom originally, so she doesn't step over the boundaries with her kids. FL tries to protect them but let them make their own decisions.
2 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
IrisBay
IrisBay rated it
December 27, 2024
Status: c93
It was nice, but it's annoyed me to the MAX when the official become useless. Waiting for the MC and the MC become like a saint. Like making this and that plus shoulder all the expenses. If you think it clearly her income can't catch-up with the construction especially the water reservoir. Official and the government become useless and don't know when the people tax went. It's annoying and makes reader s*upid and brainless.
1 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Amethyst
Amethyst rated it
October 24, 2024
Status: Completed
The Queen of Mary Su's.

In front of this MC all other Mary Su and Gary Su should take a step back and kowtow.

All jokes aside, this is a light read.

Was the story good? No.

Was the story bad? Also No.

It was enjoyable to read, a good pastime. To read this all you have to do is turn of your brain, quite simple imo. Read if you want cute family, all knowing MC and no brain power needed to understand a story.
1 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Afm
Afm rated it
July 8, 2024
Status: Completed
Give it a 4.8 star, because the FL. (To be noted, there's no ml's here in the novel, because he's more like a side-character)

The FL, suppose an 'ex-assassin', have a "Steady & Reliable-Attituted".. Which is cool.

Unlike other novels, with those 'ex-assassin-fl-characters', change out to become such a "R*etard-Jumping-Monkeys-Character".. Which is so much annoying!!

The story plots are ok. Where as for the other characters here, well.. They more like 'One or Two-dimensional-Side/Extras-Characters'.. Which as 'extra-flavor-on-a-dish'..
1 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
puregarnet
puregarnet rated it
May 11, 2024
Status: Completed
3.8 Stars

Date Read: 8/5/2024

Personal Enjoyment: 3.9/5

Happy to find another poor-to-rich story with lots of business ideas. Pretty long too. However, there wasn't a lot on the emotional side of things that would have carried the story more and covered up a lot of the poor parts of the story. There wasn't much time spent on the relationships. The MC side is even less so. The poor parts need to have suspension of disbelief lol. The modern technology brought over starred bicycles y'all. I enjoyed it enough for the money making... more>> and business side nonetheless though it could have been a lot better. I can understand why the rating is more than those 3+ stars but not higher than 4 now haha. It really fits.

Short Summary: 30-year-old assassin transmigrates into some ancient China-esque era as a widow with 5 young dependents, 2 of whom are the eldest just a married couple. She strong-arms her way into living richly in the countryside through a lot of poor-to-rich business ideas. Along the way, she also solves everyone's problems because they keep coming to her for solutions. Zero romance, she remained a widow until the end.

Plot: 3.9/5

The whole plot is pretty long actually which I liked. The poor-to-rich aspect was nice and a bit more detailed than others. Despite this though, a lot of the midway business ideas started to feel unbelievable. Even for this type of story. The MC is OP. She knows a lot of random knowledge in a lot of detail enough to replicate them in this backwards era from scratch. Bicycles for example. Waterways too. Why would she need to know such things lol.

The story also has the usual capital and war plot even though she doesn't move to the capital at all. Luckily, it really is only at the very end. Not a fan of war so I wasn't interested at all.

There are other inconsistencies that you just have to take with a grain of salt. Like everyone commenting how very different the MC is but never justifying the change in behaviour even in their heads.

Writing/Translation: 3.8/5

The translation I read is from akkNovel. Some minor translation mistakes like Bay instead of family branch or something similar. Overall it is pretty understandable with only some minor hiccups when the name is the wrong person but from context, I could understand the correct person.

Also, some of the naming is left untranslated so I'll explain here a bit. There are 4 sons so Da is big, Da Zhuang is the eldest son who's married. Er means 2nd so any combination of Er something is the 2nd son. San is 3 so San anything is the 3rd son. Sometimes the author appends Er to the end of the name and this is an affectionate suffix. Xiao Si is Little Four so he's the 4th and youngest son. The translator didn't make it clear and the names can become one word or three words.

Pacing: 3.7/5

Some of the business stuff was pretty detailed but some felt like the achievement came, was done and is on to the next one in a short amount of time. Or the story just didn't elaborate on the time in between business ideas so it felt fast. Again, this might have been fixed or be more hidden if the author had added some genuine family heartwarming scenes with feelings to take place between businesses.

