[Chinese BG novel] 重生之影后养成系统 / Rebirth Shadow Queen system

Honestly, I don't understand what made author to write the heroine's actions like that and their motivation and emotions are just in such a jumble. Let's write it off as first attempts at writing, but honestly, some of these things are quite shallow and so cliche that it hurt.

Premise of the novel is as follow: Wan Xiaoxiao was reborn, we meet her rolling around bars and while she seduced a big president and went with him (as a result ditching him before anything happened) we find out that she has a system that wants to bind her. She refused and did not want to join enertainment at all due to her previous life experience and that is: she fell in love with a fellow college student who is also in acting, they've been together for years but he cheated, not only that, he also dumped a big pot on her head that she cheated first, in the end she had a huge scandal and black materials poured like a river. In the end she had an accident and died. The system told her that accident was man-made and later her parents suffered too from the grief. This was the pushing point for her to agree to bind. The system is a friendly one that allows her to keep up and develop into a movie queen, she also got some perks, although it's really weird to see how sometimes she uses them and sometimes the space doesn't have things to offer at other times.

The motivation for her to start "revenge" is pretty weakly written, since it is basically covered in few sentences of her relationship with parents, mostly she doesn't even interact with them before she leaves to university, so we don't have that strong emotional base to believe her motivation. Yes, she suffered when she was accused, but the way she decided to get back at those offenders to me is the weirdest and stupidest character choice ever.

Now WHY I think so?

My opinion relies on the timeline described and the words said by the FL. And that is, she first meets G at the bar, they have nothing to do, but he gets attracted, she saves a person, it was his grandfather, he met him when wanting to leave (2nd encounter). She left to uni where she met her ex-scum, got aqcuainted for her "revenge". Next she got a role through audition and met G many times already, she rarely interacted with ex-scum. G made no secret of his attraction, they acted quite intimate without reaching last base. So while pedaling on this boat she accepts the relationship with ex-scum. That's the point I don't understand, because just as she accepted a bit later G finds her again, since his feelings are stronger and he wants to know "why?", so she confesses it is for "revenge", but when he tells her that he could move him and ex-scum would never enter entertainment world, she answered that "at that time I haven't met Mr. Gu", which logically and time-wise is a total bs. In the end our FL met and spent time with Gu quite a lot, while officially everyone thought she was a gf to that ex-scum.

She also was interested in ex-scum motive and how he'd jump, but honestly I don't see the need in this. His motive was obvious, since she entered the circle and became popular before him, she could serve as a starting point and he made things not so obvious but clear from early on, to see him trying to put forward the reasoning of why he wants to stand on the same height as her was really obvious and painful to read about. That's why I never understood why she would go through painful experience, because not once it said how she could not even breath same air, since he made her nauseated, she still wanted to make arrangements for ex-scum to enter the circle, get some sort of fame and then make him go through same shame and scandal she went through. This is stupid tbh. And also quite selfish. Why? For this "trap" she prepared she sacrificed a big project, which involves company's income, resources etc. Basically she dumped a huge project just to make ex-scum a protag of this series and the little three a female protag. I don't mention all the theater they created just to arrange these things. In the end this project indeed made ex-scum and little three get together and for WXX to collect enough evidence to make them never return. Just to satisfy her "revenge". This is what I don't understand how author thought it'd be ok to write, while to me this situation sounds stupid.

I know we often see rebirth themes where protagonists are mostly leaving their past behind, or even if they don't, they don't get so involved so they'd rather hurt themselves just to get what they want, unless it's some mission dog-blooded novel where it abuses readers through such plots. What author wrote doesn't work and actually doesn't present her character in a good way, at all. What we see is a woman, who officially is one person, while behind the scenes is with another, everyone knows it, but they keep quiet, she is basically pedalling two boats in the eyes of others, since not everyone know the "truth". Instead of just ditching the ex when she had time she gets involved for him to feel what it's like to lose it all, but here is the question, why is she so sure that he will feel same things she did back then? Tbh although the two scums were brought to light for their behavior, but it doesn't mean that it was so bad that they would never turn back. What actually worked is that Gu shadow-banned them and no one wanted to use them, it was more efficient than the entire "genius" plan she created. And indeed if they want to turn over, if they weren't secretly banned by Gu, they could just get back to filming, including ex-scum, who could have never entereted the circle if it wasn't for the FL's move of giving him resources. So that's why I think the entire charade is simply stupid and a waste of time. I haven't seen FL's motivation, since she basically got all her skills from previous life, she got resources through that, she didn't really use the system too, like for beauty - yes, but when it came to her health like fevers and such it was too convenient for her to faint etc. They also had these stupid conflicts here and there. She quite early realized that she fell in love again, but this time for real and with a good person. Again, what is described at the end also pushes her falling in love and being on guard weird. The thing is she found what ML did in previous life, but actually she remembered that he saved her from comitting suicide and wanted to help her, at least that showed his goodness, his actions and deeds. But then she is on guard with him, while he put his heart on his sleeve and actually got enough of shit emotionally from her.

So in the end, it's a pretty stupid story, a waste of time, too cliche to bother, too jumpy, not interesting, with a lot of convenience, sometimes a bit too insiting on including all weird plot twists. Anyway, rate: 1,5/5 for the effort.