Exquisite and brilliant, albeit excessively wordy. But then, by ch 233, as we got used to this style of storytelling and began to enjoy it, the translator decided to hack and chop off the wordy parts, considering them 'a filler', and the novel lost its charm and character.... more>>

This brutal act of the translator unveiled the naked body of this story which is essentially about nothing, just a slice of life, the flow of very ordinary events of an ordinary life of an uneducated single mother who works as a waitress in a coffee shop, who has to juggle between work, two small kids, home life, having fun, trying to improve her income and status to become a music teacher, and having a sexy lover whom she absolutely cannot marry if she and her son want to stay alive and out of jail.

But even so it was still somewhat readable after that. Unfortunately, in ch 269 the translator dealt it the fatal blow by calling the MC, in the morning, after their first night together in a new home, "an evil concubine". Out of nowhere. WFT!!! This was so disgusting to read, I just can't stand it. Neither the man is an old style Chinese male who marries one woman and beds several dozen others, nor this woman, our MC, is his s*ave, the s*xual object, and a breeding mare. Disgusting. And evil? Why? What did she do but take a great care of his son and have great s*x with him?

 I stopped reading after that, even though this "evil concubine" was not in the raws, it was purely the translator's characterization of the MC. The author merely called her "Yang Guifei" in that sentence, a real person in Chinese history, meaning "the beloved spouse of a Chinese monarch" (whom he, eventually, nevertheless ordered to be strangled to death, i.e. the MC is doomed if she marries the ML) and "one of the four beauties of ancient China" which is true. She IS a beautiful 20 years old girl and a beautiful person. Young, honest, hardworking, kind, fun loving girl.  <<less

The current translation is up to ch.49 out of 110 and I have no desire to know what's next. It is hard to pinpoint what's wrong with that novel, because it is certainly well written and well translated and I read all 49 translated chapters and the MC and the ML are great and the storyline is OK: meeting, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. It is all about family in this book. Well, the name of the book says it all. It is about marrying a man with a(n adopted) child and becoming a mother to his children.... more>>

But it is also about status. I do not care about status at all, I mostly read because the story is well written, to enjoy the storytelling, so that any topic would become interesting, including status, "face"/pride, money, beauty, whatnot, and this one fails to depict the society and families where struggle for status is the most important concern of the day compellingly.  <<less

Disappointment of the century. Very poorly written. Athough it has many elements of a great fairy tale story with attractive and kind characters who learn... more>> and improve as they go and everyone gets what they deserve, for which many readers give it 5/5*, this novel was unlucky to have such a s*upid author with poor taste and an excruciatingly boring style of writing. I feel so cheated, I wasted my time on that. <<less

Very crudely written, dark, full of nasty things, such as the heroes enjoying making people eat literal shit, the poop man, the poop!, throw on and drink urine (and these are the country's intellectual elite, the most elite university in China's students!!!) and r*pe, mutilate, destroy reproductive capacity, a noble billionaire fiance breaking wine bottles on his future mother-in-law's head, etc. And an unbelievable level of fat shaming or despising someone for their acne or tanned skn to boot. Even a little bit of tan, even in men who work outdoors, in soldiers!!!, is viewed as something shameful, like a skin defect! Oh wow... I do not know whether adding cheating as a favorite plot... more>> moving device is worth mentioning after all that. 

Still, this novel has its loyal readers, admirers and willing translators that translate its thousand chapters. Viva variety! Writers and translators cater to all tastes! I know that Chinese people invented the most advanced forms of cruelty and torture and c-novels tend to describe the most abnormal families and relationships in school, but this one feels more like kids stuff,  the cheapest lakorn (Thai soap opera) or a Mexican telenovela about two twin sisters and their destinies: husbands, kids, life and death while still young. 

