khyie's Reviews (267)

The author said they were writing melodramatic Mary Sue trash and that's pretty much exactly what it was... a ridiculous little popcorn novel. 

Arc 1: fantasy, elf king x elf commoner
Arc 2: modern era, adopted son x father
Arc 3: cultivation, master x disciple
Arc 4: Sci-fi, royalty x marshal

ML has two fragments in this one so he's both the exiled prince and the usurping emperor

Arc 5: interstellar, ABO

The writing has this sort of dreamy feeling to it that works really well with the characters' personalities but continually lost me as a reader.   I like the concept but I kept wandering off to do something else and just wanted to read something else.   It's not bad and i might come back to it but it's not me for today

On the one hand, this has all the hallmarks of your stereotypical entertainment circle Gary Stu story.  The MC is the best and most amazing singer ever, he is also the best and most amazing song writer and producer ever.   He also finds and buys all the rarest lost Chinese artifacts to bring home. No one else can compare. He is mindblowingly perfect at everything he attempts to do (except apparently memorizing lyrics.... he can memorize his entire noble family's history but not a single song's lyrics).
At the same time some care is put into why.  He was raised by his grandparents.  He's a great songwriter because his grandma was also a great songwriter.  He's a historical genius because his grandfather raised him in this direction and it's also his major.  He spends a lot of time training and practicing and taking notes and he is not a white lotus character.  He's kind but boy will slap you down if you mess with him. 
The face slapping though is pretty typical of these novels, waves of idiots lining up to be obnoxious so the MC (or sometimes, the ML) can get quickly dispatch them.  There's no real antagonist because the antagonists aren't the point. 
The shining light of this novel though is the relationship between the MC and ML.  They were so sweet but it rarely tipped over into cloying.  They really respected each other and their goals and the ML, in particular, was adorably cute as he floundered along in this relationship while the MC patiently and gently received his pursuit.  
The supporting cast is entertaining but aside from the agent and assistant, they dip in and out of the story, disappearing almost entirely after their bit is done (Xia Mingyi, where did you go...???)
Also unlike some entertainment novels, this doesn't go into exhaustive detail regarding the entertainment bits.  He wears some clothes. He does a show. He performs a song. The back stage interactions and the way he interacts with others is the more focused bits. 
This positive is, of course, balanced with another staple of entertainment novels - the randos on Weibo and the barrage, there to brainlessly reflect whatever the author wants and only once that I can recall did someone comment about being annoyed at how much the MC turned up on the hot search which was... a lot.  I'm pretty sure in his first year, he was on the hot searches upwards of 20 times. Thats nearly twice a month.  I don't pay much attention to entertainment news or search a lot but it seems like that's a bit excessive.  I, too, would get tired of seeing "do you know what (MC) did this time?????" Only for it become "oops we wrong. Check this clap back" over and over again at least once a month. 
That's just the face slapping.  That's not counting the times he ended up in the hot search for his ads or his singing or whatever else he was up to. 
Anyway tl;dr there was a couple moments I thought could've been handled slightly better but overall, if you want a mostly fun, low stakes story with a sweet couple and you don't mind gary stu settings, this will scratch that itch. 

So much noncon....

A cute established relationship story with a monster of the week plotline.  They're a sickeningly sweet couple and nothing happens to rock the boat there.  I did find a bit of boredom in the chapters that revealed their incredibly long past history but it was mainly because the MC lost a lot of his more mischievous and fun characters to fall back on the trope-y sweet and innocent shou personality.  I got a kick out of the extras about them as high schoolers though.
I was totally cheering for Rong Yu as Ace King of Universe, considering the man noped so hard of getting into a relationship that he became a defector from his world and a demon just to avoid having to follow his plot. 

I will continue to headcanon him as asexual for the rest of my life, even if he did eventually get into a relationship with Yan Zhao

I was honestly surprised about how much I enjoyed this story.  It is a pretty typical face-slapping book and maybe that's exactly what I was in the mood for?  But I tore through this.  It kept me up rather late on both nights I was reading it because I couldn't put it down.  The MC is reborn and knows his world is a novel, essentially, but he doesn't go out of his way to make trouble for the protagonist and his love interest.  Instead, they're the ones throwing themselves into his path.  I think one of the things that definitely helped is that yes, the protagonist is a moron, but it becomes increasingly clear that the brainless stupidity of the people supporting him are driven to it outside of their own control.  Also, you find out later in the novel that

the ML is also reborn and is also very aware of the fact that their world has a driving plot.  He was forced by the "world consciousness" to behave in a very specific way the first go around.  It's also his act of killing the original protag and his gong that caused the world to "reset".

  This may be the first rebirth novel I've read that actually made some sort of attempt to explain why the rebirth happened.
I actually did end up feeling rather bad for the protag's gong by the end of the novel. 

As I said, it becomes increasingly clear that the people who are "in love with" or "obsessed with" the protag are not in control of their own actions.  He finally gets a wake up call that allows him to fully disengage from the plot controlling him and is left with nothing but a destroyed life and lost love.  He does move on from this and it's perfectly understandable why Shen Zhen would still want nothing to do with him, but it is really sad.

The extras expand on some of the side pairings touched on during the course of the novel, starting with Liu Huan and his secretary, Zhang Zixin and then expanding on the relationship between Feng Anyan and Chu Haoyi.  I did kind of wish we had gotten some extras with Shen Li and his work superior, but I wasn't broken up about it.

Fuck this novel.
I'm okay with amoral characters and god knows, I've read a hella lot of imbalanced relationships or relationships where the ML is just there to be a powerful doting back up to the MC.  Okay, fine.
But this takes the gd cake.  I actually read this at the beginning of the month and I'm still angry about it.  The MC's amorality or unwillingness to help honestly weren't what got to me.  What drove me over the edge was the shit he did to the ML.  The relationship wasn't that great in the first place, but the nail in the coffin was

when he forcefully turned the ML into a zombie very much against his will because he knew it would 1) wipe out the ML's attachments to his family and friends and 2) make him more obedient and willing to do whatever he wanted because he's essentially the zombie king.  I get that a lot of this was driven by the MC being worried the ML would die.  It still was a disgusting, terrible thing for him to do and shows the MC can't stand it if he doesn't have complete control over the ML

.  The ML was literally not allowed to have any agency or opinions whatsoever if they did not align with the MC's own or the MC would punish him for it.  Please actually read the spoilers and see the content warnings because I've read a lot of crappy imbalanced relationships but this was the WORST. 
Trash.  What a waste of my gd life.