It was a fun novel. Lots of angst and soap-operasque drama. Haha. But fun read all around. The one thing I got miffed about is the 10-40-50 structure, where 40% is a flashback that was sandwhich in the present.
I actually thought that this would hurt me more, but surprisingly, apart from some knives, I was fine. I think it's because Zhou Xiang (MC) and Yan MingXiu (ML) had a happy ending, which I liked. What they had was something fated and no matter how much ZX wanted to deviate from his original life, he ended up in the same place and being entangled in YMX all over again. But this time, YMX had done a lot of growing up and realised many things, which is why ZX decided to go back to him.
I don't think ZX was dumb for going back with YMX but I can understand why all his friends were heavily opposed to it. I would hate the person who indirectly led my friend to his death too, but sometimes life really just needs to happen the way it's supposed to. In this case, ZX was "reincarnated" because he was supposed to be with YMX, for better or worse.
I think the characters were complex and the author successfully wrote a story about two people falling in love and getting together after many challenges. I'd say that the relationship between ZX and YMX was realistic; it wasn't perfect because the people involved weren't perfect. They hurt each other, they didn't like each other at one point and it didn't seem like they would ever get back together. Was it abusive? I don't think so. There's a really large grey area in what people do and why they do things, but what I can say is that YMX was a massive asshole but he definitely grovelled for ZX's forgiveness, which made me somewhat happy. If ZX had gotten together with YMX without an apology, I would've been so mad.
Anyway, I kind of wished that there were more extra stories so readers could read more about the happy parts in their relationship after all that they've been through.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Yet, I'm quite fond of the opening because of the suspension it created in the reader's mind. Knowing Cho had died very likely still involved with Yen, I couldn't help but imagine how their relationship deteriorate before his demise the whole process of reading him building up a relation ship with Yen.
And the plot twist is brilliant. Sadly, after he learned about the truth of Cho, the whole narrative became too predictable. There was no doubt , and the reading experience of this part was incredibly dull on top of the Yen family drama. I'm not saying it's a bad plot, just too predictable and cost a star.