Author: 红口白牙
Year of release: 2020
# of chapters: 90+7extras
Status: Complete
Link to NU: here / I also wrote a review there :) but here I will be full of spoilers
Tags: drama, holographic game, mystery
STORYLINE: Qiu Yanzhi (QYZ) who played a holographic love game tried to attack a gong, He Zhou (HZ) who looked exactly like the adult version of a boy he once knew and was friends with. But again and again things didn't proceed as he planned, as if the game was against him and the gong realizing that QYZ lied to him multiple times and now he couldn't believe in him at all, leaving only cold "The liar like you doesn't deserve to be loved, no one will like someone like you" behind. QYZ realizing there will be nothing to catch here anymore proceeds to buy a reset card, when choosing a different character to attack and playing for a while he meets HZ again, but a different thing happens, HZ who was supposed to have his memories erased remembered the previous game process.
The story is divided into thre phases: Phase 1 - reale life/game life; Phase 2 - stuck in the game, trying to get out; Phase 3 - outside of the game.
For start I'd like to say that for a novel with obvious hints it is rather long, because the "mystery" of it does not become a mystery when the name of the villain is revealed and many things are too obvious to not being able add 2+2.
Phase 1 is a warming up part, which also accumulates some drama, it basically covers several events inside the game and QYZ inability to attack HZ, several dramatic events that involve misunderstandings etc. Also it involves the story outside of the game, slowly revealing QYX identity, who he was before he came to Qiu father, how he lived, what his brother plans against him not to give him a chance to get any inheritance etc.
Phase 2 basically covers the period when QYZ gets stuck inside the game, outside he falls into a coma and lies in the hospital, but inside the game several events happen. The first unexplained thing that is presented as fantastical is that - WHY/HOW he gets stuck inside the game - this question is never answered. More importantly how the game got to him and he managed to install it is also all phantastical mystery without a solid base. Events of the second Phase include the QYZ trying to get out but he can't, the game crashes due to his actions, but it leaves only HZ as the center of it all where he can survive, his attempt at resetting, reversing the game and trying to attack another person, which reveals the bug of HZ who has all his previous memories of the game, but also slowly other true NPCs have some sort of bug or plot derailment. It also reveals that there is someone who is behind all this and plots against the two. They try to find the identity of that person to realize it is one of NPCs who is planning to use QYZ identity to go outside of the game and become a real person.
Phase 3 is the part of events when QYZ manages to go out of the game, but finds out that not only he came out, but He Zhou as well.
Biggest spoiler of the plot, partially so obvious that it hurts: He Zhou, previously known as Qin He (changed his name when came to mother's natal house), was stuck in the game, since he had an accident (this accident was mentioned very early how an investor who tried the game before its' release had a car crash inside the game which led to him presumably dying outside of the game) and basically forgot his previous memories as a person. So the mystery follows the question what happened to him and why he got stuck, this is revealed almost at the end, but tbh if you have at least some level of IQ everything become too obvious.
THE CHARACTER OF QIU YANZHI:
Tbh it is peculiar how the author decided to reveal his character, I'd say it was done at a pretty wrong pace. The way QYZ treats everyone as NPC and a game is not wrong at first, but his lack of compassion and ruthlessness were evident. And only later slowly author started to reveal the past of QYZ to finally explain how his character was shaped and formed and redeem his coldness and explain that him being a pathological liar is a defense mechanism (especially first 3 extras help at that). Qiu Yanzhi lived his first years as Xia Yuan before his family had a big dramatic reveal, the father he knew wasn't his biological father at all, his mother lied to him, but due to some events revealed it. Thus the family separated. His mother was a selfish person who lived for herself, but didn't want to work much, so she made QYZ to steal as a kid women's clothes, cosmetics etc. She basically used him. This revelation comes quite later in the novel itself, which I find a not a good move, since QYZ's character and the impression he gives semi-solidifies in the reader's mind. Later his mother committed suiced by jumping from the roof, it was the moment when she lost value of her face and body, but she also wanted to drag QYZ with her, but halfway stopped. Basically she lived selfishly and she died selfishly. QYZ later lived alone before being picked by his biological father and lived with him from 14 to 18. He also got a half-brother, they both were born not from wives, as revealed at the end, Qiu Hongshen never took a wife, but had two sons. Half-brother plotted against QYZ to discredit him and his last plan was to send a person so they would gain QYZ's trust and at the crucial moment drug QYZ and take videos and photos, to send it to their father so he would deprive QYZ of his inheritance rights. When seeing the nature of his father even before the ending where he tore all ties with him QYZ planned to leave Qiu family completely. Basically unloving parents and constant plotting against him made QYZ the one who he is now. As he himself explains his heart is truly small and he always refused to give that small piece to anyone, that's why when He Zhou back in teenage years confessed to him he was rejected due this reason. This continued before he admitted to himself, that he actually fell in love with He Zhou, the one he thought as NPC. To me QYZ had a tough time when he finally admitted his feelings, but of course the previous lies backfired on him a lot. It was quite a good part of the drama.
