[Topic] Currently reading (completed/on-going)

• 和残疾巨佬闪婚后 by 惗肆 [on-going] (no kidding, if you run this through MTL it'll translate as 'Shameless', isn't that cute?)/ After a flash marriage with a disabled business giant. This comes from the author I've been reading recently and it's my 5th novel from them. Summary: Shi Yunnan returns back home being called by his family from abroad. Once he had a weird dream where the story was about road to success of their third brother, who is an illegitimate child of their father. In that dream he and his twin brother are nothing more but cannon fodders. He doesn't know if to believe it, but first he must solve the family that wants to engage him to a dude from the Luo family, what happened next the Shi family didn't believe. The ptriarch of the Luo family came himself and actually agreed to Shi Yunnan's proposal of a flash marriage. Luo Lingshen is a notorious character, his legs suffered from the car accident which took his family, he now sits in a wheelchair after getting a strong grip on entire Luo family. No one knows that Yunnan and Lingshen share a few encounters in the past, it's just Yunnan who doesn't remember about them, but he still couldn't help his feelings that grew strong from simple agreement to deep love. It's a very well-paced story, the supposed protag is a vicious person who simply knows what will happen, but his adaptability isn't strong. Yunnan has see and act attitude towards him, since he caused many people demise in the original story, especially Lingsheng. Yunnan is a jewellery designer, so some connecting events will be present, not without face slapping routines, steady pacing, cute characters. One of few stories where family has a kid, nephew of Lingshen who is really adorable.
• 走红后豪门大佬成了我粉头 by 雁飞行 [on-going] / After becoming popular a business giant becomes my fan. Summary: Jiang Fang is contacted by his younger brother whom he hadn't seen for a long time and asked to take part in a variety show that requires to bring their relatives. Jiang Fang agrees with a clear goal in his mind - earn money for the laboratory - and sets foot on a path of a traffic star. When Jiang Fang was little he was sent to a temple, since both him and Jiang Qi had tendency to get sick a lot and their family wasn;t well off at that time. The temple was a new home for him from then on. He mostly spent time there or in school, rarely even coming back. Slowly he became an independent individual where his parents hadn't seen him, but he was an outstanding student of the best university. The only stumble on his road to research were money, he didn't quit uni, he simply agreed for the show at first with one goal, I earn, but Jiang Qi goes back to school and passes entrance exam. Jiang Fang has extraordinary temperament, a bit alienated, a bit of a black-bellied person and has some sass to it. On the other hand, Cheng Si, the head of the Cheng family witnessed his family coming back to life when their lost daugther was found recently. His eyes long lost affection, since he had to bear the heavy responsibility of their family since he was young and had no support from his parents during this time. But then the little sister suddenly wanted to spend 2 million on chasing a star and as parents they were worried that she'd be cheated, so instead of her it was Cheng Si who added Jiang Fang on WeChat and started conversation. Both had no idea that this will be a start for them to become friends from strangers, and from friends to lovers. ML is very cute, he had never loved before, so his reactions are authentic. MC never cared to love despite the attention, but found Cheng Si really lovely and cute (his reactions, ML is taller and is hella handsome). The story is also a road through entertainment as traffic star to earn money, but without losing integrity. MC is a really cool and sassy character, so he's the main star to watch out for. Both were somewhat left by their parents, Cheng pair always was concerned about their daughter (Jiang Fang had a leg to save her actually) and Jiang pair kept Jiang Fang away for too long and also stopped even mentioning him at home since Jiang Qi always fought with them over it, before he saw Jiang Fang and became a bro con.
• 和渣攻退婚后，我被豪门父母找到了 by 夕朝南歌 [on-going] / After retiring from a scum attack, I was found by my rich parents. Weirdly paced and constructed. MC is reborn and now plans to give a big surprise to his nominal fiance and his best friend who cheated behind his back. In last life he had no idea this happened and he had no idea why he was killed even, but now he can get back to them. He was also discovered through a variety show by his biological parents and now he realized why his "parents" never loved or really cared for him. Why I say it's weirdly paced, because first part is a routine revenge, MC is all scheming and more confident. He also meets his parents with whom he clicks pretty quickly, well he saw the evidence of how they loved and searched for him all these years. They also started to help him deal with the scum who actually bought MC from his adoptive parents. But then suddenly the scum dude family was discovered to be responsible for death of several ppl and they collected their severed head in a safe. Like wtf this was sudden. Also the scum had his revenge on the best friend of MC who seduced him for resources and actually abolished his legs. When it was suddeny over it was time between MC and ML, Both could be called childhood sweethearts, ML is a friend of MC's brother, he saw MC growing up before abduction, he always liked him and after reuniting continued to like him again. The whole tossing of MC was pretty fast and they enter the sweet love phase quite quickly. Also MC has a this strange change in character. There's no overall backstory, just these parts, it also feels strange due to sudden inserts of murders and stuff. And also how strange the whole MC being talented in acting is written. I dropped it.
