Not only was the plot itself contrived, but it was simply not that engaging. I feel like you can feed into a trope and still make it entertaining. This was not that.
It was three stars until the scene where Chu Yu was de-aged. Why was Xie Xi still making out with him when he was in a child’s body???? I was so disgusted, and after that, I only finished it because I was too far along. There, I’m done. Don’t waste your time with this one.
Esta novela ya me la había leído y no me había gustado. Parece que se me olvidó añadirla y volví a leerla. Que pérdida de tiempo, sigue sin gustarme. El tópico de cultivación de maestro y discípulo o hermanos discípulos no está mal pero el 90% están mal llevado haciendo la relación forzada es una lástima ninguna ha llegado a gustarme por eso es raro que lea.
3.75 stars, so for once, Imma round up. I read this entire book in pretty much one sitting. Dawn till dusk. I liked it. Saturday well-spent. And since I spent almost the whole day reading, this is gonna be long.
Many people told me this book is a lot like Scum Villain. The first 10 or so chapters, I was getting some real Scum Villain vibes, 'cause 1) MC is modern weeb who transmigrates into body of scum villain of internet novel he's reading, 2) scum villain character bullied protagonist a lot before getting killed by protagonist in the most gruesome manner ever in the og novel, 3) MC arrives in the novel when the protagonist is a young teenager who hasn't unlocked his skills yet, 4) protagonist/ML is stallion novel protagonist who's destined to have a huge harem someday, and 5) as a result, there's a lot of sucking up to do. +1) There is an "online" system that rewards points. I know this sounds like a lot, but that's kind of where the similarities end. Oh, wait, other than the most important thing! As a result of the MC's extra care and attention toward the protagonist/ML, he ends up falling for the MC instead of all the pretty lady cultivators and becomes the clingiest love interest ever. Seriously, this guy could give Luo Binghe a run for his money.
It took me a while to get into the story, and I think part of that is because the translator was still trying to find her "translation voice", so to speak, at the beginning, but once she got going, I kept scrolling. I also found it hard to picture Chu Yu (the MC) looking cold/aloof the way he supposedly looks all the time when his inner thoughts AND spoken lines sound so chatty and excitable. In my head, he'd be saying things with a big smile on his face, and then the next line, someone else goes "you never smile, so we wouldn't know" and I'd go EH, REALLY? WASN'T HE JUST SMILING? Did this bother me a lot, though? Nahhhh...
As with all good danmei set in a wuxia/xianxia world, there must be great side characters for us to root for and love. I liked the side characters in here a lot. I also shipped 2 different pairings in addition to the main couple. They were real scene-stealers, and I found myself very invested in their happy endings.
I do wish there were excellent female side characters, too, though. Considering that the og novel was a stallion novel, I expected them to run into many of Xie Xi's future wives and girlfriends throughout the story. But they encountered a total of one, and she was a real piece of work! The female disciples of their sect are all unnamed. Some of the cultivator moms have names, but they're all either not present and/or questionable characters and/or villainous. Poo.
Western audiences might find the ML's possessiveness to be a bit much, and they never stop talking about who's top/bottom, and the dudes in here like to push and prod and tease their love interests (and they're persistent about it), BUT THIS IS DANMEI AND IT AIN'T UNREQUITED LOVE, SO IMMA GIVE IT A PASS. Plus, there were no unhealthy relationships among the main pairings (at least not in the actual novel-- I haven't read the extras yet). In fact, I was extremely pleased that [SPOILERS] the main couple get together halfway through the novel and from then on, they support each other as a couple throughout the rest of the events of the story and you get to see them GROW. The MC isn't good at expressing his feelings, but he sure tries, and THEY ACTUALLY COMMUNICATE, which NEVER FUCKING HAPPENS IN DANMEI.
The pacing of this novel is... odd. There were parts where characters were taking their time and hanging around, and then parts where things were happening, but the characters weren't doing much, and then parts where SO MUCH SHIT WAS HAPPENING AT ONCE, and then it was all over and we were left with several open-ended side-stories. Surprisingly enough, this didn't make me want to scream and hurl my phone (I HATE ambiguous endings and unanswered questions). It could just be set-up for a bunch of long-ish extras. To me, the whole novel felt like playing a game: I can spend a lot of time exploring a section of the world, or I can speed through; there were a lot of side quests (although I obviously wasn't given the option to COMPLETE most of these side quests!); there was lore hidden around the world/map; the system occasionally chimes in with reminders and goes down for updates at the most inconvenient of times.