IDENTITY DRAMA:
- He Zhou. His identity drama becomes evident around the Phase 2. This became the reason for HZ and QYZ to have the first real crack in newly built and good relationship, when QYZ started to truly like HZ for who he is, but HZ turned around, since QYZ mentioned that HZ looks like his childhood friend and HZ takes it as him becoming a stand-in. This drama intensifies at the time when QYZ reveals to HZ that they are inside the game and he is an NPC. At first he was truly against it, but later he couldn't help his love for QYZ, so he decided to occupy the nest, as he thought. But this drama continued to a new stage in Phase 3 where He Zhou came out of the game and met the real body, which started a new wave of identity crisis, before he got all his memories back and realized that he is Qin He, he just forgot all his past when the accident inside the game happened and he was deprived of his player status and followed the NPC route before QYZ arrived.
- Ye Hongyuan. Who is the main villain of this novel and who occupied He Zhou's player identity and wanted to go out when he accidentally saw the emergency exit of the game and got the manual controller the player is given, then he realized that all his memories and events are fake, so he strived to get out of the game and become a real person. Which he failed in the end of course and his data was fully erased. His motivation was described really late and it didn't add anything, he acted viciously and was ruthless, the only thing that kept being true is that his settings inside the game predispositioned his actions of just being a vicious persona. The way author put some sappy stuff at the ending was really like a late attent at splashing the water. Tbh I'd appreciate if the author might have touched on the topic would it be a real life if he occupied someone else's body.
PLOTHOLES and UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:
- BIGGEST PLOTHOLE of entire novel comes at the end and it is - WHERE DID THE THIRD BODY COME FROM? I have no idea why no one points at it and doesn't shout - look! To describe why it is a plotthole to me let's take a look at actions and consequences: He Zhou enters the game, he has an accident, YHY sees the emergency exit, gets a manual controller, steals HZ's player identity and wants to get out. Why the emergency exit appeared again and how they got out and who became who from the three. Inside the game HZ falls to his death, QYZ kills YHY, QYZ takes HZ's mottled body and reaches the emergency exit. Then, QYZ wakes up inside the ward, He Zhou comes out as a bunch of data (since I assume QYZ took out his body through emergency exit with him) and YHY occupies real body of He Zhou (since he has stolen HZ's player identity and the game due to him being shot sent him out of the game). To distinguish between real and fake HZ, real is called He Zhou by the author, while fake is called Qin He. NEXT. He Zhou knows he is a bunch of data, since when he turned on the holographic cabin his hand when getting closer to it started to disappear. During the fight between QYZ and Qin He, QYZ manages to hit QH's head with a vase, knicking him out. But the one who woke up was not the fake QH but real HZ. His data body disappered from the apartment and in an instant occupied this flesh and blood. Why I say flesh and blood since it's the body that still had sequale from being in a coma and also it didn't disappear when it touched the holographic cabin. Then this happens - He Zhou was sitting inside his car and a news popped out about a person who caused a car crash 11 years ago, that led to three people dying (HZ's parents) and this driver escaped, this triggers his memories to flush inside his head and HZ finally remembers that he is Qin He, he was the one who entered the game, had accident, got his identity stolen, had to live as NPC, but he was the real Qin He. He didn't know how he got out of the car and suddenly he was hit to his death. The one who hit him had the same face as him, it was YHY who they thought disappeared or was inside HZ's current body in a dormant state. BUT! He Zhou's body that was hit disappears and it is seen that it is a bunch of data. He Zhou's consciousness appears inside the body of YHY not being able to control it, before he takes full control of it. And here is the question, why the previous flesh and blood became data again and where this third body came from. Like no answer that would explain it at all. JUST DEAL WITH IT. That's why the ending tbh was pretty much wasted for me, since this detail couldn't get out of my head.
- Unanswered questions that were put under the mystery graph include: How QYZ managed to download the game, since it wasn't full. How this game even was sent to him who manipulated it. Why QYZ got stuck inside the game in the first place, was it auxiliary robot?
In general it was an interesting plot idea, but the execution at times suffere a lot and the unexplained plothole too made the ending quite smudged.
RATE: 4/5.
No comments:
Post a Comment