Some novels to make one reconsider one's prejudice and some for simple enjoyment of superior writing
Some novels to make one reconsider one's prejudice and some for simple enjoyment of superior writing
[For untranslated CN novel suggestions, please refer to the Comment Section of this list]
Romance novels that will make you reconsider the pre-established order of things, that shine by their realism, that demand that you acknowledge cannon fodders, that hinder you in condemning villains.
Romance novels that will make you reconsider the pre-established order of things, that shine by their realism, that demand that you acknowledge cannon fodders, that hinder you in condemning villains.
91 Followers
Created: Aug 9th, 2020, Updated: Aug 20th, 2020
Created Aug 9th, 2020
Updated Aug 20th, 2020
23 Chapters Every 70.6 Day(s) 614 Readers 3 Reviews 10-31-2023
The painful, beautiful, pure love between a man who was not a man and a woman who was crushed by the frightening machinery of oppression... more>>
90 Chapters Every 113.7 Day(s) 7055 Readers 98 Reviews 09-06-2022
What if that burning revenge did not in the end bring you the satisfaction you so desperately pursued, but in fact left you feeling empty... more>>
140 Chapters Every 4.2 Day(s) 2557 Readers 34 Reviews 04-23-2024
Being the translator to this story, I might be biased. But there has never been a CN novel to make me reconsider how dangerous and... more>>
70 Chapters Every 182.5 Day(s) 3480 Readers 43 Reviews 01-10-2024
Now, this is a tragedy and a heartbreaking one. When, instead of clearing any misunderstandings, as horrible as what we believe we have seen is,... more>>
145 Chapters Every 23.7 Day(s) 1891 Readers 17 Reviews 12-20-2023
This makes you question just how far you must go to take your responsibilities. At times you might have to betray a loved one, to... more>>
54 Chapters Every 113.8 Day(s) 1225 Readers 9 Reviews 04-09-2020
Not exactly tragedy. None of the MCs truly dies. And they DO end up together. A woman who promised she would love but once. A... more>>
65 Chapters Every 156.7 Day(s) 5788 Readers 91 Reviews 02-23-2018
Completed Action Comedy Drama Gender Bender Historical Josei Martial Arts Mature Psychological Romance
A parent's true wish is for his child to survive. What happens when a woman who has lost her memories realizes the man she has... more>>
510 Chapters Every 110.1 Day(s) 7265 Readers 268 Reviews 11-01-2019
The vanity, selfishness and ambition of men destroying the lives of women. And a transmigrated woman refusing to let herself be crushed and broken. But... more>>
190 Chapters Every 87 Day(s) 5634 Readers 135 Reviews 10-05-2020
It is difficult to be one of the little people. It is difficult to be trampled underfoot, used as a plaything, see oneself be sold... more>>
192 Chapters Every 48.8 Day(s) 908 Readers 11 Reviews 04-25-2022
Bad rating because people don't like ending. If society is against you, then as much as you work, as much as you fight with all... more>>
8 Chapters Every 304.5 Day(s) 982 Readers 3 Reviews 01-03-2020
Not the main theme, but it was in no way easy to be a member of the "Barbarian" people under the Chinese rule. This will... more>>
40 Chapters Every 160.4 Day(s) 3565 Readers 39 Reviews 01-08-2018
Not exactly tragedy. None of the MCs truly dies. And they DO end up together. What if your fated lover sees an enemy in you,... more>>
94 Chapters Every 2.5 Day(s) 4270 Readers 51 Reviews 04-24-2024
Among the lighter reads of the list. There is a mistake in the title. 长公主 is an actual royal title that exists also in English. It is not an adjective to describe the MC. It is a title given by the Emperor to a beloved sister or daughter, which sets her apart from the other imperial/royal princesses. In other words, 长公主 = Princess Royal. ... more>>
123 Chapters Every 203.1 Day(s) 14435 Readers 353 Reviews 01-05-2016
Among the lighter reads of the list. To be a virtuous wife, one should oppress concubines, be biased, paranoid, cruel? Well, how about a heroine... more>>
Comments (26)
UNTRANSLATED SUGGESTION
Drama, Historical, Josei, Mature, Romance (NO TRAGEDY!!!)