• 我在阴阳两界反复横跳的那些年 by 半盏茗香 [completed] / Those years when I jumped repeatedly in the yin and yang worlds. EXCELLENT! Really interesting take on crossing, but also seeing ghosts. I'm still reading, so giving a general idea. Summary: Xun Lan woke up in unknown place. He became a 18th line actor who has been hacked online and comitted suicide. The thing is the original owner did die, but Xun Lan crossed into his body with a bit of a bonus. He can see ghosts and talk to them, but ghosts are a bit afraid of him due to his abundant yin energy. Once MC helped two men to escape the ghost bus, but one of the two still got into  a serious car accident. How Xun Lan knew? He saw the person's soul near his house and from then on both were close to each other, trying to figure out how to return Qi Nian's soul back to his body while he was in a coma. Xun Lan helped to convey Qi Nian's words to his agent and in return Qi Nian taught him acting skills, but also they spent time together and helped people. Firstly, Xun Lan cleared his name from the harassment accusations. And later set on the path of acting. But actually his fans saw him more on social news. Arresting traffickers, saving people from comitting suicide, saving girl from a predator, running after a robber. There was no end to it making his agent almost having a heart attack every time. But this all happened in front of Qi Nian who actually took part in it and also had emotional changes in his heart, while witnessing Xun Lan time and time again, being reckless in saving people. Really great and interesting read to me.
• 穿成替身后我跑路了[穿书] by 瑜眠 [completed] / I ran away after dressing as a stand-in. Just NOPE. I really feel weird about this one. The MC, Yu Xiang, is a realism painter that crosses to a cannon fodder type of person, he is kept by a gold master, but his next plan is to just leave. He is not a pro painter in this world, but he was a renowned painter in his world, he used it to his advantage to paint and slowly become famous, before he finally left. His main pet peeve was that hs gold master, ML, was in control of his life. But tbh it wasn't that bad. Sure thing ML was a bit selfish of - I need you here and let's meet here. But his biggest mistake was not protecting the person you're with against the so-called friends and such. He never made it clear about his White Moonlight he didn't really cared about. The story also feels weird, while it started as a normal routine with fighting against others and later getting a master to follow. He basically had a chance to move to new country where he escaped. ML wanted to understand MC and be more respectful and slowly integrate in MC's life, but just in spite MC did some really stupid shit. Especially befriending some weirdo that is obviously had a plastic surgery to look like ML. Which is impossible, but all in all weird. This dude happaned to be a serial killer, which was a sudden turn of events so ML saved MC from that dude. Later the gallery he worked for had an accident and he also helped to deal with it. Anyway many turns of events just didn't follow logic and were weird. The murderer part was the weirdest, like why suddenly bringing that in. I read it all and didn't like it in the end.
• 我靠算命成为万人迷 by 凉白开开 [completed] / I became popular by fortune-telling. I finished this one and it's relatively good! I think I've mentioned it before, it has several loopholes that are connected to details, more than the story. It has a painter MC who had a car accident, he was hit by a car and the driver disappeared. His left hand that others praised as godly was abolished, yet he earned a bonus from it, if he looks ppl in the ey for 5 seconds he'll see their fate. Especially if they're close to their death. That's how he saved ML. ML comes from a wealthy family, but because of a fortune teller he was claimed as unlucky. That's why he hates fortune tellers and had a bad impression of MC at first. MC had to conceal everything to stay in the company and later became assistant to president (ML), which brought them closer together and ML started to see the good sides of MC. MC's hand was saved later. There's a bit of a family scuffle during the process, there's also a part where MC saved several people due to his ability. They also found a person responsible for hit-and-run that time. The only loopholes in details are actually about MC's hand. Like ML asked to tie his tie a lot, even though MC supposed to have rehab at that time or before when his hand wasn't really functional. There's also little about post-op rehab. So basically it's said MC can't use his hand, but used it a lot. I've read this one close to the one mentioned above, both had painters MC and actually a perpetrator, but here at least it was wrapped more logically. Also MC's painter path was shown different and although he had his hand working again he didn't leave to become a painter right away, he actually got used to his new life and didn't see it as bad. The other painful thing was that both MC and ML were quite oblivious and I'm not a fan of that.
• 穿书后与偏执大佬HE了 by 有诗无酒 [completed] / After crossing the paranoid president and I have a HE. Summary: Shen Shu crosses to become a cannon fodder in the story of BE. Where an actor who is infatuated with the president creates all types of obstacles for all people who come close and has no scruples. But when Shen Shu crossed he didn't want to be near Qiao Rong, yet when he saw absolutely stunning and handsome man he thought he might as well do the deed. Although they had this night, Shen Shu later refused Qiao Rong's contract to take care of him, yet their encounters never stopped there and eventually he felt for Qiao Rong and saved him from BE. Pretty easy and leisure read to me. 

