[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.