70 000 elite soldiers led by the Generals of the Wei Household were ambushed and killed in the Beidi Valley. All the Young Masters of the Wei Household followed their men in death, besides the youngest, Wei Yun [ML], a fourteen-year old lad who had been left behind in the military encampment. As their bodies were repatriated back to the capital, the Wei Household was accused of disloyalty and the corpses of its men were to be refused burial and defiled in ignominy.
The Young Mistresses, most of them concubine-born daughters to be divorced from the fallen Wei Household and remarried for the political benefit of their families, defended the corpses of their husbands with their bodies.
Chu Yu [FL], legitimate daughter of General Chu, whose husband had left for the battleground before even lifting her bridal veil, refused to let the events from her past life repeat themselves and hung to her father-in-law's coffin, earning herself a whipping.
Jiang Chun, having been loved and respected by her husband though not a beauty, had decided against su*cide to heroically fight whip lashes and protect what she could.
Yao Tao, knowing from the start she was to keep a low profile not to get her family, the family of the Empress, implicated, but irate and bellicose by nature, provoked those who had come to humiliate the remains of her husband and threw herself into the mud to protect the mutilated body of the man whom she had been said to hate.
Xie Yun, calculate, unemotional and cold at first-glance and yet loved to the point of insanity by her husband, ran to her death, throwing herself at the feet of her family's Prime Minister to beg his intervention in protecting her husband's remains, though she knew the chances her profiteering family would ever intercede in the favor of a fallen clan were close to nil.
Wang Lan, in late pregnancy, had to be dragged by force from her husband's coffin, screaming his name in pain.
Zhang Han, of low birth and facing her family's censure for siding with her husband's household, cried so desperately and heartbreakingly the gods would have been softened, let alone mortals.
In silent pain, dressed in the purest of whites, these women, wives, mothers, took their husbands' funeral tablets and knelt in front of the Imperial Palace's gates, begging the Emperor to release the last male of the Wei Household, nothing but an underage boy, in honor of their husbands' unwavering loyalty to the empire. They knelt under scorching suns, they knelt under raging storms. Without water, without food, they fell, one after the other, into mud and dust. Waiting for the last member of the Wei Household to be given back to them.
UNTRANSLATED SUGGESTION
Drama, Historical, Josei, Mature, Romance (NO TRAGEDY!!!)
An Empress Consort never loved the Emperor by whose side she stood. She was extravagant in keeping herself chaste for a lover who had abandoned her, never believing he had taken wife and concubines. She had treated the Emperor haughtily, full of disgust for this man she had never wanted, not remembering her childhood and a dear, unknown friend who had saved her from drowning. Her behavior was such that she had gone as far as to ban herself to Cold Palace (though the Emperor tried to force her out more than once), where she died.
But on the day of her death, her soul was left to float for a month on earth. It is there that she saw the Emperor rushing to her dead body in the Cold Palace, sobbing and grieving. She saw the multitude of paintings he had made of her and how he caressed them with love and affection. She also heard him promise her that he would be buried with her, though he feared she would hate him even more for doing so. She also saw that lover for which she had condemned herself to the Cold Palace, cursing her name because he had been sent to a faraway post, surrounded by a dozen concubines.
As she faded, her only wish was to make it up to this loyal husband whose heart she had broken. And thus, she is reborn back into her body when she was nothing but the Princess Consort to an Imperial Prince who would eventually become Emperor. But how to convince the man whom she had been hurting from the day he had married her that this new her was sincere in her newfound affection? While also using memories of her past life to shield him from the betrayal of others and the loss of dear friends.
This is a lighter, more active "To be a Virtuous Wife". The FL is not as prepossessed as Qingju and the ML is not as soft, yet two-faced as He Heng.
@marchmallow I think you would!!! It is cute without being ridiculous. The ML is so in love but worried that the FL is just playing him. He is so happy whenever she does something kind. But right after, he convinces himself that it has nothing to do with affection and that his wife cannot be trusted.
UNTRANSLATED SUGGESTION
Drama, Historical, Josei, Mature, Romance (NO TRAGEDY!!!)
The day after a great military achievement, a general [ML] was poisoned with a cup of wine on his wedding bed. By a woman dearer to him than his own life [FL]. Reborn once more as a low-ranked soldier, he promises himself to make that poisonous woman a witness to his greatness.
Through scheming and plots, he finds a way to marry the woman while still a nobody. However, marrying her so early in his career also makes it so that she never meets the man who had led her to commit her crime in the past. Though he resents her profoundly, the ML also rediscovers the woman he has loved so deeply in his previous life.
