[Chinese BL novel] Best male partner is reborn* / 宠文里的极品男配重生了

Title: Best male partner is reborn* / 宠文里的极品男配重生了

Author: 兔月关

Year of realease: 2021

# of chapters: 124

Status: Complete

Tags: rebirth, book wearer, revenge scumbags, science and technology field

*all names/titles are an MTL version, never official translation

Synopsis: Fang Ziyang died once. When he woke up he realized that he got back to ten years ago at the moment when he was set up in a bullying accident that was blown up online. But he also saw a book that told him about a book wearer, Yan Tong, who crossed and was actually a passer-by who decided to become a protagonist of this world, for a reason that although Fang Ziyang is dazzling, but he doesn't treat well his male partners. In last life Yan Tong set Fang Ziyang up, stole their family's heirloom that set him off on a road to success, while everyone started to hate Fang Ziyang more and more, and his life became miserable. But now when he's returned he decided to pay back tenfold to all who made him suffer for nothing.

I'll be honest, I didn't like it. I didn't like the style how it was written, it turned out dragged, watery, its' pacing is really weird and many things described in the world are really inbalanced tbh. Characters are just horrible and some plots are too braindead and just follow the path of coincidence. There were several places where 'what is said is not what was done' inconsistencies. I got tired of it through it so I just skimmed through till the end and it wasn't anything that was bad, since the story was too obvious from the beginning how it will end.

If you positively remember 学神在手，天下我有, then you know I've finished entire spoiler thread on NU dedicated to this novel. Which basically revolves around technology, but! because it is consistent to what is described, even if part of it is too superficial, but it's still consistent with the world building of the novel and arcs itself. When it comes to this novel the world-building is actually absent to a point where you don't know at which point the humanity is. More is that some 'inventions' that are talked about are too beyond the level of current technology and it jumps around here and there from simple to interstellar level. Same goes for characters themselves.

Anyway here's the story in short.

Ziyang's demise started from a bullying video, he as a 18 yo was despised by entire nation since the situation was blown out of proportion, he missed entrance examination and later was self-studied in computer technology. His life was miserable because the book wearer, Yan Tong, set him up too many times, ruining his reputation etc. People around Ziyang often betrayed him for green tea Yan Tong, so his situation was getting worse and worse. To me the preset was too overdramatized just for the sake of drama. And also all the high IQ people who are supposed to be smart can't see through Yan Tong's green tea-ness, while he always obvious makes people feel guilty or want to protect him, which was the braindead part. Like people don't act like the way it was described. Sometimes I felt that I read about 13 year olds, instead of mature grown-up men, which was simply weird.

Since Ziyang was reborn he set on the path of revenge since his past life was too miserable, most hurtful was to lose a child of his and an unknown man (one of the set ups of YT). So he debunked the bullying video and set the biggest trap where he took most of information from the heirloom necklace (which is a space type of thing) and left some 'presents' for YT, he actually left the necklace so it will get to YT for a reason, so YT (who is not that smart and only knows entertainment) will sell those things to his patrons and "affectionate male partners" around him to get money and standing and protection. So this wasn't a bad set up, since Ziyang did something to that info he passed. Here author did one flaw, described how the necklace was absorbed into Ziyang's body but then described how it got into YT's hands, so.. Anyway. 

Second aim of Ziyang except revenge was to find a man with whom he had a one-night stand in previous life and got pregnant, his feeling of security was based only on a left ring and a phone number and he thought this person was responsible, but Ziyang left in frenzy only taking the ring, so he had no idea he slept with the ML in previous life and got his child. This part was put up weird since responsible ppl will stay or control the person's safety or smth instead of leaving only phone. Ziyang himself didn't remember the person and in this life left the search to ML. ML instantly thought it was him, though author describes there's 12 rings like that, why you think it's you instantly... Too many questions. Also ML sometimes and MC's brother acted like kids honestly, no steadiness of age, sometimes acted immature. I understand it was to set up ML as a person who is quite clean about himsef and his feelings, but at one side you desribe him as an experienced person in the mall and next he blushes at provocations...what. ML didn't reveal it was his ring at first and basically they came together pretty late in the novel (after 70+ chapters I think). But honestly I could believe in MC's motivation for love, more for having a child, but in execution he thought about the man in previous life and to him that man and ML were two different people, but he actually started to have feelings for ML, so basically emotionally betraying his first conviction. So I treat it as a mess.