This is part of works I've completed or read on-going lately.

Canaries in danmei

    I have no idea how I managed to cross the search engine of jjwxc (probably 'revenge the scum' tag :'D) that I came across a fair amount of works that are all about raised canaries a.k.a. lovers that are nothing more but a beautiful vases to business marriages or smth like that.

    Don't get me started on the point where all these novels are like a copy-paste version of each other. I don't expect anything extraordinary, after all we've all seen what a trending writing/genres are. And they are actually that. But for some reason people still see logic to some of those, even though the events that mostly happen are a bit weird from a perspective of normal human thinking and actions. We all know that everything is playing for the convenience, but that's exactly what I don't like about it.

Common pre-settings for 'canary' plots:

• As the 'canary' suggest the attack is in the dominant position, both in profession adn the relationship, such as a president usually, while the receive is a beautiful being and taken advantage of for various reasons. Character settings are always the same, until the canary escapes and the whole chasing wife starts;
• Canary has no status. Usually the relationship might not be official or even if it is, friends and colleagues might not know about it or disrespect the partner. Nothing is done by the gongs in such cases of course;
• No communication whatsoever prior to break-up (which basically leads to the conflicts, duh, u surprised?). It either existed before, but ceased to be meaningful, or stays shallow. While two people live together, they often have more sex together than conversations;

And here's my pet peeve with such stories:

• The lack of communication what first starts the problems. Authors often portray shous as if they're the biggest victims, but actually they don't do anything about their situation and act very submissive during the relationship. It lasts only until they say - bye, I'm leaving - that they suddenly have the guts to oppose, which I find funny, because it seems they didn't really care about the relationship at all as authors try to convey, because they show character (that they have one and are not just sloppy rags), but they refused to fight or do anything or cause a havoc in the relationship, while they had all the chances to (e.g. I've read one where both agreed to consolidate relationship in 8 years, but shou didn't do much of fixing his partner's attitude when it started to go wrong, just started to accept his bs, later just packed up and left);
• Exchange of roles/positions. As you can tell canaries and presidents often exchange positions when the relationship is broken. Because gongs start the mad wife chase, everything that mattered and kept them busy before loses meaning entirely, only the wife exists. Which puts everything under the weird light. Due to miscommunication both parties don't really understand each other and their own motivation, which in my opinion makes both partners bad and not only one that is chased. And I guess it's a thing, because gongs are put into a position of being shoved into the ground for some sort of satisfaction. They're surely not the best partners to begin with, but it ticks me off the most that only one side is the bad side, but if you think carefully you'll see that no one is good though.

