I Just Want to Freeload on Your Luck is one of a sub-genre of Chinese webnovels where there’s a real daughter, who was kidnapped or otherwise went missing, and a fake daughter who was taken in by the original parents, and later on the truth is revealed and all kinds of dramatic hijinks ensue.
There are occasional variations on this, e.g. there’s no fake daughter, or the protagonist is the fake daughter, but usually it all plays out the same way. The family is initially hostile to the “real” daughter because they spent so much time with the fake, but over time she wins them over with her class and demeanor while the lowborn fake exposes her true colors and is eventually kicked out to meet a messy end.
I hate those kinds of stories. Obviously I don’t hate them enough not to read I just want to Freeload on Your Luck, but I do hate it because it’s always poorly done. The original parents always come off very badly because they can never find a way to balance their natural affection for the one they’ve raised all these years with their guilt/feelings for their biological child. It’s always one or the other.
In the end all of the adopted daughter’s failing will be written off as her own bad genes – even if she has been raised from babyhood by those parents, and even if they never saw anything wrong with her behavior until the real one showed up. And meanwhile all the real daughter’s successes and triumphs and good behavior will be credited to her good genes, even if she was raised by wolves 2000 miles away for the first 20 years of her life. It’s so hypocritical, and it really makes me feel bad for the adopted child.
Now, on to the main topic of I just want to Freeload on Your Luck. The real daughter is Zhao Mingxi, the fake one is Zhao Yuan. The gimmick is that Zhao Yuan is super lucky, while Zhao Mingxi is super unlucky and gets even more unlucky the closer she gets to Zhao Yuan. Having died miserably once and been reborn, Mingxi decides to attach herself to lucky characters in the series (except Yuan) to soak up some of their luck (hence the title) and thereby avoid a messy end.
The first half of the story, and the only enjoyable part, is how Mingxi decisively makes a break with the Zhao family that has been treating her poorly for two years. She moves out, cuts all ties and focuses on her studies and getting luck from her seatmate.
The Zhao family is a little pathetic here, because the author strongly implies that Zhao Yuan’s supernatural luck makes it impossible for them to think straight or evaluate matters fairly. It’s only when Mingxi leaves and builds up her luck to an appreciable level that the “spell” is somewhat broken. And then they all begin to turn on Zhao Yuan, which is honestly a little sad because she’s just a kid they all spoiled and doted on for 17 years and suddenly they’re all so cold and hostile to her. It’s not her fault she has that extra luck, and she’s not even aware of it.
It takes about 30 chapters, but the Zhao family eventually gets the hint that Mingxi is well and truly done with them. Well, not really, they still think she will come around eventually but at least they’ve backed off for now. Once the initial source of drama is gone, the story takes a serious downturn to the point where I completely lost interest and dropped it.
Remember when I said Mingxi was absorbing luck from her seatmate? His name is Fu Yangxi, and he somehow gets the idea that Mingxi is in love with him. Then he is heartbroken and depressed to discover she is not and begins to distance himself. Honestly he’s another pitiful character because this is not his fault. Mingxi behaves completely like she has a crush on him, to the extent that an adult male would be fooled, much less a naive, hormone-addled 17-year old. She takes punishment for him, she insists on sitting next to him, she brings him snacks every day, does his homework, worries about him, holds his hand for several minutes, etc.
Unfortunately for him, she barely sees him as human at that point. Her (understandable) goal is to avoid dying of brain cancer at age 23. To that end, she doesn’t care who she hurts or misleads – in fact, it’s not even that deliberate. Do you care about the feelings of your Wifi router? As long as it’s working, you don’t even think about where it is or what it’s doing.
That’s how Mingxi is with Fu Yangxi until he stops “working” and starts avoiding her, then suddenly she starts feeling lonely, following him everywhere, even working her way into his apartment without knowing what the problem is. Meanwhile Fu Yangxi has his panties in a twist because he’s assuming Mingxi was with him to make her old crush jealous, which is absolutely not true but he doesn’t straight up ask her and keeps on assuming. And keeps on running into her and old crush in all kinds of situations which just makes the whole thing worse…
The whole Mingxi-Yangxi thing dragged on so long that I completely lost interest in the series and dropped it. In the first place, I don’t like series where former adults act like kids. Just talk to the boy already! All that beating around the bush is frustrating.