But knowing the plot of YT's novel (not his original novel) he could set on this path and set traps for everyone who betrayed him. Here I again remember the other novel where MC said you don't enter the shit pit if you see one, but here MC voulteerly enters and creats those shit pits, like why would you do it, you can just crush everyone, be protected by a state as a prominent scientist and smash everyone anyway. Sometimes he is described as a super intelligent with high IQ, but sometimes this feeling is lost, anyway it's messy. Like he knows people who approached him with ideas, but it isn't about IQ but EQ that allowed him to see through tactics of other people who played against him. Whatever. Through hands of YT he brought disaster to the Fang family, which is also described as braindead and villanous to extreme. As father switched child of his lover with the firstborn of his official wife, later wife gave birth to the second son, Ziyang and soon died. Father brought Ziyang as a waste son, while the illegitimate was brought as an heir. But here's the question, do you think highly intelligent people will grow up with bad marks etc? So first the Fang has went down (unsurprisingly both got into prison for different reasons). But YT as one who instigated but never took part left clean for another person, Ziyang's ex. YT is always described as best at reading males, so basically he used it to his own advantage, but honestly the tactics were immature to me and people who were brought up as heirs shouldn't be at this level of naive believing. But they did. ML comes from the same family as MC's ex. Actually the premise that ML was like a broom star and fiance killer was already used before, so I felt this idea was weird, since I've seen it used before. But it wasn't developed. Revenge for his ex was simpler, he left two of them together, but helped ML to walk out of his family... This was also a loophole to me. First MC stated that he will help ML get out in 3 months, later actually author never followed the timeline clearly. ML actually left his family of troublemakers, but actually he already gained a foothold in the industry even before MC helped him with two big projects and judging by surprised ML left to his family, he planned such things from the beginning, so.. where does the help come from? 

One of the villains was MC's uncle who came back just to use his nephew for money, of course MC wouldn't allow that and brought him another type of "fame". Shoved him good looking projects that were bound to fail in the end. YT also who was always wanting to join entertainment with a backing befriended this uncle and used him to get into a draft (though really this part was kinda skipped). But YT not only got together, but really together-together, making his current fiance (MC's ex) wear the greenest hat ever. later YT was sold as a plaything, where he met another person, biggest villain from the last life, this part was also really weird to me, like why would you do these things through such events like competitions and stuff like that. Like the villain wanted the Chinese team to lose, but what's the glory of winning when they would have lost anyway since they brought faulty technology brought by YT anyway. They could have just waited. It was just so weird. And boring. And like this just after the competition between countries the novel simply ends with the trial of this big villain family for illegally imprisoning and coercing a hell lot of scientists etc. And that's it. Rebirth - school/examination - university - competition/training - falling in love -  competition - end. Heh.

Emotional line was also build weirdly to me. Like ML found out about the ring, since MC asked to search for the owner and found that MC loved that person (actually not, he just wanted a child, like what.., child was his only emotional support and deepest guilt). He didn't want to react at first, but was flustered, sometimes ML is described as a kid in love which is weird. But he instantly cared for MC, like there was no reason for that actually, except he and MC's biological brother had a deep friendship through years. It was more understandable for MC, since ML and the man in his last life were the same person. The proof to that was described much later. Sometimes I felt why ppl believe things right away tbh. But only knowing that ML in last life revenged him was the proof that he was the man from that one night. Not simply - oh he also has the ring. ML never even checked if someone expensive also had it too, he just instantly assumed it was him. And when they did clear their relationship it instantly moved to the second lane as it was before. I sometimes feel sorry for ML that he was in the background. I didn't feel that romatic about these two. And didn't feel the let's go hand in hand to the pinacle of life and be a strong couple. Main thing about two was that MC had really deep hatred that came with him from last life, understandable, but tbh it felt like he never came out of that hatered even when falling in love with ML. I could understand why he wanted to destroy all the people from last life, but still it could have been done in more a chic way. The thing is MC never was described as acieving sublimation by achieving his goal. The ending was too abrupt.