Because all events in this story are based on the FL knowing the future at least ten years ahead and having already developed all her supernatural abilities in her previous life, there is no sense of achievement and no development. It is not interesting. It's like taking the same test twice. She restores justice and her own health but the whole thing is one giant cheat, because she lives exactly the same life twice. There is no effort and no thrill. No falling in love and no humor. The FL has all the answers and all necessary abilities, unlike in real life where we face the absolute unknown ahead of us all day long which makes life and stories about life interesting. <<less

This is very similar to the novel "Very Happy", except this one is not really happy, or interesting although it tried to start the story with a bang to hook our attention. ... more>>

It is well written and well translated, but it is very average. I tried reading it up to Ch.17 and had to drop it. It's unpalatable. I was unable to feel sympathy for its characters and did not enjoy the flow of the story. <<less

Quite unusual and remarkably smart. And the translator, oh my God, the translator is so good. Her and this novel are match made in heaven.... more>>

The premise in here is quite unusual. Both the ml and the mc are "bad" in some way, for example, unruly, wild young men, and both are doing good things, right things just because the system prohibits one of them to freeload, to be a kept man and he had the benefit of remembering his previous life experiences. This forced goodness or obligatory kindness and system-imposed righteousmess was previously explored in another novel about two "bad" men getting together: Banished to Another World.

The novel is composed of several stories or arks, but their protagonists are not the same couple, although the dynamic is the same and the money grubber is always a transmigree pr a refurnee who is forced by the system to rely on his own means to make money by working or swindling which in this novel is still considered to be some kind of honest work, instead of relying on his wealthy hubby, being his kept man.

 The first ark was terrific, the second - boring and otherwise unpleasant AF, I could not even finish it and did not want to know how it would end (the end of the second arc is exceedingly beautiful, of course, heart grippingly beautiful and poignant, and good). It was all about prostit**es and a whorehouse, this, mixed with another topic which I find hard to enjoy - the emperor, his concubine and imperial family, and affairs of his empire, made it unpalatable. Reading it felt like Chinese torture, tbh. 

It got only worse from that point on. The third story, about two actors, was boring. The fourth one, about the ghost and the fortune teller, way too gory. The fifth - so heart breaking that I hated the author for the pain I was feeling.

There is no continuity in the storytelling, I am not even sure if it's the same system that dominates and electrocutes one of the two men in a couple each time. So it feels like someone wrote a great first story and then drags you to read seven more unrelated stories on the same topic of the virtue of loving someone wholeheartedly and not asking for anything in return. Or else you will be punished by the system.

 Unfortunately, the stories after the first one are just not interesting. They are masterfully written and wonderfully translated, and they are even memorable, the author does write well after all, but they lack the beauty that the first story had. It's like the breath of life is gone out of them and all that is left are the rows of words on the page that try to manipulate you to feel something. <<less

It starts great. Funny, cute, endearing and interesting. Somewhere between ch20-30 it degenerated into some version of Pride and Prejudice. Excruciatingly boring and shallow. Young men and a few women of high society which does not feel like modern China at all.... more>>

 I especially disliked the plot twist of early rebirth of the ML. As if his gloominess, unearthly beauty, sky high IQ and unparalleled ruthlessness were not enough, now we have to put up with his hatred and suspicions of the MC all over again. And then we are invited to read his calculations between his three selves prerebirth in his first life with the original MC, prerebirth in this life with the transmigree MC, and his own current self who tries to figure out the identity of the changed MC and the strategy of either abandoning him or dealing with him somehow due to uncontrollable love he inherited from the prerebirth ML from this timeline. This is way too complicated and makes this story simply weird, not attractive. I am not looking forward to 100more chapters of that before they get together. Who cares. From hatred and indifference to love is simply not my favorite kind of a storyline, because in this novel the author spends 130 first chapters on hatred and indifference and only 20 last ones on love. Too little too late.

I just do not see anything in that story that would continue to feed my interest in it. I happen to like the MC, but he is reduced to nothing both by the system and the original plot and the ML by now. He does nothing all day and week long but eating slowly and drinking a lot and then has those meaningless high society gatherings. In thirty long chapters all he did as a man, as a professional, a creative person of immense talent, was one furtive sketch of his nemesis.  So boring.

