The friendship between Lu Qing’an and Zhen Yongfu feels genuine. You can tell they’ve been through a lot together, the dialogue where Zhen Yongfu keeps saying he has to leave but then stays another day over and over hit me right in the feels. It’s not overly dramatic, just this quiet understanding that time is running out. I actually got a bit choked up when he finally flew away.
1 I’m curious about Cheng Jingchuan. In the flashback, he seems like a decent guy—a soldier who just wanted to help. But in her past life, he was never around. I wonder if he’ll be a good ally now or if he’s just gonna be a source of conflict. The set-up for their relationship is intriguing.
Su Bai seems like the nicest of the four husbands, but I don’t trust him. He’s all smiles and dimples, but he deliberately made the noodles too salty? That’s passive-aggressive sabotage. And when she doesn’t eat them, he just throws her plate away later? That’s cold. I feel like he’s playing a long game. Golden retriever energy with a hidden bite.
I am unfortunately dropping this novel. While the core storyline has potential and could be engaging, the execution leaves much to be desired, primarily due to the horrendous writing quality. It appears as though the text may have been generated by a machine translation with barely any editing, which severely detracts from the overall reading experience. As I sifted through the chapters, I often felt like I was wasting my time; the disjointed prose made it difficult to become immersed in the narrative. In fact, if the author had condensed each chapter into a mere ten sentences summarizing the events, it might have produced a similar impact on readers without all the muddled details. Moreover, the absence of romance, world-building, and character development is glaring. There's a frustrating lack of explanations and details that would help flesh out the story and its characters. This non-edited machine translation has made it all the more painful to read through what could have been intriguing plot points. I have to give this a score of 3 out of 5. Despite its shortcomings, there were moments where certain plot elements sparked a flicker of interest. However, these moments were simply not enough to redeem the overall experience.