Overall, this is light-hearted for a xianxia novel, although it does have its MOMENTS (that part where the MC reads the outline for the og novel's second half-- YEESH). Both MC and ML have their morally gray moments and aren't hesitant to injure/maim/kill people. The characters acknowledge the world is kind of a shitty place to live in and life's tragically unfair and people are awful. That last one's pretty standard wuxia/xianxia fare, though.
This has a similar storyline to Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, but much less comedy. The main character is dense but to a much less ridiculous degree than Shen Qingqiu of SVSSS, so it's more believable, but not as funny. I liked SVSSS better, but this is a very solid story, and the characters are fun. I didn't like Xie Xi much, though, gotta say. He's a bit of a creeper, only sort of saved by being the Protagonist.
It started off clumsy, as if the author was trying too hard. But then it was as if the characters and the story came to life, and it wasn't up to the author to decide anymore. It definitely could've been even longer, but I can see why it wasn't. The extra chapters tried to fill the holes, so I appreciate it haha
Ahh Chu Yu suffered so much. Nevertheless, he never lost his heart and was rewarded for it. I love how he settled into this world and embraced the thigh lmao
Xie Xi, the little dumpling. His obsession was hard to take in at times. Because of it, he even loses the status of protagonist 😅 unfortunately one of those characters who lack depth because they live for their love.
Chu Sheng, the brocon lol That's all he was at the beginning, and for really good reasons. But then his love interest appeared and he became so lovely 😍
Fu Chongyi is the definition of if he wanted, he would.
And omg, imma need an entirely new novel, preferably 80+ chapters of Lu Qingan because what?? The man lived 15 different lives and lost his heart, and we don't know why??
Finally, the third shidi whose name we don't even get to learn until after the novel ends 🙄 Poor baby suffered too much. I want to hate Wei Ciyin, but if you're happy, I'm happy too, baby.
This was Scum Villain without any of the humour and all of the weird creepiness of the protagonist (I mean the transmigrated novel's protagonist, as in LBH and Xie Xi).
This was fairly good whenever Xie Xi was absent from the story, and instead focused on Chu Yu's adventures on his own, or relationships with other people. To nobody's surprise, I despised Xie Xi. He displayed all the worst characteristics possible while doing nothing remotely likeable. His relationship with Chu Yu was fairly disturbing.
I had a problem with the pacing as well, because it went from 0 to 100 without rhyme or reason. It either dragged too slowly to be interesting, or moved too fast to understand what was going on.
I LOVED Chu Sheng, Fu Zhongyi and Lu Qingan, so if the story had instead focused on any of them, it would have been an easy five stars. Actually, I really don't understand why the author chose to focus on Xie Xi and Chu Yu. Now it just looks like a bad rip off of Scum Villain, whereas it could have stood very well as a novel of its own right if, say, Chu Sheng and Fu Zhongyi's stories were explored. There's enough material there for a bomb of a novel.
I was going to give this book one star, until I read the Chu Sheng/FU Zhongyi extra and the Lu Qingan/Nian Shen extra. They were both so pure and wholesome! I live for mutual pining and ANGST. The only thing I wanted was for these three to be happy, and so I at least got that <3
I had high hopes for this story as it's a pretty popular novel. In fact, I thought I had read it before since I've seen it come up many times, but apparently I haven't. Unfortunately, I didn't really like the story and really struggled to finish it.
It's a transmigration novel where our MC, Chu Yu, transmigrates into a cultivation novel as one of the cannon fodder characters. Knowing the fate of how his character dies, he immediately changes his behavior towards the protagonist and ML, his shidi Xie Xi, and starts treating him nicely. Of course, over time Xie Xi develops feelings for him and becomes quite obsessed with him.
The main reason I struggled with the story is because I found the pacing of the story quite slow. I was really bored at times and thought about dropping multiple times, and only the thought that this is a shorter story at only ~90 chapters kept me going. It reads more like a slice of life than anything else, and honestly there wasn't much of an overarching story or mystery to keep things interesting either.