Secondly, I don’t buy Fu Yangxi as the male lead. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s way too immature and has a lot of growing up to do and issues to resolve before he will be a credible romantic partner. Which means either things will end unsatisfactorily or the series will drag on much longer.
Thirdly I’d prefer Zhao Mingxi to focus on her studies and her future like she wanted to instead of getting sidelined with high school romance. 99% of high school romances don’t go anywhere in the long run, and a 23 year-old is old enough to know that.
And so I ended up just dropping I Just Want to Freeload on Your Luck. I’ve read enough, Mingxi has absorbed quite a bit of luck and changed her fate, things are looking up, it’s better to quit while I still have some fondness for the series. I tried to look up ending spoilers but didn’t find any, but I’m sure Zhao Yuan will come to a miserable end and Mingxi and Yangxi will live happily ever after like they always do in these series. The end.
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My Fantastic Chef Wife – Not fantastic at all! (Chinese web novel review)
Ascending, Do Not Disturb web novel review – My kind of slow romance
Sweet Wife in My Arms (Chinese webnovel) – Gave up at chapter 270 (spoilers)
Yeah, you guessed the ending and it makes me sad, at least where i left them, Yuan was lonely with a looser bf, who was rather just a looser using her, and maybe she using him, i only read the manhua and skipped parts, where the Zhao family was the main point.. i think the brothers had some kind of personal growth, how to love a sister or any human being, who is nice and a bit of a people pleaser.
Yuan trys to burn down the house of the old teacher with the autistic grandson as a revange and the child almost dies… i mean the last picture is Mingxi having a clothe in front of her nose and running into the flames…
And because of a her supposed to be a supporting female character, i am not sure, with so many sapling she is safe to rush in, but she is the main character, isn’t she? She won’t die and restart the story again, will she? XD
I know Yuan wasn’t the best friend, when Mingxi was getting popular and teasing her got backfiring, but i was really upset, how the nice girl become a villain; because i think at age 10-14 i would also want to ruin the life of somebody blaming me for something, which we did together, she staying popular and i becoming teasing material… but isn’t this a private school? Wouldn’t it be just changing schools, instead of digging in the dirt of another family.
I know real life people, who were mistress-boyfriend like relationship, so girl having no money or job of whatsoever, boy not having another gf or wife, but after break up letting the ex having some pocketmoney, so she is not on the streets and so on… I mean in love, nowadays you can just block your ex, whatever happens to her is not your responsibility, and this Zhao family can’t even discuss with the adoptive child, we want you to be happy, but you’ve done shady business and the post of your friend is a big shame on our family; so this kind of financial support can we offer and if you think you are mature enough to accept, what you did wrong, we can maybe be friends, but you have only one chance and if you ruin it, after age x you won’t even have our financial support, so be careful, when to come to us to be friends again… I don’t know, fortunatelly i was never in similar situations, i look too much like my family members and i am too old and independent to ever be in this kind of situation.
Yangxi and Mingxi turn out to be a nice, cute couple; i wish Yangxi was more healed from his wound with therapy and not sedatives… I am trying to learn the difference between pity and love myself, so for me he was instanly a “forget your goals and begin to love him already” emotion tsunami, how bad of a childhood he had… I don’t know, i felt like he is a 14 years old little girl and she is a late 20s early 30s mom, so i am not really supportive of their relationship. I would have prefered, if he also begin to think instead of “the circumstance is not romantic, why hold hands” to something like she is the mom i never had and that is good enough, she hasn’t fallen in love in me, just pity-loves me… or whatever i am, who would in a similar situatin forget anything just to make somebody happy, to feel less pity or whatever. Maybe in a few years my therapy gets faster and i can describe it better XD In my opinion they could be cool friends, but at this part of their lifes, they don’t really need romance and poor boy isn’t able to accept and give real love, he needs to love himself more first.
Agreed on both scores. The Zhao family could have chosen to separate themselves from Zhao Yuan while still providing some support. Life is long, maybe they could be close again in the future.
And Yangxi has a lot of growing up to do before I could ever consider him a serious male lead. A few years of therapy is what he needs instead of a girlfriend.