I never thought I would ever come back to this novel and read it again, but I did, and this time I felt it even deeper. I wanted to feel it so deep that there were no other tears left besides those caused by its powerful beauty. ... more>>

I see this novel as a story about how the ordinary meets the extraordinary. Most people are profoundly impressed by the ML, Kei Kitogawa, by how extraordinary he is how he lives and how he loves even after he dies and, maybe, is reincarnated, close to his beloved Takeshi once again, just as he wanted. After all, every wish of his was granted by the author.

I identify myself with the ordinary in this novel, with the MC, Takeshi Douno, because I understand his feelings at each twist and turn of his journey and what he is going through. Everything that he believed in, every principle he built his life upon, is uprooted by life. He was a normal and ordinary man destined to live an extraordinary ordinary life and it is not over my any means in this novel, since he is in his fifties by the end of the narrative, not even retired, still to work for another 15years, and people in Japan live very long and healthy lives.

I believe that what happened to Takeshi happens to all of us, sooner or later, no matter how much we strive to be good, or at least normal, average, and play by the rules, life keeps showing us that either there are no rules or they are not what we believed in.

I am not writing a review here, I am too emotionally shaken for that, I just finished reading this novel for the second time and reread the last portion of the last chapter several times to spend a little more time with Kei, even if it's just his body, his beautiful corpse, and with little Keito, his possible reincarnation, his second chance for a beautiful childhood and beautiful times with Takeshi since birth. All I am trying to do is to stay a little longer with this story and say how much I love Kei and how much I understand Takeshi, who is so ordinary that only Kei knew how to love him so intensely, with his every breath, only Kei knew how to set him free and experience the extraordinary every day, with h i s every breath. <<less

Unimaginable cruelty. It started sort of fresh: a public relations executive from modern China transmigrated into the past to become an imperial concubine who decides to treat the emperor as her male prostitute and sperm bank, just for the pleasures of s*x and to have a child - a crown prince, of course, no love is possible and she must not love, stay cold hearted and cool headed, if she wants to survive and let her child live. Being a concubine is just a job after all and you are not required to fall in love with your employer and boss, but faking love is in concubine's job description. And he, being a Chinese emperor,... more>> won't be capable of love ever either.

The problem is it's not just any job, it's an imperial harem in China. Extreme cruelty on the part of the author I would say. Simply impossible to read and feel immersed into such an abnormal world of women and eunuchs, suffocating concentrations of estrogen, zero testosterone and zero love. There is no love of any kind, not love of people or love of her job as a concubine, or love of nature, or love of God, nothing. Cruel machinations and nothing else. 

I must applaud the author for her writing skill, for her to be able to paint such a picture with her pen and ink. I just don't understand why she decided to write like that and about that. The explanation that she gives us is that such was our FL's punishment for her wrongdoings in this life in modern China where she diligently served the interests of an evil corporation who was manufacturing bad milk products. Such punishment, such curse as "for your crimes may you be reborn as an imperial concubine" doesn't work as a punishment, since she is becomes a very successful very young concubine using her mature modern PR skills and knowledge of imperial harem environment and politics due to watching dozensof tv court dramas. The only punishment in that is that there is no possibility of love or normal human relationships in this second lifetime, until her next reincarnation, I guess. If that was the purpose of writing this piece, then I understand it. Then it is no different from the novels that describe life in maximum security women's prison among mu*derous sociopaths where all you can do is to strive to survive until your term is over. <<less

I read it because I love all work of this translator. Oh how I regret it... It hurts... Not because it's a tragedy, not at all. It's not even a drama. ... more>>

Because it's exceedingly poignant.  <<less

Josei? Romance? Not. It's pain and unbelievable abuse and torture on every single page in both realities, this one and the alternative one. Marquis de Sad is a nobody next to this modern Chinese torture specialist author. And then she killed the most beautiful, good Zhu boy in that story, the FL's best friend and deskmate, her best girlfriend's husband-to-be, giving him the most unbelievable agony and death. And his dad's grief? Oh my God, such pain... ... more>>

Who cares about one thousand chapters of dating and mating and revenge after that. There is no happy and no happy end after that character's end and visit to his grave and his grandpa's grave in that story for me. No other characters affected me as much as Zhu Baoguo's story.

The FL strikes me as wise, maybe skillful, caring, but not as fresh and pure or good as that boy and his grandfather and dad. There is no grace in her. Only Midas touch with its dubious value since it completely pe*verted the development of personalities and events in her family. She was the force that corrupted them, it takes two to tango indeed. <<less

This novel made m e feel the FL's heartbreak like I never felt it before. She needed it to mature and get ready to love not as a girl but as a woman, to love a person, not an idea of a person, but why did I have to feel it?  ... more>>

Unbelievable twists and turns in that quiet story about nothing, just a daily life in a merchant's household, him and his newlywed wife from a remote village, and so painful, my God... <<less