Why am I writing so much about it, I should just stop.

RATE: 1/5. I don't even care, I found it a waste of time, it was too obvious, there were no surprises, too many inconsistencies, I don't like how the world was empty, the novelty was non-existent, plot was too obvious, also dragged to extreme, had too many cliches, sometimes didn'y pick up settings and things didn't go anywhere. And the ending was abrupt. Relationship lacked too much. Nah.

[Chinese BL novel] After retiring, I became a real rich man / 退圈后我成了豪门真少爷[娱乐圈]

Title: After retiring, I became a real rich man / 退圈后我成了豪门真少爷[娱乐圈]

Author: 风短短

Year of realease: 2021

# of chapters: 104 (+10)

Status: Complete

Tags: entertaintment, knowing the plot, book wearer, conspiracy

Synopsis: Lu Wenxing saw in his dream that he was actually part of a book plot in which he is just a cannon fodder that is destined to have his life broken and the protagonist of this book is supposed to be a young master of the Wen family, Wen Yu, with whom they're part of the same entertainment company. Knowing the book content Lu Wenxing thought of staying away from the protag. But reality is, Lu Wenxing is the real young master of the Wen family that was kidnapped and lost at a young age. And it is his story on his way back home to find his biological parents he's been searching for all these years.

I pretty much liked the take on this one. Although it's not new, but it's pretty nice how author wrapped it up. Main idea (spoiler) is that at first Wenxing thought it was a book where he is a cannon fodder, later realized that he might have considered someone's written novel as a reality, later realized that someone wrote the story that mirrored his life as if knowing his exprerience and later finding out that even if it's a book, but the original story was interferred and messed up by the other person and they're not a protagonist, so he should not think of protagonist halo or world consciousness at all, they don't exist as he thought and was concerned about at first.

Wenxing doesn't remember the time before he was five, he was found at the river and the only thing he remembered was that his nickname was Xingxing. The good couple brought him in, but never concealed that Wenxing is not their own, they tried to find Wenxing's parents throughout entire time. While treating Wenxing as their own. Thus Wenxing grew up healthily. He went to university to become a designer, but in first year joined entertainment, since his dream was to become an actor. Wenxing is an all-rounder, because he can sing, dance and is talented in acting, but sits cold on a bench for a simple reason. Wen Yu, supposed young master of Wen family signed their agency and because the agent knew his origins she tried hard to please the master and gave all good resources to him, while others were doing odd jobs.

After a conflict with a casting director who wanted to bed him under agent's urge, Wenxing had a fever and was convinced that he's a cannon fodder and decided to quit entertainment, because the future of his life was tragic in the book, not only that, his entire family had a bad ending.

A chance stopped him from doing it. His encounter with movie emperor Gu Yanshen (ML) stopped him from quitting completely and slowly feel that the plot is not how it is supposed to be. Mostly he wanted to quit because he didn't want to implicate his family, but words said by Yanshen inspired him to go on and see how things will develop. Thanks to the show they did together and his small role in Yanshen's movie Wenxing gained some popularity and at the important point of his uprising he decided to go for a 1 year exchange student program, since he deemed his studies as important.

Before leaving he had one faithful encounter that resolved the mystery of his biological parents, he met his biological mother who recognized him at a glance, but didn't want to jump conclusions, since she had no idea if Wenxing knew if he was adopted etc., she was really careful before she made sure that Wenxing is their son they lost, but her intuition as a mother was 100% from the first glance.

Facts proved that they finally found their son who they searched all this time and never gave up finding. Wenxing too wanted to find his biological parents, if possible. The family reunited again and though they did, it's more like both families merged, since Wen family is an upright family and is grateful for Wenxing's good upbringing and Wenxing treated his adoptive parents and brother really well.