When the MC's family forced his father's mistress to abort the baby, his unborn little brother or sister, this really did it for me. How many more disgusting, nonhuman and unnecessary things I would have to read about in the upcoming chapters of this novel about another novel? Dropped it. <<less

I am sure that there must be something wrong with me, but after four attempts to read this over the last year, I just gave up. I can't. I see this novel's high rating and I am familiar with this author's works and some are awful while others are awesome. This one is just mediocre, literally not interesting.... more>>

 Maybe I am never in a mood for this kind of story. Reading it simply irritates me because I force myself to read something that is not interesting and I begin to nitpick and seek faults and that is not fair.  <<less

Exquisite, a stunning beauty of a novel. Unfortunately, only the first two chapters were translated comme il faut by Monlit Grove. They are insanely poetic and clear, with a beautiful rhythm. Then she stopped translating.... more>>

 Chrysanthemum Garden's version, translated by Padam, is solid and good but creates a completely different impression from that novel, the heavenly essence is sort of gone and it became a mundane and wordy BL shit, with lazy interjections from the translator which further break the flow of the story, so I stopped reading. <<less

It's half decent, but not my cup of tea. I understand both the MC and the ML, but I dislike the way the MC is described in this novel initially, as a fussy princess. I would never like a fussy princess as the main character of the novel. He is at the level of the Real Princess from "The Princess and the Pea" story which also ends with the happy marriage by the way. He learns day by day, but his behavior, thoughts and reactions are so fussy, it's off putting. I simply find his petsonality artificially constructed by the author and not interesting.... more>>

This novel has too much of of the toilet matters, and poop scraping matters, and an*s inflamed from not being properly cleaned after defecation  matters, and someone's flaccid d*ck being too big and meaty matters discussed. I find it hard to read about and enjoy tbh.

Basically, I find this author's choices of what to write about, what she considers to be interesting, distasteful and weird. Of course, in life and literature there are no forbidden topics, and anything and everything can be the source of delightful drama or humour, it's just how they talk about ot and how much matters.  <<less

It's excellent and deserves all the hype. I started losing interest by ch70, because the MC has no one to talk to, i.e. he trusts no one, and only talks to himself, not even to his critters, his spiritual insects, the Gu. And when he talks to people, it is almost always some deep scheme, and several layers of meaning, except maybe when he orders some food to eat. I doubt I will be able to endure two thousand five hundred chapters more of that. He is too lonely and people are only the source of danger to him, again, except the owner of the tavern, the cook, the waiter.... more>>

Another thing that makes me lose interest is the disrespect towards normal people, villagers, mere mortals in this novel. Cultivators treat them as s*aves, as garbage. Worse than animals I suppose, or as animals. No, worse than animals.  There is so much killing and mutilation in nearly every chapter, of people, of boars, it becomes a rule, instead of exception. The writer of this novel is very capable and more than a little insane. He created a world similar to that of the Game of Thrones. Or maybe that is a Chinese thing, I see a lot of that "status rules" thing in C-novels.

This novel is about the price we pay when we grow to our full potential. It costs a lot to us and to those around us. It takes a lot of lives, a lot of sacrifices. A lot of rules and regulations, a lot of wisdom as well.

One thing I appreciate about this novel is the Gu. They are thoroughly explored. A very interesting concept of them being the embodiment of spiritual principles that underlie all of the existence. The way they are embodied is frankly disgusting though and don't make reading any easier. They look like bed bugs, worms, spiders, ugly toads, and such, the coldblooded poisonous bloodsucking parasitic creatures we mostly have unpleasant and scary experiences with in life.  <<less

Extremely pessimistic, portrays all sots of injustices which are supposed to take place for one to grow up, to become an adult in China. Not my cup of tea, really. I do not like it when authors layer despair and desillusionment that thick. She completely buried the few tender and poignant moments this story has under the mountains of garbage. ... more>>

The author also abuses epigraphs. They are huge, lengthy, varied, mostly religious, and unnessesary, at the beginning of each freaking chapter.

