Wednesday, December 6, 2023

[Chinese BG novel] 绿茶女配真的不想红 by 糖丸丸 / Green tea heroine doesn't want to be popular

(*title is mtl'd)
I must say I read this novel previously, reached ch 55 and put it on hold for some reason. Decided to pick it up these days and finished it rather quickly and when I reached ch 55 and then fully read the novel I finally remembered that I might have reached 60-chapter-burn-out as I call it and read last few chapters. And it was the mistake to miss the fun in the last 1/3 of the novel. But it's also a problem of the author that I think they took too long to reach that stage.

So what's the deal? Su Chenyu is a step away from completing her plan, killing the Dog Emperor, becoming the queen, choose new ruler and live her leisure life. But she suddenly dies and travels to modern times, her memory integrates with Su Chenyu, a daughter of a wealthy Su family who was lost at the age of 3. But her family strangely might have stopped looking for her, because after adopting a daughter Su Qianyu they poured all their grievances and love into her. Even the boy with whom Chenyu had baby kiss slowly forgot the fact that he was the one who lost Chenyu and his promises to himself were also forgotten.
Now it's the scene of engangement, where Gu Weixi went to look for Qianyu just because he saw her a pale photo. The two families wanted to downplay the entire thing, but who is Chenyu, she is the queen who battled the entire harem to stay safe, she can play these people like clowns. So she faced everyone and blessed the two for them to be happy, exposing the entire thing.
From there her path as Chenyu, the popular star began.
Note: Chenyu travels with the system, for some reason author decides on making Chenyu accumulate screams (literal screams), so she can support and later change her cannon fodder time. Strange setting but who am I to judge :)

Storyline. 
We start off from engangement banquet, as said Chenyu reveals that GWX is gone and she as a good sister blesses him and Qianyu to be together. Now everyone knows the two are a pair of scumbags and dogs. The family isn't happy, but Chenyu doesn't care. Their emotions are indeed influenced by the system of Qianyu, but it doesn't make them better. Chenyu moves away from the Su family house and starts her school life and entertainment life. The thing is Qianyu came to entertainment under guidance, Weixi followed her to be together, Chenyu who was brainwashed that the two will be together followed Weixi, but was nto supported by family and basically was unknown. Company terminated contract with her, but funnily work came to her herself.
As a transparent person she went to variety show, having a life in a rural area. Her skills conquered the entire group. She didn't show herself as completely weak, but also didn't come as completely strong. It's as if she played the strong hand with a fearful face, literally :) The effect of the show was really good, although I find it vague how she got it. Later she came into contact with Mr. Bo, he saw her playing darts and thought she was interesting, so he invited her, but she impressed him with the qin play, later took her to a gathering where she defeated one of notorious players named Mad Dog, Mr. Min. The dude does not think like any other person, he found her later and the live broadcast they did on the roof went outside the circle. But later the fact that she had foreign fans was forgotten and never mentioned. Her collaboration with Mr. Bo came to fruition and he found her agent and assistant with the goal to later sign her to the company for development. For now she only found jobs like variety shows, in the entire novel she took parts in three. Rural life, solving mysteries and extreme life. Rural life was episodic, but brought her new fans, mysteries were not mentioned in details, but this is where she met Fu Qinxu, one of the men who attracted her. And later was the extreme life which brough her the biggest popularity and was the craziest (but this type of show hardly will happen in RL so :) ). I say free-wheeling because outside this side of career, other things were going into different directions. Like she went uni, but it wasn't mentioned much, only the guy she met there came out from time to time. She also went to a bar randomly where she met two several guys, one of them initially was her target, but when he became serious she distanced herself. Sometimes things were picked up and then put down. Like she invested into a haunted house to accumulate screams after the mystery variety show, it was mentioned from time to time. But it didn't really matter to the story. There is also situation about her family, she was never really involved with them and they never came out to play a bigger role. For her they were a bunch of strangers she did not care about and if their life good or bad did not matter to her, Also the story of her family was nto wrapped up at the ending, like showing who is doing what. The same goes for ex-fiance, it felt like half-way through he evoked some memories and the promise he made when he was a kid, but due to Qianyu he forgot it all and now felt remorse, but it felt like nothing and resulted into nothing, but the reason for losing her as a kid was really ficked up He just left her at some random store and went to deal with punks they met. Like what? The girl was actually loved, but again Qianyu's system made everyone replace their feelings. Partially, I hate such characters, they're selfish and fucked up, but I like when authors makes them villains, because they are.
Extreme life was a big variety show project, because it started as survival, but turned into a big play where participants were made to believe they intruded on a territory of locals and were chased and killed. Since Chenyu was more collected and ready she noticed something wrong and realized that it's a fake show. But the chase was exciting for the public, it also exposed a girl who aimed at Chenyu several times. This part was indeed fun. Although unreal. Bizarre thing is that Chenyu went back with a rooster.
After several shows she finally decided to debut as an actor. What was funny is that the director could see she was acting, not feeling the role, but they still hired, but also the great thing after being criticized Chenyu became really serious about acting and made a great progress as a true actress on the set. 
From here her acting career also started. Because she conquered a bunch of old guys at another gathering, she got the lead role in an action movie with martial arts. Here she could do a lot of stuff she was known for. It was said in extras that her acting career thrived and she became a well-known household name.
If you want to know if the ending will have something connected to Dog Emperor and Qianyu, then I will answer yes. To make it entertaining, but not spoil things. So if you don't want spoilers.. it's better to not read further.