But it also left a bunch of questions to solve on how Wenxing was kidnapped and how he happened in another city and who is behind the kidnapping. A good thing about this novel is that people are not stupid or oblivious to be absolutely without braincells, especially Wenxing's biological brother - Wen Zheng. He always suspected Wen Yu to be not right and never dropped his vigillance against the other party. Same goes for the rest of the family, they didn't substitute their lost son with the boy the decided to help to bring up, since he was supposedly the victim. He just had missing links to connect all dots and have the entire picture. The starting point to unwind was thanks to the couple that came to Wenxing's house to pretend to be Wenxing's parents. They happened to be ex-workers of the orphanage Wen family donated to and where Wen Yu comes from and where the attempted kidnapping happened.

Find it a good pace where Wenxing's life was intermitten with the search of things and it wasn't anything like - give me a report in 30 minutes - and things get miraculously solved in seconds. Nope. Investigation and solving the truth took time. Wenxing also was convinced that things are not that simple, especially when he remembered that the dream he had, had something to do with a novel that his roommate told him when he was feverish. Later Wenxing found the novel and found the author and found the person behind the novel. And found out about the story behind the novel.

As it happens originally the story is a love sweet pet novel and has no dog blood drama in it, but the author's "friend" who inspired him to write it told him to add details, thus creating a really tragic path of a boy, the thing that attracted Wengxi was the similarity in what happened to him in real life and what happened in the novel mirrored his life experience. As if one who told it, knew the story beforehand. But surprisingly the author never finished writing the novel, it was more like a flushed ending. The one who inspired and told the story was no one else but Wen Yu. he happened to be a book wearer, he crossed to a body of a young boy, illegitimate child of dean of the orphanage and one of the staff members. The orphanage dealt with trafficking and Wen Yu proposed a plan, they will fake the kidnapping of Wen Yu (as if kidnappers mistakenly took Wen Yu instead of Wenxing), so the Wen family will feel bad for him and will take him home and later the young master of Wen family thanks to his help will be kidnapped for real. The plan was to scare Wenxing completely when he was a child, so he would be dependent on Wen Yu and it will pave his way, but in the process Wenxing was heavily wounded and they decided to get rid off him. But Wen Yu mislcalculated, although Wen family did take him home, but with only thought of raising the kid and later let him go and be independent, so occupying the nest never happened, but Wen Yu used his status to the fullest, he happened to be vain and never cared about original novel, he wasn't even into men. But he did try to obstruct Wenxing from finding his way home, even his way to the same city as Wen family. Although initially successful, but after uncovering the truth and supporting evidence his face was torn. And the ending he planned for Wenxing fell on his head instead.

Here is the part I find interesting, due to Wen Yu knowing the original course of the novel he interfered early on, separating Wen family and Wenxing, later when he found Wenxing again he tried to either send people (like fake parents) or obstructed him from entering the city (bought a guy to steal Wenxing's entry works) and even suppressing him in the company or his hot searches whenever they appeared. Tried to undermine his reputation etc. All the initial stages were done smartly because he knew the plot, but when the plot went out of control for him he did not know what to do, because he wasn't that smart himself and failed to achieve anything he wanted, instead he showed most of his flaws. He also stupidly revealed his face at one point, which I found really funny. You know those scenes when a desperado meets his end and will be like - I'll take you down if I have to go to jail (I mean, he was part of orphanage scheme that trafficked kids), but first of all his voice and plan were transmitted during live broadcast, since he was stupid enough to take Wenxing during live broadcast when other's mic was on. Secondly Wenxing is not a soft persimmon to mess with, he can fight and fights well, so Wen Yu was overpowered in a second.

So there was no sending to jail in seconds, he went through trial for his crimes with enough evidence in Wens hands. This basically resolved the family storyline that went throughout the novel.

The love storyline is although a bit slower, but actually falls into category of original pet novel. Yanshen due to his own character was although not as slow to realize his feelings later on, but was slow to confess. Wenxing in their relationship is much bolder and likes straightforward things like love if you love and confess if you love. Their relationship is really nice and sweet. Wenxing starts from the setting of liking boys, Yanshen just never liked people and Wenxing is his first love(r). They basically walk hand in hand from confession after that and many routines that are obundant in danmei are not present here. So their relationship is really good.