And this time, she walks by his side, never wavering, though in his new life he has chosen to aim higher, much higher, than in the previous. We follow the male lead as he wages war against the Hu People (again punching the "Barbarians" - when you know history a bit, you realize these poor people pulled the short straw facing the Han more often than not), devises plots and tries to climb his way to the highest of positions. It is very political.
But what was to happen if ever the FL recovered memories of the past? Would she remember why and for whom she had killed him or would she still loyally stand by him?
My favorite among the suggestions. The plot is really good. I would personally liken this story to "Emperor's Conquest" in the list above. Just that the ML and FL are likable characters. You do not feel your stomach heave at their hypocrisy, cheap, illogical excuses and general, albeit realistic, shallowness.
Drama, Historical, Josei, Mature, Romance (NO TRAGEDY)
Ok, bear with me until the end. This is a revenge story. Of a middle-aged woman who is reborn. In her own body, when she was about 1 year old. Did I just see you dry-heave?! BEAR WITH ME!!! This is not Lady Baby (I just vomited a bit in my mouth)! I promise! This is an atypical novel!
The FL is a woman who has lost her mother at a very young age. They told her her mother had committed su*cide before she even turned 20 after her father had brought a pregnant concubine back with him. The FL had been tolerated until a certain age, but under someone's pressure (NOT the concubine's!) she had been sent to spend her childhood in the countryside, with her father's birth-mother. She had had a wonderful childhood, learning to manage a farm (realistically so - the author does not expand much upon it, but this is no Fields of Gold, y'all!), sucking in healthy peasant philosophy and learning a lot from this rejected, simple servant who had been used as nothing but an incubator. At a certain age, she had been married of to the son of her mother's friend, an official who, though he fared well in official business, was not exactly the most virtuous man you could encounter. He loved beautiful women, he loved a good time, he was too idealistic at times. And she accepted him as he was, doing her best to do her duty by her in-laws.
And she did! She selected him good concubines that respected her because they saw what a just, magnanimous woman she was. She treated their children as the brothers and sisters of her own, assuring that every child in her compound have the same opportunities. She was an amazing manager, a loving daughter-in-law, a very forgiving wife. However, her working so hard to make everyone receive his/her due made her estranged from her own children, who valued their nanny more than her, her MIL was a nervous, frightened woman, the concubines followed her every step like frightened chicks, depending on her and her husband ran after more and more beautiful women. In the end, as she died, however, he cried on her body and whispered in her ear: "What will I do without you?", so though their feelings did not run deep, there still was affection between then.
And then she is reborn. She sees her beautiful, young, naive, s*upidly smitten mother. A woman who had loved her husband since childhood, who had loved him to the point of madness, for who the greatest praise she could receive was that her daughter looked like him. And as her husband brings back that pregnant concubine, who also happens to be his wife's childhood friend, the FL grabs onto her mother, tries never to leave her alone and works so hard, so hard to make her mother as strong as she had been, faced by a philanderer of a husband herself. And she does push back the hour of her mother's death. But does not succeed in the end to save her from death. What does happen is that before committing su*cide, her mother had the chance to speak to her father, to tell him just how much she loved him in a most heartbreaking speech (I cried!). And while her husband was pushing her daughter on a swing, promising himself that he would make it up to his wife and daughter, that he would never hurt them again, she hung herself in her room.
And now, the plot starts. It was never the concubine that plotted the death of the FL's mother. She just plotted to get into the house, and thus escaping marriage to a man with an intellectual disability. The FL's mother could just not bear that her beloved husband lost the halo she imagined him to have. The concubine, of which we do not see much, has her own backstory. Daughter of an official who fell to disgrace, she worked hard to keep him and her brother shod, clothed, fed. She raised her brother's children. And she wanted to be as happy as her childhood friend, so she just took advantage of her friend's husband being weak.
As the FL's mother died, the father's family decided to dirty the mother's reputation and thus muzzle her family who was shocked at everything that occurred (the FL's mother was raised by her older brother and his wife - it is so touching when the FL's aunt says that the FL's mother had been her first child). They said she went against virtue, being jealous of a concubine, and thus committed a crime. In other words, they dragged the brother of FL's mother in the mud. The poor man was so horrified, he could not take the Imperial Examination and became a magistrate in a faraway region. But he would not let his niece be wronged!
