As a child born by his parents through precise genetic matching, for eighteen years of his life, he lived entirely for his brother, who had leukaemia. He was his brother’s shadow, a “medicine reserve bank” for his brother’s treatment needs.
Umbilical cord blood, stem cells, bone marrow… whenever his brother needed it, he would have no choice but to quietly lie on the operating table.
Until the last time, when his brother needed a kidney and he never came off the operating table.
When he opened his eyes again, Lu Lingxi became a teenager with the same name Lu Lingxi.
Freed from the shackles of his fate, he possesses the mysterious ability to communicate with plants.
Raising flowers, gardening and running a farm, Lu Lingxi begins a very different life!
This is just a slow and steady slice of life farming story (or rather, a gardening story in this case). I've usually read farming stories in historical setting and this is my first time reading one in modern. This is more character-driven than plot-driven story, mostly calming and healing. Not for anyone who's looking for something big going on.
Also, for those sensitive when it comes to age gap romance, this is not for you either. The gap is not that big, less than 10 years, but the problem being pulled by some people is that MC is 18 and ML is 27. Maybe because MC is a naive, innocent and pure cinnamon bun that everyone felt like he's still young but he's already considered as an adult, no longer minor. If you're not comfortable with that set up, just don't pick this up.
What I loved is that ML fell in love with a much younger guy and he's self aware about his 'perversion'. He also has some messed up and dangerous thoughts, like being obsessive and overly protective towards MC, but he never acted on that. He's extremely gentle and doting when it comes to his actions and he never treated the MC in a way that you'll hate him.
If you want a warm slice of life with no complications, try this one.
Other readers seemed to not mind the romance, so I'm the odd one out.
I don't care about the age gap between the MC and ML... if the story didn't emphasize so much how innocent and naive and child-like the MC was. Everytime the story repeated how pure the MC was, everytime the ML monologued that what he was doing was wrong but he couldn't help it... it's hard for me to ignore the blaring "GROOMING" neon sign. Even when the ML finally confessed, all I could read was "emotional manipulation". It wouldn't had been better if the MC had at least showed some mature consideration on his part about accepting the ML, but no... it felt like he was swept away and just went along with it.
It didn't help as well that the ML kept solving the MC's problem in the background, so the MC _never_ faced any crisis or conflict to solve. The way this was done, it really was like a parent taking care of a small child... which again felt uncomfortable for me, as I started questioning the unbalanced relationship between 2 supposedly adults.
The other aspect that didn't work for me was the comparison between ML and MC's situation. Whenever the story was focused on the ML and the family intrigue he was dealing with, there's this tension, this feeling like something will happen, some sort of hook that got me wondering what would happen next... then the story switched to the MC whose main concern was whether or not to evolve plants, all tension gone. It felt personally to me like watching 1 episode full of intrigue followed by 5 filler gardening episodes. I would had preferred the ML to have a different background, to keep the tension even on both sides.
I persisted in reading this hoping that _something_ might happen... but no. MC's side of the story was smooth-sailing with no drama, while the tension on the ML's side fizzed out leaving me wondering what it was even there for. His background was needed to give justification on how he had money, but he could just be an orphaned rich man with no family intrigue and the story would still work. My final feeling on finishing this story was relief that it's finally over, and regret since I should had dropped it much earlier.
I also had to silence the protest I was yelling in my head whenever the characters fed dogs cooked bones. People, don't do that. Please read up on how to feed your pets properly. It felt weird that the author went into extended explanation about plants and environments and just... didn't even bother checking what to feed animals.
Another reviewer had given fair warning about the romance that happened in the side stories. I tried to read it and gave up. Again, it felt like the same power dynamic where the more naive one was taken advantage of... and no, just because something is human-shaped doesn't mean they have the same level of wisdom as an adult human. I mean, even adult humans can fail at it...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This book was very unique. I loved the environmental aspect of the book. It made me happy to see them fix pollution, considering how the world is right now. So the plants aspect 5/5.
As for characters, I really appreciated Lingxi as a character because I think they made him very realistic. I think they did well with his personality. As for Yan Yue, with his storyline, his personality mostly makes sense, except I can't deal with his attitude towards Lingxi. The whole book there are jokes about Yan Yue being a pervert but like he is, though, so to me, it wasn't a joke😭 The thoughts he had about Lingxi were creepy yall it grossed me out. Don't get me wrong, he was good to Lingxi, respected him, and treated him well. It was clear he cared about him, and Lingxi deserved someone who would care about him. It also made sense that Lingxi had zero knowledge of relationships. But explain Yan Yue to me🤨
Anyways, continuing on, the side characters were interesting enough, I personally kind of got annoyed with all the animals, but it wasn't a big deal.
It was a long book, especially for a slice of life, so it did drag on at times, but it did have some interesting scenes that helped the book move along.
Lastly, the extra chapters?????????? So outta left field like what was that.
The extras are a bit weird but the story itself is really enjoyable. There's still the weird age gap between protagonist and ML (so that the ML can be rich and successful) that most authors explain away with the ML having childhood trauma, but at least this ML went to the therapy for it. I just ignored it and aged up the protagonist in my mind.
It’s a 170 chapters with 5 extras. The story is complete with a transmigration to a new family theme. It incorporates the fantasy of evolutionary biology controlled by the MC with support behind the scenes from the ML. It’s heartwarming. 4.5/5