RATE: 4,5/5. A bit lower for a bit braindead villain and the bleakness of his presence in the story. But the story is well-paced, interesting and easy enough, it doesn't go around in stupid directions, everything is nice and sweet with a little bit of everything.

[Chinese BL novel] When the vicious man wears the wrong plot / 当恶毒男配穿错剧情后

Title: When the vicious man wears the wrong plot / 当恶毒男配穿错剧情后

Author: 惗肆

Year of release: 2020

# of chapters: 125 (+4)

Status: Complete

Tags: wearing a plot, wrongly held masters, conspiracy, ABO

Synopsis: Li Qing wore a plot, in which he is supposed to be a cannon fodder, the protagonist of this world is Li Zexi who appears on LQ's 23rd b-day and from this point the tragic downfall of the previous wrongly held young master of the Li family started, his tragic end was in a fire, which actually was man-made. Li Qing who wore it 6 months before the events was accumulating reputation and personal assets and on the day he decided to leave he was stopped by 4 people, all Alpha and all claimed to know Li Qing in the past, one of them is his nominal brother, brought up man by the Li family.

I created a spoiler thread on NU, so I'm here to share a short review on several things.

I personally liked the Moebius strip type of plot with the reverse and loop. I think this is the best appeal of it, while not even the summary on jjwxc shared at least a glimpse of it. It all sounds really cliche and not really outstading, if I haven't finished reading I would have found out what a twist it brought.

Shortly about the plot.

LQ wears prior to events, so he had time to deal with lots of stuff, but parents found he wanted to leave and their affection made him stay. LZ happened to be a fake green tea and also had really hardcore hostility towards LQ right away, he wanted to deal with him time and time again. But not only LQ escaped and was clean, but also found that Alphas that according to the plot supposed to be swoon by the protagonist were all disgusted with LZ time and time again.

During this time he found from 3 Alphas that they were close friends before, but LQ couldn't remember it, this was not in original host's memory, also plot never mentioned it, but although he was catious about them, he still listened to them and still was to help if he saw he was needed.

But the time nodes that supposed to happen still happened, it's just the conclusion to those was different. That's why the fateful fire still came and our ML, Li Huaishen (the nominal brother) came to save LQ. During this time many things happened and their love bloomed. They're nto blood-related btw. Though they both have same Li, but it's different Li. Li belongs to a Li consortium that is based even in different country, he was abandoned as a child due to his parents drama, so he was brought up by Li parents, and Madam Li is his mother's friend.

But this is where things starts to get interesting. 

The world reversed, he turned to 3 years before events. LQ was only 20, no one, inluding Huaishen knew him well. So he chased after Huaishen, since he sincerely loved the man.

But what is funny that LQ encountered things and events he heard from 3 Alphas in his previous world and he used that info to solve currentproblems, which created a cool loop.

He also found out that LZ not only the fake that was sent, but he started to search for LZ's info and who was behind it. Which happened to be a brother of LQ's adoptive father (LQ's uncle). Who conspired to get LQ out and occupy the Li family with his illegitimate son.

The things that changed was that LQ got into an accident and he was pulled out from the body and host returned to original host, which changed the story trajectory for the worst and everything happened like in the plot described. The only person who never fell for LZ was Huaishen, he was still waiting for LQ to return.

Things progressed to the same scene of fire, at this time his system announced worlds to be integrated, LQ was sent back and in the fire he called Huaishen asking him to wait for him, same phrase that Huaishen said to him in their first fire.

All time nods were connected and LQ was sent to continue the first world. After the fire he and Huaishen were sent to hospital. The ending was of course predictable, bad guys caught and prosecuted. And Li Qing with Huaishen had their own happy ending.

Borrowing author's words, the first world is where LQ is the protagonist and the second is where LZ is. LQ came through both worlds to uncover the truth that in the first world he did all those things and he actually experienced them in the second world, which created a loop, but the car accident which left LQ with memory loss is a turning point. LQ travelled both worlds to uncover the truth and found the love between him and Huaishen.

I omit a ton of sub-characters and sub-plots. This also has enough face-slapping and though they're cliche, but it's still a fun read that is quite enjoyable. At least I spent several sleepless nights because of it ahahaha.

RATE: 5/5