    It would be cool, if people wrote something not this weird. It doesn't mean the whole theme of raised lovers should cease to exist, I do think it might show the relationships that are not all sunshine, but just why it's written in the same damn  weird way all the time.

    Anyway, if you come across a novel like that, be sure you'll read something like the abovementioned.

[Chinese BL novel] I ran away after wearing as a stand-in / 穿成替身后我跑路了[穿书]

Title: I ran away after wearing as a stand-in / 穿成替身后我跑路了[穿书]

Author: 瑜眠

Year of realease: 2020

# of chapters: 78+1

Status: Complete

Tags: wearing the book, art, painting

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

Synopsis: Yu Xiang wore a book of doog-blood drama and happaned to be a stand-in for a White Moonlight in the protagonist's heart. He was a renowned painter, just had a bad heart, now he has a healthy body and can pick up art again. As a result the first thing he thought of was to kick the unwanted people like blood-sucking family, get a foothold in the art industry and leave the protagonist for good.

The following will contain story spoilers, usually I rarely do it, but it only happens when I'm baffled by the choice of writing and storytelling that in my eyes looks really weird or inconsistent. And teh following criticism should be accepted as a healthy one and has nothing to do with author's health issues.

I must say I was lucky to stumble upon two novels that have MC as a painter, which makes me think that jjwxc has a type of trends when writing. This story for me came from 4/5 to 2/5 in the last third of the story, all thanks to the author suddenly proposing to include a serial killer, which was really out of nowhere.

The story in short is as follows. MC wore the book, decided to keep away from the gong (actually our ML). He was part of a plagiarism accident, later was discovered by an old professor who became his mentor though original owner never was taught art. MC got rid off the blood-sucking family, who were not even his biological parents. Later got into few contraversies, like his signed company, he later retired from broadcasting. Had few paintings, got a bit of fame, took part in filming, got a project for another city, then to broaden the horizon left to a signed gallery in Europe, spent time in creations, in one city met with a man who got himself plastic surgery same as ML, held his first exhibition, was abducted by this fake man-serial killer, got out unscathed, took part in the gallery contarvercy and then went back to China to apply the same way of bringing new artists as the previous gallery, it ended in success. At the end promised ML to be together. The end. Now...a bit of things I find are weird:

• The serial killer storyline. It was damn abrupt and out of nowhere and honestly, it only brought me rage. I was quite upset at author who led relatively ok story into.. this. The backstory: MC travels to France and meets a man who has obvious plastic surgery remnant signs, he looks almost exactly like ML, he also wants MC to paint him and in the unknown city, looking at unknown person, MC actually agrees. This was inconsistency with MC's character that was always keen to people, but now even feeling weird, failed to distance. Later he also had several moves out of rebellious psychology against ML who basically was worried that the person who approached MC is not ok. This further made it possible for murderer to contact MC and later he didn't guard against him at all. He was kidnapped and only thanks to timely appearance of ML was saved. This really showed MC from the dumbest side ever. It reminded me the previously read novel (previous review) where MC could be super dense like a concrete wall. I also want to mention one part which made me feel strange, when police called and showed MC the murderer's diary where he wrote atrocities about MC. Like.. MC is a victim and the murderer is dead, why would you want to bring the victim new grief?
• Helping the gallery. This part would have been great if the murderer part was cut out completely. It could have been a struggle of commerse and art instead this episode comes last before MC returns to China. Basically the gallery owner fell ill and was in a coma, while this happened his son was one of those who wanted to sell the gallery completely under the reason that their gallery sold a fake and it will ruin the reputation, though it was him who carried out the plan of selling fake and hanging this as gallery's fault. This was solved arther quickly, a matter of few chapters, but honestly there was one part that made me surprised, when MC questioned why the granddaughter of the owner called him back, while previousl it was described they became friends and the owner also had good feelings for him. Wouldn't you rush back just because someone you care about was sick?
• Unexistent romance and bad relationship building. The romance part was actually just a whatever part to me. I didn't feel emotional or anything from these two. 1) There is no strong foundation for ML's feelings, as well as any foundation of their relationship. We start from the very bland start where MC is in ML's house, but they just co-exist together. And suddenly ML starts to notice MC more; 2) MC was often very unfeeling for many things that ML did to him after accepting his wrongs, though at least later looked at things from ML's point of view too. He basically didn't like ML for his oppression, though ML never really imprisoned or obstructed MC, just wanted him to consider going back, because he doesn't want him to leave him, not because of oppression; 3) The way they came together and MC promised at the end was mostly like whatever, they rarely communicated, there was no explanation or hint on inner feelings, mostly MC was in his career, only by the very end he started to notice ML as something not that bad.