And when things do happen, it happens very sporadically and new story arcs and relevant characters get introduced so quickly that I was taken aback every time this happened. I wish there was more of a build up to the story and a proper climax, as that would've been more interesting. As it is, it definitely felt like the author wrote the story as she went without much planning or outlining. Not all of the plot points were wrapped up nicely either. For example, I thought for sure the author would dedicate a chapter or two to the MC's dad getting saved since it was mentioned soooo many times, but it was only mentioned in passing once in the extra chapters. Very disappointing.
Characters were pretty meh too. As a typical character in a transmigration novel, Chu Yu has a hard time really integrating into the world and feeling like he's a part of it. It's not until much later in the story, after he decides to not go back to the real world, that he starts accepting his role in the novel world. And as for Xie Xi, he really came off as a standard obsessed-with-his-shixiong ML. There was absolutely nothing special or unique about his character. The romance was also pretty standard, nothing I haven't read before.
I was also not super interested in the side couples, like with the MC's older brother and the healer, or whatever weird thing was going on between the MC's shizun and the spirit that the MC found in a hidden realm. Skipped most of the extra chapters as they mainly focused on the side CPs.
Anyways, I'm not sure why this novel is so popular, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it.
I gotta say tho, it's a bit of a let down. The start is great but somehow it went meh. Anyway, i put this into 'best couple' tag but dont really like how they keep repeat same situation and the way Xie Xi keep saying 'dont look at others' 'you promise me but you lied' and Chu Yu just comply with it.. i mean, you can see how yandere he is. And the qi deviation? Did Xie Xi overcome it or nah? I dont get it bruh.
But i like the small Xie Xi. So fcking cute, if this is real life, i think imma pinch his face too! People complaining that he fall to fast for Chu Yu but somehow i can understand why. He's so naive, small, innocent and Chu Yu is the first person who is kind to him even after he kinda bullied him for 3 years (if not mistaken). He's insecure little sticky bun.
Also, author be like giving stories without much detail. I mean, yeah, too much detail sucks but dude you put some name and we thought we gonna get their stories but wth? The end???? What happened to saving Xie Xi's parents? What happened to the Lu ancestors guy who stuck in the demon abyss?? Also, i dont fcking get how shizun can find trace of the sect master and his wife bad deeds? The author just say some simple stuff and be done with it. Don't get me start with all of the timeskip. 3 years.. 10 years.. 1 year.. haih. Lazy or just have no idea?
Third, EVERYONE IS FCKING GAY LIKE WTF? FROM shizun to the shidi and to the fcking brocon too? istg if the second bro is alive, he might be gay too? Or if the fourth shidi is the legitimate disciple, he would be one too! Some bullshit there. I know it's yaoi but BE FCKING REALISTIC PLEASE.
Anyway, i keep seeing people comparing this with SVSS but idk about that. I didnt read SVSS because in the first chapter, seems like the system control it too much. I kinda hate that kind of story. Hehe. So, idk which is better.
Maybe I would have given it a better rating if it were not for the wrenching translators and their epub. I gave up on reading it around chapter 67 and the clickbait in the thing were pissing me off. I tolerated the "every other chapter after 30 was on their webpage after you click on the link", but when it went from every other chapter to every chapter and having to click through 5 different links to get to the chapter, I just went berserk. I do not give a damn about the translators opinion and reviews on tv shows nor the movies they watched and that is what they packed in the epub as chapters, to make people come to their page and just click through immense amount of links. The story itself was not bad, it was also not all that great. Nut if you can read the original text (and not the crappy translation) go for it.
Tuve que releer el libro para recordar la historia, y se me hizo más llevadera la lectura ya conociendo a los personajes. ⭐
En la primera lectura me enganchó mucho el ritmo y la personalidad del protagonista, aunque esta va decayendo de mi gusto al transcurrir la novela, además a la mitad del libro se pierde el ritmo y se presentan personajes y situaciones que luego se olvidan o que no se desarrollan completamente. Lo dejé por un tiempo porque por más que quería no avanzaba mucho, a pesar de que los capítulos no eran tan largos.
Al leerlo de nuevo, me di cuenta de otras cosas. No se desarrolló completamente a otras parejas que tenían mucho potencial. Faltó mas desarrollo de la trama, ya que la parte final solo sirvió para cerrar la relación de los protagonistas y ya.