There is not much joy in that novel, and there is nothing novel or joyful in that love between two blood brothers when one of them is constantly concerned with being his brother's parent, servant and legal guardian due to the other one's extremely low IQ since birth (he is manually and mechanically extremely gifted though, a superb car mechanic). At the same time, the superior genius of the older brother in this couple, a brilliant boy, is completely wasted due to his life's terrible circumstances. Why the author did it, destroyed him in so many ways, I have no idea, but I disdain her for that.

Very well translated. <<less

It starts a bit... I dunno, there is a lack of flow in narration in the first few chapters, feels a bit wooden, but the FL, and her husband and friends, and even her maids are awesome people. And the author inserts quite a few bits of Chinese folk wisdom here and there. Such a pleasure to read this! ... more>>

I loved it. That is until ch 9, where the FL, Luo Lan, a married woman, declares her love to another man who had been her friend and confidant for ten whole years. She is an amnesiac,  does not know who she teally is, she is a fake princess (faking being a princess) in arranged marriage with a military man. The marriage was never consumed, bit never dissolved either. It's a tricky situation, but looking at it from outside, she indeed made her husband wear a green hat, as Chinese would say.

I immediately lost interest. I do not know if it is a Chinese thing - to not care about the sanctity of marriage, or any other contract, or of this particular writer who wrote this piece about star crossed lovers who will find peace and togetherness after their deaths. But in ten years of being married Luo Lan behaved as a wife only two or three times I think, when she had to show her face next to her husband as his wife in public places. 

So, during the first ten years of her life on this new planet in this novel, somewhere between ages 20 and 30, and who knows how old she already was when the woke up with amnesia having only scattered memories of ancient Earth ( i.e. she was somehow transported from modern China far into the future to another planet, body and all) she had been awesome but also terribly and unnecessarily selfish and then she did this ugly thing to her only friend and to her husband. Then her friend slash lover dies because of her choices all along and in her grief she becomes even more cruel and selfish, reaching zero empathy and total lack of humanity, and unleashes her ugly poisonous tongue on good people. All her years of schooling to become a good doctor and help mutants evaporated just like that, she ad hominem attacked her patients and used their diseases, their very genetic nature, as a target of choice.  This is disgusting. Evil. Not human and not humane. And she never apologizes nor amends, but rushes to operate on another mutant, illegally, selfishly, driven by God complex of her as a doctor, by her immensely evil pride. 

 I completed the translated part nearly at the end of the first book (15.3) and won't continue. By now I am so biased against the FL, I reject the whole story and the whole body of works of this author whose brain child she is. <<less

Good until ch 60, then it became excruciatingly boring, most likely due to lazy writing, because the storyline itself was interesting and good.... more>>

Around chapter 90 the author decided to characterize another Asian country, as compared to China in this novel where if your skin is not snow white and jade-like you are nobody, as "superficial at its core" and I stopped reading.  <<less

Reader beware, the author of this novel is fond of fecal humor and fart attacks.

The first half of this novel suffered from somewhat inadequate level of translation and editing and poor choices in describing how two geniuses fell in love with each other. It was not believable at all. Their romance was not romantic, there was no love in the air. ... more>>

The second half of this novel suffered from several disgusting plot twists. By ch.49-50 the story events got so ugly, so repulsive, I simply was unable to read it anymore.  <<less

The most boring ABO novel ever written. A total waste of my time. 

The first half is syrupy sweet, even unpleasantly so, really overdone, but well translated and superbly edited. Just a story of an amnesiac who forgot the last five years of her (miserable) life living now a bliss. Great family, husband, son, sister, her own career, etc. Everything is beautiful. Even I became sweet and cuddly while reading it.... more>>

 The second half is terrible, ugly, everyone and the society at large, even whole villages, is a villain doing the ugliest, the most demented things possible and the level of translation is worse than plain mtl. Simply not worthy of reading it. 