The FL's father, for his part, wants to take the whole blame upon himself, fully aware that he had been the one to cause that woman's death. His elders do not permit it and he is left traumatized, unable to look his concubine in the eye, and demanding that he be left to observe three-year mourning for his wife. He does his best to take care of his daughter, not knowing how his own daughter views him. She uncovers why in her past life, when her maternal uncle wanted to take her with him, she had made a horrible fuss, humiliating her uncle in the process (her father's elders obviously manipulated her through fear to view her uncle's family as monsters!). She obviously does not get manipulated in the present life.
In the meantime, the concubine's family was rehabilitated and her father and brother could not have their daughter/sister to be a concubine, so they tried to recuperate her. But she does not want to leave her newborn daughter behind. One of her sister-in-laws (who in the past life had actually been sympathetic to the FL) helps her throw such a fuss that she pushes her husband as well as her own family against a wall. So, since her own family wants her husband's family to send her back and since her husband's family does NOT want to send her back, her husband's family tries to put the fault of the first wife's su*cide onto her back. Her own father is considering to have her commit su*cide (it was either recuperating her, either having her commit su*cide - the irony). Now, she could be made the main wife IF the family, namely the brother, of the first wife permitted it. But, in the past life, they were adamant not to have her become the main wife and ruined themselves in the process of hindering it. In this life, FL was able to send her uncle a message to just let it go but that when she grows up, she will make sure to depose the concubine. Plot twist, though, the FL's father does not want to remarry ever again! THIS IS SUCH AN EXCITING TALE! Hardships women must bear, tools for reproduction that they are. Family politics and their cruel machinery of oppression. Clans fighting for position and using their children as pawns. And a prepossessed FL who CANNOT change history from repeating itself. What does not repeat itself are the emotions of the characters! I love it! (but honestly?! A three-year old writing her uncle a letter?!) I am obsessed!!!
@marchmallow First of all, it might put you off because it is Qidian-published (and we all LOVE Qidian - I hope it rots in hell; just read it off of an aggregator).
Second, it is as long as Matino ime (this is a funny expression from my country, don't try to understand it, even if you Google Translate it, you won't get the gist of it - for the simple reason it only makes sense if you are a cynical, ironical as*hole). As long as Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir(more than 500, less than 600 chapters).
Third, I am around chapter eighty and there is still no ML in view. We believe we know the ML. But with how realistic the story and how hellbent the FL is on not marrying again (actually, she considers remarrying her former philanderer of a husband because he is a known variable), she might make a U-turn. We know she does marry because there is a chapter called "Wedding". But there also once was a mysterious man they met going to a temple. And the guy who could potentially be ML is such a wholesome, nice, good boy. And we know the good, kind boy never gets the FL!
UNTRANSLATED SUGGESTION
Drama, Historical, Josei, Mature, Romance (No classical tragedy, per se)
This one I shall not give a description for. The only thing I will say is that it made me spit at my screen. It is a most complicated string of love stories. I was amazed at the subject (one wonders whether the author had ever read about Françoise d'Aubigné), I was amazed at how well the story was written, I was amazed at the complicated emotions. A definite 10/10 ... if you have the energy to read it. It left me enraged, disgusted and questioning my own liking of some CN romance novels. I finally understood that "To be a Virtuous Wife" was actually the tale of two narcissists who latched onto one another (surprisingly, narcissists do that a lot) and who charmed us, as narcissists generally do as well. And for all those who would say that Chinese Emperors had no capacity to be monogamous ... What was the Hongzhi Emperor, then?
@marchmallow I am warning you. It is the romance between an emperor and his minister's wife. His minister also happens to be the Empress Consort's twin brother. The Empress Consort (who started off as such a sweet, level-headed and sad woman, only looking for some affection and friendship in this world) and the Emperor were childhood sweethearts, he discarded her after four years of being monogamous because she did not give him a child, and ran after an Imperial Noble Consort. The minister was supposed to marry the Emperor's sister but the Emperor let him marry this wife of his. The love story between the Emperor and his brother-in-law's wife starts as an emotional affair. And guess what happens for the Emperor to end up with his sister-in-law ...
If you have anymore untranslated suggestion, let us know. I totally loved your suggestions. Thank you!
PS: only HE with no harem (atleast in present timeline) with minimum angst.
Omg this is a GOLDMINE THANK YOU!!!