Fue entretenida y corta en comparación a otras novelas danmei, pero no tan memorable como creí que sería.
I started reading this book a year or two ago and forgot about it while waiting for it to update. I was surprised by how much I remembered while I reread the first half of the novel.
Back then, I hadn't read The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System yet, so I hadn't noticed the similarities that people always mentioned in reviews. After reading both books, I can definitely the similarities, especially in the beginning. However, this book also reminded me of Transmigrating into a Mob Character to Rehabilitate the Villain Plan. All three books deal with painfully insecure yandere male leads and straight male readers who started off only wanting to help the tragic male leads. If you liked any of these three books, you'll probably like the rest lol.
I was excited for this novel because it had a similar premise to Scum Villain which I really enjoyed but it was a lot less fun and at times boring. The plot is weak and the characters are pretty flat.
Summary: Chu Yu gets put into the body of the villain of a harem novel he was reading so he decides to help the protagonist so he doesn't get killed. The protagonist falls in love with Chu Yu turning the harem novel into a BL.
Banyak yang bilang ceritanya mirip scum villain system tapi versi shallow nya. Kalau menurut ku beda ah. Suka sama karakter MC yang terus terang, suka ngakak sendiri pas baca. System juga nggak ada ngebantu sama sekali, yang bikin beda dari cerita dengan tema serupa, disini kita bisa baca komentar para pembaca buku. Kalau komentarnya jelek poinnya MC bakal -2, kalau dapat komentar positif bakalan dapat poin +2. Untuk bisa balik ke dunia nyata MC harus mengumpulkan 1000 poin dari poin awal 100
the central relationship is somewhat toxic at a lot of parts, but i guess it wasn't fucked-up enough for me to drop this right away?the whole story's filled with light-hearted vibes with enough chunk of decent plot & entertaining characters. i wish we'd get more details about xie xi's transition & progression into his final form and how he came to wield his power as the protagonist & i'd absolutely want more of fu chong-yi & chu sheng, the last extra is too short urgh :(
Me apetecía leer algo de malentendidos y la trama es tan simple como adelanta la sinopsis, peeeeero... ya está. No hay nada, ni chicha, ni intrigas ni ninguna razón que me empuje a continuar. Los personajes son planísimos, los secundarios no tienen ni siquiera nombre, el malentendido se resuelve demasiado rápido (y mal) y la relación se está desarrollando de una manera tan tóxica que prefiero no continuar.
when life is bad just read about silly characters in love
re-read this MASTERPIECE because I had the sudden urge to read Scum Villain Self-Saving System by MXTX again but this book is very similar to it so I just read this instead.
although I might still just re-read SVSSS because I miss it so dearly.
or maybe I just need to read more transmigration novels because they’re hilarious and are always good to me.
I'm sorry but I definitely did not like this book at all.
Is boring, the plot is really mediocre and I just did not enjoyed, not even a bit. I started reading it because I liked the plot of Scum Vilnian Self saving system but it's really boring, I'm not even comparing the two because SVSSS also falls short on the love relationship, but not a read I would recommend at all.
Terminé este libro!! La verdad la trama tiene muchos vacios, a lo largo de la historia hay saltos temporales que son muy ???? y preguntas que nunca son respondidas!!,,, pero a pesar de eso el libro me gustó mucho, es facil de leer, adictivo y cumple su función de entretener y pasar el rato. Yo lo disfruté caleta y me reí mucho.
Kinda healthier and more wholesome than SVSSS though some similarities are certainly there. I really liked the development of the side-couples. Generally somewhat less trashy than SVSSS and the usual transmigation novel.
OOC since the beginning, tried to be funny but not really achieving. I don’t mind the scum villain set up but the writer should at least use her own plot device instead of trying to not be like svsss but at the same was
Well…because of that nothing was working, not even the otp love line
It’s enjoyable not a masterpiece but entertaining, it’s not a deep story with deep characters but if you go in expecting nothing you can only enjoy it. Liked it but then again I’m a sucker for isekai so I can handle the same tropes over and over again
Lo ame, la trama y el desarrollo de personajes fue hermoso. Hay escenas donde se sugiere, pero no son demasiado explicitas, le fato más papapa, no es tan necesario.