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Sweet Wife in My Arms (Chinese webnovel) – Gave up at chapter 270 (spoilers)

I don’t remember when it was, but I know I promised myself not to start any webnovel with a ridiculous number of chapters. I told myself I would always check first and not start something that was bound to get tedious and stupid. But time passes, people grow old, we forget our promises and then… we end up reading long-winded dreck like Sweet Wife in My Arms.

Summary: For his sake, she was willing to abandon her career as the best actress and be his wife. With her own network, money and unscrupulous methods, she helped him rise to the top of the world. He, on the other hand, held another woman in his embrace and kicked her away with no mercy. It turned out that all he ever wanted was her rare blood type, her six-month-old child’s cord blood. It was her life…

When she opened her eyes again, she returned to her 20-year-old self. Time repeated and her life rewound. In this life, she would live well. [source: Webnovel]

Now, to be absolutely fair to Sweet Wife in My Arms, the first 250 chapters are a decent and enjoyable read. The female lead Yan Huan is definitely a Mary Sue with perfect acting skills, the most beautiful face ever, amazing wire-fu skills, etc. but that is normal for this kind of series and she’s not obnoxious about it. And unlike many trashy series of this sort, she does not fall back in love with the guy who killed her because it was all a big misunderstanding or something.

In the same way, the male lead Lu Yi is your general icy cold super powerful guy who doesn’t like women at all but somehow there’s something special about the heroine… etc etc. You know the drill if you’ve read even one Chinese romance web novel. Lu Yi is miles and away better than most other CEO/Prince MLs. He’s not rapey, not physically or mentally abusive, not over-the-top protective and doesn’t try to force his way into her life. If anything, she’s the one who starts clinging to him even when he has a girlfriend.

Furthermore, the plot isn’t bad. It has the generic “super talented actress” gimmick romance web novels use when they’re not using “super talented doctor” instead. I like this gimmick better because we get to read about the various cheesy, campy movies and series. Yan Huan takes part in. Which the audience laps up, but they sound sooooo bad. Like this one called “Divorced” about a woman whose husband cheats so she finds another man who doesn’t cheat, happily ever after, after all a woman can’t be happy without clinging to some rich man, haha… And somehow it grosses 600 million yuan and makes her a millionaire, lol.

But that’s the thing about the series early on – it doesn’t take itself very seriously. Despite Yan Huan’s sad past and Lu Yi’s coldness, it’s not a mopey or depressing story. It has its dramatic moments, frustrating ones, funny ones, cute ones. It’s no masterpiece, but it was interesting enough to pass the time. To slowly see Yan Huan overcoming her unfounded fear of Lu Yi, Lu Yi learning to stand up for himself a little, Lu Yi bonding with her cat Little Bean, Yan Huan winning him over with her food, etc. Very cute stuff.

So where did it go wrong with Sweet Wife in My Arms? Around chapter 265, when Yan Huan did something very stupid. I mean she had done stupid things before like meeting a ‘director’ in an apartment alone, but this was extra stupid. Here she remembered that a mudslide occurred in her past life, and Lu Yi was trapped in it. Instead of telling him about it, she decided she would look crazy if she did. So what she did was… she borrowed his car… and went there… and almost got caught in the same landslide.

In other words, instead of potentially avoiding millions of dollars in damage, injury, lives and work hours lost, she wanted to play “little rescue heroine” by showing up with food. Look, I get it, in a NORMAL situation, she might sound crazy for saying she had a dream or premonition about a mudslide. But Lu Yi is the kind of guy who absolutely can and would investigate the area if she so much as hinted at it. He told her as much, whatever she needs him for, he’s willing to do it. There was no need to risk his life, her life, many other people’s lives, just so she wouldn’t look crazy.

But see, that incident in itself wasn’t the dealbreaker for Sweet Wife in My Arms. The problem is that the mudslide broke my immersion, so to speak. I sat up and thought, “This is really dumb. Do I really want to read much more of this?” And THEN, only then, did I check the chapter count. Aieeee, 707 chapters translated to date. Over 2500 chapters in Chinese!! Two thousand five hundred! 2500!! I was only 10% of the way through and I was already shaking my head.

So at that point, I thought, eh, I can’t do this. Let me just read spoilers and see their happy ending and then I’m done. But the spoilers for Sweet Wife in my Arms are hooorrible. The series is craaaap!

