(This is written based on up to where I last read, which was around 1200 out of the 2700 chapters.)
Hm. How to describe this book? I guess you can say it’s one of the sort of better written stories that uses all the common tropes in these kinds of novels.
Reincarnation. Check
Revenge. Check.
Cold main girl. Check.
OP male lead. Check.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but out of the two, I personally like this novel more than Genius Doctor: Black Belly Miss, which is written by the same author. It’s mainly because, among other things, unlike Jun Wu Xie, the female lead here isn’t just cold, but also mischievous and kind of playful too, much preferable than an ice statue who is described as cold in practically every sentence her name is mentioned. They both are likable in their own ways, but I just preferred reading about Shen Yanxiao more.
The female lead’s guy best friends are so cute. There is absolutely no romance going on, just great bromance. If you’ve read It’s Not Easy To Be A Man, you can expect it to be like Ling Lan with her own companions/brothers/sons. Don’t set your expectations super high though. INETBAM is up there in the rankings for a reason. The author of this novel, North Night, doesn’t flesh out each of the guy companions out as much as Madam Ru did with hers.
If you’re looking for something different in this story that you might not find in other Chinese novels, it’s that the male lead isn’t obvious right away. For the longest time, it isn’t really apparent who the male lead is. Once you find out, you might or might not be disappointed but will come to like him if you already didn’t.
So do I recommend this story?
Yes to those who like all the usual common stuff but looking for something a bit more than average. No to those expecting something new, special, or different, which is what Web Novel really needs at this point.
Note: For those of you who don’t know, you can read 2100+ chapters of this story on Fox Teller for free. The translation and grammar quality is good, and the team is super friendly and interactive. Anywhere else is a pirated app or site. Don’t read on there. Fox Teller is free, so why support thieves when there’s no reason to?
Note 2: For those of you who are new to Chinese novels and still don’t know what Novel Updates is, it’s a site that’s pretty much like a search engine for Asian translated novels. Just type in the title of a story or certain tags with tropes and you can find it. It’ll show you all its information and even give you links to the authentic translations. You can also read the reviews, which are slightly more reliable than the ones on web novel (90% of which are bots or users just filling up the word count with emojis to get exp). If you love Chinese novels, make your life easier and use Novel Updates. You’ll be able to find plenty of great stories this way, most of which will be free.