I do not know what happened to the author, why she suddenly went crazy with hating her own novel and its characters so much. She didn't just switch from sweet to bitter, from high to low, she switched to downright nasty sado-maso stuff, to shit. Two evil, profoundly egocentric characters deeply in love with each other, both with a god complex, wrathfully punishing the wrongdoers with their own hands. No sense of justice, love, or mercy whatsoever. Typical of Chinese novel fantasies stuff though - planning and executing family members r*pe and mutilation, setting up traps to destroy a career, lying, destroying reputation (face) and wealth of your relatives, self harming by hitting your own head to crush the skull, etc. 

Bad. Very bad. This author clearly has no idea about what's right and what's wrong in life and her fantasies about what we, people, deserve in life, are simply abhorrent. In disgust, I stopped reading it. <<less

I actually liked this novel and its steady narrative, its characters, both the FL and the ML and the way they behaved both as single dogs, as siblings, and as part of a couple (they got together in ch.170-171, very-very late in the story, and there is no end to the drama even after that so it does not deserve the "Romance" tag). ... more>>

What I disliked about it is that it is one giant "damsel in distress" story. It starts with one giant problem and it continues with more and more gigantic problems caused by the FL's identity, traumatic past and abnormal upbringing, and inborn nature as the story progresses. All for the ML to deal with. I dunno, I just felt that it was not fair to him to be saddled with a total stranger's problems for so long. Of course, it helps him to change as a person as well, but that is not my point. My point is that many readers, myself included, get tired of these neverending troubles and no happiness or intimacy or joy or laughter, etc. Many readers blame the FL, the victim, for being s*upid and doing s*upid things. Well, for this it's the author whom we have to blame, not the FL.

Another flaw is that the author demonizes mental illness, addiction in this case, as the ultimate evil. It's just a disease, an illness. Maybe portraying it as an evil habit, something that an ill person chooses to have, is a purely Chinese cultural thing, I do not know. The ML inherited predisposition to that illness from his father, though. In his case, it is not the drug abuse or alcoholism but insane workaholism which makes him lose humanity and makes him cruelly abuse people who are close to him.

Anyways, the story itself is well narrated and pleasant to read, to immerse yourself in that flow of words. But the plot is just a string of disasters of all kinds that happen to one young woman and one totally unrelated to her man has to drop everything and continuously shovel all that sh*t away from her. I guess he learns to care about another human being that way, and finds himself a wife, as a reward. It's a common C-novel trope, actually, that a male has to sacrifice a lot in pursuit of a precious female. "Good" females of marriageable age are scarce in China and "expensive", cost a lot to obtain, at least that is the central cultural idea in many C-novels and tv dramas.

This novel is focused on the FL and the ML's relationship, but not romantic and not love. It is more about a good Samarithan and a victim in the ditch whom he keeps finding in that same ditch and keeps saving her and paying for her stay over and over and over again. So, when she, the amnesiac, regained her memories and he confessed and she rejected him around ch 160, I tried to continue reading and it was just not interesting at all, so I stopped reading this shit. I just lost all interest in the FL and in all additional troubles that she was going to experience further on in the last 10-20% of the story. I did not want to know how else she was going to torture our poor ML with her disastrous presence in hos life. She's been nothing but bad news ever since they crossed paths. <<less

Should be renamed as The Most Boring Marriage in History. Or The Saddest Marriage in History. It's incredibly boring, meaningless and empty, no charm, no nothing. It's a super slow burn romance without any romance. Only slow burn.  They got married in ch 40, by ch 80 there is still nothing but boredom, zero feelings and zero events besides uneventful meetings with relatives, one car race and one attempt to r*pe the FL with the help of the date r*pe drug orchestrated by her paternal  grandma from which the FL escapes by stabbing herself. By ch 120 the ML kissed her twice. Again, zero feelings. Pure physiology, like in planned parenthood or something. They did... more>> it because they saw somebody else kissing in the hot pot resto. At this rate it would indeed take them another 2000 chapters to plant the seed. I skipped to the end and it's just sad, a very sad description of aging and old age in loveless marriage(s), and the FL is still not fulfilled in marriage with the control freak ML, so I am glad I skipped it.