Highlights include:

Yan Huan still tangling with Lu Qin, Su Muran and other idiots she dealt with in her past life when a sensible person would move halfway round the world to get away from them,
Lu Yi getting amnesia and getting cuddly with another woman,
Switched identities, the usual miscarriages, triplets…
All kinds of shenanigans revolving around Yan Huan’s extra special blood,
Obligatory Yan Huan in a coma scene, and
Yan Huan going through not one, not two, not three but FOUR rebirth sagas before getting her happy ending

And that’s just the spoilers from the thread. I’m sure there were even more ups and downs, especially revolving around annoying side characters like the gluttonous, uncaring manager Yi Ling and her inevitable romance with Lu Yi’s best buddy Lei Qingyi. To be honest, if the series was, say, 400-500 chapters long, I would have stuck it out regardless of the stupidity of the mudslide incident. But 2500 of this and more? Nope, I’m out. Time is precious in 2021. Gotta read better web novels before COVID clobbers us all.

TL;DR – Sweet Wife in My Arms has a passable premise and very likeable main characters. However it goes on waaaay too long and involves waaaaay too much drama. Unless you have nothing better to do with your time, I advise you to read shorter, more compact and more sensibly plotted series.

My Son might be a Villain Chinese web novel review (MTL’d all 100 chapters so huge spoilers)

My Son might be a Villain is one of thousands of “instant parent” web novels, where the plucky protagonist becomes the mother of one or several child characters in another world or from a book she read. Usually the children are very young and almost always male when the protagonist is a Chinese female.

Honestly I rather dislike those series with their precocious little buns. They’re just so unnatural. And no matter how badly the original mother treated the child, within three or four chapters they’re all over the protagonist, being sickly sweet and oh so intelligent despite being barely in pre-school. I mean all these series are unnatural to an extent, but because I have a lot of toddlers in my life, this really stands out.

Summary (from novelupdates):

Su Ran, a music prodigy, woke up transmigrated into a book.

At that point in time, the main story arc in the book had already been completed. As a villainess female supporting character, not only did she need to take over the original owner’s pitiful life in poverty, she also gained an instant son right at his rebellious period.

Ten or so more years from then, the son would turn into a twisted, evil villain. He would appear in one of the extra chapters to pick on the male and female lead’s children.

BTW, the MTL in the title means “machine translated.” It means I read from around chapter 30 to 100 (final) of My Son Might be a Villain using machine translations which aren’t always accurate. But at least they’re fast and free. You can run the chapters through Google translate or a similar site yourself, but it’s faster to visit a site like mtlnovel which has done all the work already.

Normally I like to wait for human translations, because they are much easier to read and understand. There’s really no substitute for competent human translation, at least not in Chinese to English, and not right now. In the case of My Son might be a Villain, however, the translator only updates a chapter a week, sometimes less, and each chapter is split into small frustrating parts. It will take well into next year to finish reading it, and I didn’t want to wait that long.

And I’m glad I didn’t wait either, because the payoff isn’t anywhere near as good as I’d expected.

Su Han (the son)

My Son might be a Villain is a little better than the usual “instant parent” romance series, because the child (Su Han) in question is 13, not 3. He is also portrayed as highly intelligent and good at sports, but not out of the realm of believability for a 13 year old. He’s not managing a conglomerate or fronting a ninja organization like some of these crazy “little buns” do. He’s not even that wordly-wise, having only the vaguest idea of things like work, business and male-female relationships.

While he does warm up unusually fast to the woman who had been neglecting him for 13 years, he never becomes a saccharine sweet “I wuv yu mum-mum♡” kind of character. He’s actually quite tsundere towards his mother, and almost antagonistic towards his dad, but since I low-key hated his dad as well, I was cool with that. Su Han is the rare bright spot in the series.

Oh, I should have mentioned earlier that there are three main characters in the series: Su Ran, the protagonist, her son Su Han, and the son’s father, Lu Shao. Su Ran and Su Han I like, Lu Shao, not so much.

Su Ran (the mother)

Su Ran is also a bright spot in the series. Even though she is the usual “oh so pretty” Mary Sue character, she doesn’t take it overboard. Sure she is so excellent at music that she makes $60,000 in an afternoon by selling songs, and sure she wins international music competitions despite the original body never playing piano before. But apart from that crazy twist, she’s not super popular or all that well-loved, nor is she exactly smart or resourceful. She’s mostly normal, really.

In the original novel, Su Han’s start of darkness was watching his mother get humiliated and murdered at a seedy party. Once Su Ran manages to avoid that ending and starts paying more attention to her son’s development, the rest of the story is basically fluffy slice of life.