Su Chenyu. She has a very cheerful personality actually. You could say she is fearless, because she lived through many dangers. For her people in modern times don't pose any threat, so she likes this place a lot. Her only pity is that she can't have her own harem. But this point later changes due to ML.

Dog Emperor and Su Chenyu's past (w/spoilers). Tbh I spent like half the novel wondering, will the Dog Emperor come out? He was mentioned too many times, but it all revolved around the skills she learnt because of him. She really disliked him. But not to the point of deep hatred, it's a deep dislike. She always felt like she's on a tightrope, every step should be calculated not to get herself in danger. Dog Emperor is moody, sometimes sounds mental ,because his mood can change any second and also he can say vile thing or comforting things, while doing something opposite. As it happens Chenyu initially was a maid at the Shuhou's residence, she was saved by him and not wanting to leave she earned her way to stay at the mansion. She was taught a lot by Shuhou, but then she was included into draft list and went to the pallace. From then she couldn't come back again. This is where her biggest dislike for the eperor lies, she wanted just to have enough food and clothes, she lived happily with Shuhou, even if it wasn't anything romantic and he also was strict. But then she spent every braincell to fight his women in the harem and also to achieve position that nobody cared about, but instead Dog Emperor made her a queen and she stood on the cusp of the storm. Also I promised not to spoil what will happen to him, so you better read it yourself.

Romance? At first i thought this would be like a non-CP novel actually, because she could flirt with men here and there, it was the result of her life experience. First she was a maid, then she entered the harem and had to serve one man, she did not truly enjoy anything when it came to men. I'd say there is a lot of free-wheeling in the first half, you can highly doubt if it's even a romance novel (it is), because Chenyu basically acts as if casting net for handsome guys around her. Yet she has the bottom line in this world, flirt is flirt, but getting serious needs her to take responsibility. 

ML (w/SPOILERS)
If you take the entire harem of men Chenyu met, it's not obvious who the ML is until later parts. Then something happens. Initially it was unknown if someone from her kingdom will come, before Shuhou appeared. Fu Qinxu was the one who inherited the memories of Shuhou. Thing is at first Mr. Fu was interested in Chenyu himself, but now both personalities combined together. And Shuhou RongYu actually lived with Chenyu in his heart for years. He had to be restrained, because he lived with the country as his mission and he had to assist the Emperor, but this Emperor was the one who took the woman he cared about into the harem and he was always a step late. Now in the modern world he had no scruples and he decided to show his love for her. For Chenyu her feelings were not as romantic back at the mansion, she just felt it was not worthy of an Emperor to aim at his trusted minister, but now their feelings changed. Chenyu was ready for healthy love, past and present care combined, this is why she was not against coming together with Fu Qinxu. 

Misses.
The biggest miss is that author may pick and put down things at any time, you have no idea what to expect next. There are some obvious points that might happen (like confrontation with Qianyu for example), but you have no idea which line will be let go and when. So there is a feeling of having loose ends at the end. Sometimes there are things that are too random, like at the filming set of her first series there was a girl who wanted to befriend Chenyu and also use assistant to dig dirt, but was never mentioned again. Or foreign fans. Stuff like that.  
Also author gives no definite description when it comes to characters, you may be bored from starry eyes and sword eyebrows, but at least give me an age. Sometimes they give, but those are side-cicks. I thought Mr. Bo was older, but he was not. Sometimes I lacked from simple facial descriptions or age descriptions. It's not like characters are faceless, but sometimes descriptions weren't enough. Like I have no idea how Qianyu looks like or many others. 

RATE: 3,5/5. At least it was exciting enough, but I find author took a bit long on some things and some exciting stuff was left for later parts, which was unexpected tbh.

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