It's a story of a modern wang who rules the Glory World (a corporation) and his wangfei (a city mayor's di daughter, an employee of the said corporation). Both were pressured by their families to find themselves a spouse and breed asap. They met on a blind date, soon after they decided to marry, because why not, a spouse is a spouse, it's just a spouse - something to have, just like a job or a car that suits your status. <<less

There is a lot of bruhaha in reviews about r*pe in this novel and things done without the FL's concent. I think the reviewers do not see that the original story's female character willingly took place of her twin sister in marriage to a man in a comatose state. Then the FL transmigrates into that body of a twin sister wife, drinks a lot to "celebrate" her sudden transmigration and is all over her hansdsome comatose instahusband in bed. The man is already not comatose, just pretends for his family business reasons, and engages in a consentual marital s*x which she loves, she is described as a sated fox at the end of it. She... more>> is specifically described as a person who has nothing against great marital s*x.

 That was their first night together and that is how their baby was conceived - in a mutually consentual marital s*x.

She has nightmares and extremely poor sleep quality and every day she works hard serving her comatose husband, bathing him, massaging him, talking to him etc. She needs rest. He cannot wake up and tell her Honey, you need some sleeping pills or else you will crash. She does not complain about her insomnia to the doctor either. So her husband talks to the doctor and the doctor prescribes sleeping pills and the butler adds them to her glass of milk before bedtime. If anything, blame the doctor who prescribes medication to the wife because the husband asks him without consulting and informing the patient (wife) directly.

Another outcry is about legit husband and wive sleeping together, cuddling. She comes closer to him in her sleep, seeking warmth, because her hands and and feet are always cold, hugs him, places her arms and legs on him, sticking her body to his body and having sweet dreams about having great s*x with her husband, and he embraces her and gives her loving kisses. Including s couple of them on her neck. Nothing else. How is that r*pe or wrong??? <<less

I read it and now I hate myself that I did. It's a well written and superbly translated story about the ugliest kind of love ever. You know, the one that grows out of abuse, betrayal and disrespect.  Basically, it's a tragedy that eventually becomes a drama of true love found late in life.... more>>

 And I hate tragedy of abusive love. I did not sign up for that. I did not. I feel physically sick from nauseating disgust after reading that piece. <<less

Well written and well translated, everyone is normal, no OPs or magical gold fingers which is a relief. In that sense, it'a good novel to enjoy. However, it is hugely imbalanced towards women of which there are dozens of characters in the first 50-60chapters alone and all of them are bickering and catfighting, engaging in endless wars of words. ... more>>

Too much estrogen, not enough testosterone. It's suffocating. Men (and women) in this novel are passive, dumb, good for nothings, and do nothing at all. There is a comedy tag which is baffling. I haven't even smiled once, let alone laughed. There is no joy and nothing amusing in this novel. 

There are two main female characters, one is reborn and another transmigrated (modern to ancient, real to fictional - the world of a novel), one wants to eradicate the transmigree's family to protect her own from extermination, another wants to recover her mother's dowry and servants and be left alone, leave peacefully, away from all this drama of who is who and whose face is better or whose d*ck is longer. Before you take all that seriously, let me remind you that one is fifteen and f*cks around everyone who's capable of half decent erection, and another one is thirteen. In that sense, it's a novel about kids, children, child brides, child r*pe and defilement of young girls, etc.

One of the reviewers was annoyed by the author's incessant reminders of just how beautiful was the ML's voice. Honestly, that is the only thing of beauty in that novel. I actually liked it, the variety of ways to describe the melody and charm of a mature and capable man's voice. <<less