Setting/Worldbuilding: 3.8/5

Because it is so long, there was some variety in the setting. The village, town, county, border, palace, mountains, forests etc. Unfortunately, most of them are pretty generic. But some places do get expanded apun like the MC’s home, the mountains and a few others. Still could have been better.

Characters: 3.7/5

Characters are all mostly one note. The minor young adult antagonists had a bit of character development and were more fun for me than any of the good guys lol. The MC is quite OP and every single person is heavily dependent on her. So they never come up with their own thing. It never got annoying like some other similar stories but it was noticeable.

My Created Lists (I include my rating and review in the list itself XD)

  • All Novels I've Read Sorted By Rating - Where I ranked every single novel I read on novelupdates.
  • Family/Village/Wealth Building, Poor to Rich, Business Management - lots of nothing to something type of stories, like this one!
  • To Read Novels: Poor to Rich, Farming
<<less
1 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Kms
Kms rated it
April 17, 2024
Status: c233
was expecting Li Yao to be a loving mushy mother, I was very surprised by the development of the story I like that Li Yao showed that she didn't show weakness when she woke up finding out she had become a mother and that her husband was dead. when she was killing people, I did think there would be more bloodshed as an assassin she should have wanted to kill the crown prince as he was a very annoying bug even to me, I wanted him to be killed while... more>> reading the novel.... the only plot point I didn't like was that just after rescuing the emperor from the crown prince she runs away then one chapter later she is back, I did think at some point after rescuing the emperor Li Yao would have some chapters of being with her grandkids and having back flash stories of her children hardships shown in some chapters. this is a great novel to pass the time reading. <<less
1 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Relenapeacecraft
Relenapeacecraft rated it
February 29, 2024
Status: Completed
An absolute tr*sh.

Almost all the members of her family were incompetent and just utterly spineless. Regardless of whether it was before or after she transmigrated. They did not have any ability to stand up for themselves and had to depend on her to coddle them every step of the way. She's no better as well. The person who schemed against her was forgiven just like that because of a very sorry excuse that he needed maternal love. If he can scheme against her once, he'll do it again. For someone... more>> who claimed to be a former assassin, she was not even aware of such simple principle. She should have reincarnated instead of transmigrated if she was that clueless. And to think that the author tried so hard to portray her as someone capable and smart. That was only because she came from the future and most people around her were dumb and clueless. She basically enjoyed being worshipped by the people around her so she feels that she needs to show off her prowess to gain attention. What a waste of time!!! <<less
1 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Shawjohn
Shawjohn rated it
January 11, 2024
Status: c214
After reading, with breaks in between, up to the current chapter, though my knowledge may be only around the surface but it really does get more outlandish as it goes. That and main points being side lined/made irrelevant like Mc's background if being a top assassin.

Despite being a supposed top assissin, there are times that will really make the reader question if that really is true? Though her skills in fighting may be considerable still, some other important facets seems to be missing or so such as the concept of... more>> spies. MC belately ever thinks of inside spies and such which should be a common concept as an assassin, or so one would commonly think right? And yet, it seems to be quite alien to the MC and other characters until there was something goes wrong. Sure, they might not catch said spies early but to have such concepts alien to them until they got hit by them? Odd. Speaking of which, more or less the same happens with other troublesome matters, MC acts somewhat belatedly, only really acting when more trouble comes there way.

Then of course the usual Isekai stuff, modern broken conveniences and values.

Now done with C233, completing the read. All in all, read was interesting. At the start, it was fairly good but the further it went, the worse it got. The finale with the main plot being settled seemed drawned out and blew up but with only shallow substance to it, from the MC simply wanting to have a peaceful retirement to the royals conflicts. Average/below average at best with a rating of 3 out of 10 in my books. A numberof fairly likable characters but generally pretty shallow as well. Interesting plot and okay pace but pretty rough I'd say. Not recommendable but can be a read to try when there is not much else or so. <<less
1 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Renaechan
Renaechan rated it
October 8, 2024
Status: Completed
A genius lady transmigrated into a widow and completely dominates and saves the world. There is no romance, just her introducing new food and technology so that she can more fully enjoy her retirement. Fun read.
0 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
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