When it started it was entertaining enough and it felt like a 4, but when it came to last third, it just got weird with all that thriller and throughout the whole story the whole idea of writing this as danmei was pointless to me.

RATE: 2/5.

[Chinese BL novel] I became a heartthrob by fortune-telling / 我靠算命成为万人迷

Title: I became a heartthrob by fortune-telling / 我靠算命成为万人迷

Author: 凉白开开

Year of realease: 2020

# of chapters: 70+1

Status: Complete

Tags: fortune-telling, art, sweet and cool text.

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

It's funny, because I found this by searching and as a result stumbled upon the author of the previously read novel I didn't like in the end, but this one in comparison is fairly better.

Synopsis: Tang Yan was claimed to be a genius painter, but his path was interrupted by a car accident when he was hit by a car and the driver disappeared, leaving him with mutilated hand and enough debts after healing. But after the accident he started to see people's path and also danger to their life. Although from the outside his sudden outbursts to help were treated differently, but he still couldn't see when someone's life was in dire danger. After selling his most successful paintings at an auction, Tang Yan came to work at a firm to work in a design department where he met his boss he recently saved.

In short this is a short and sweet text, the storyline of how MC helps several people is well-thought through. He doesn't use it much, since he doesn't want to interfere too much, but some people were crytical and he just couldn't watch people die. It brought several misunderstandings with other characters, like MC just wants to help, but boss at first thought he was a magic stick and he hated fortune-tellers to the bone, due to his own reasons. Other character, an idol, thought MC is his fan. And so on. 

The biggest and greatest idea was connected to the MC's paintings he auctioned. They happened with three people and at the end all painting came together with the new one after MC's rehabilitation.

The outline of the story is as follows, MC saved his new boss (ML), came to work, did some projects that pushed his career. ML got acquainted with MC and made him his assistant. MC followed along in the end and they had several crisis situations due to ML's family members. But in the end they ended up winners in this situation. MC helped few other people along the way, which earned him favorability from others. But he helped from the good heart. One of those was an idol who in the end made a movie and MC's paintings ended up being a props to it and he also drew the final one in the quartet after successful operation. In the end he also found the person who caused his accident.

Now, several flaws and parts that were not that impressive:

• MC's character inconsistency. Sometimes he acted very tough, but other times he was just too dense that it was hurtful. You can't be THAT dense tbh, but he managed. So in general he was too oblivious to other people's feelings and also his character of I don't want to hurt anyone or just being guided by others made him look not that cool, but silly instead.
• MC's unhealed hand. At first it was said that MC can't use his left hand much. Later when he performed some "operation" that helped him he should have gone through rehabilitation which was described as quick, but he was told not to use his hand, but later author describes many times actions that should be done with both hands, like tying ML's tie, which he asked to do a lot, so basically this was the biggest flashlight in the eye in this story. Because in contrast there was the moment where MC had to use his left for few minutes and he described it as painful, but then he goes around using it all the time.
• Naive and convenient type of writing. I understand why, after all this author doesn't have much works and experience, so when reading it was really like 'awe'. At other times the level of convenient was a bit too much. Like the level of MC's being dense, which actually led him to be tossed around at times and I just wanted to slap both MC and author for this type of storytelling.
• Slowburn that was too slow. Basically MC and ML come together at the very end. The level of romantic acts was just over the top throughout the whole story, but both ML and MC were just too oblivious to those things. One didn't get that he fell in love for a long time and other thought that his boss was just that good to employees, like come one.

In the end, it was fairly enjoyable, the idea about the paintings was the best about the whole story tbh and at the end I thought that maybe it would have been better if it was more concentrated on that than many tossings in-between.

RATE: 3,75/5.