Really. There’s hardly any drama after that, so if you’re reading My Son Might be a Villain hoping for love rivals, kidnappings, jealous families, etc etc, forget it. None of that will happen. Su Ran goes out of her way to avoid the original male lead and female lead of the novel – in fact she never does meet the original female lead.

Su Han doesn’t meet the OG male lead’s children either, nor does he fall in love with his daughter. And since his mother was never murdered, he has no motivation to become a villain either. So he’s just a normal junior high school boy who likes to play basketball.

When the OG male and female lead briefly tangle with Su Ran, the new male lead Lu Shao quickly takes over their businesses and effectively exile them from China about 60 chapters into a 100-chapter novel. Then they are never seen again. Lu Shao has also subdued his other business and family rivals already, so everyone is unfailingly polite to Su Ran and Su Han, end of story.

Lu Shao (the father and male lead)

So I’ve discussed Su Han, and Su Ran, now to the final major character Lu Shao. He’s the one that lets the series down, IMO. Without him, or with a better male lead, I would give it close to 5 stars. With him, it’s maybe 3.5/5. Let’s break down many flaws Lu Shao has.

He’s the generic “aphrodisiac rapist” we get in Chinese web novels. The backstory is that he was drugged with an aphrodisiac by his rivals in his family 13 years ago. He stumbled into a hotel room where he found a random 15-year old girl passed out on the bed. Due to in-story reasons, this random girl would also have been bleeding heavily from a gash in her head, but don’t let that stop you, Mr. Rapey CEO.
So he had his way with her, then his employees found him and took him away. Note that he did NOT get amnesia or anything. He just chose not to follow up on her because he somehow assumed that a heavily-injured teenager was part of the conspiracy – or whatever.
In other words, if he hadn’t randomly met Su Han 13 years later, and if Su Han hadn’t happened to look a lot like Lu Shao, he wouldn’t have bothered to look for him ever again. And in the bonus stories after the main series, the author drafts what happened to the original villain Su Han – and he doesn’t meet his father for at least 10 more years, presumably because old Lu Shao doesn’t bother to look for him.
Now then, having found Su Han, does Lu Shao bother to build a positive relationship with him? Nope! His first instinct is to just pay the kid’s child support and let him be. Or forcibly take him away from his mother if the mother is bad. Throughout My Son Might be a Villain, you will look long and hard for very rare scenes of Lu Shao seeking to get to know and interact with Su Han for his own sake, and not for the sake of getting into his mother’s pants.
Yeah, it’s all about getting Su Ran for Lu Shao. And Su Han is just the tool he uses to manipulate his way into her life. Hanging out at their apartment even when she’s clearly uncomfortable, being terse and hostile to the boy (you’ll lose count of the number of times Lu Shao sends Su Han away to “do homework” so he can hit on his mom in peace), and so on.
Meanwhile Su Ran is so naïve that she takes his interest as interest in her/his son. She’s totally blindsided when he finally makes a love confession and marriage proposal. He keeps up the pressure until she agrees to marry him, then pressures her until she sleeps with him, then pressures her some more until she agrees to have another baby. It’s just pressure and manipulation all the way through.

Having said that, Lu Shao is nowhere near as bad as the typical Chinese CEO character. Despite his pushiness, he doesn’t actually force Su Han or Su Ran to do things they don’t want to. He stops the OG male/female lead as well as the Su family from bothering his new family, and does it so thoroughly that they never show up again.

Furthermore, he doesn’t force them to change schools or residences or jobs but instead tries to incorporate himself into their lives. It’s just that he won’t take no for an answer on the “incorporate himself” aspect, so it can be uncomfortable reading sometimes.

When all is said and done, Lu Shao is the only character who seems truly happy at the end. He’s got the woman he wants, and two more children he seems a lot fonder of. Meanwhile Su Ran seemed ambivalent about him – she recognized he was a good guy (oh really?) and wanted to try to like him. In the end it seems like she does like him, but not head over heels in love with him. You won’t get any blissful “I wuv yu so much hubby-wubby♡” scenes from her. Nor will you get any scenes of her pampering or fawning over any of her kids except Su Han.

Last of all Su Han is the most pitiful of all. He dislikes Lu Shao from the start. And Lu Shao never puts any effort into being liked by the boy instead. It’s clear that if Lu Shao hadn’t taken a shine to the hot mother, he wouldn’t have bothered much with the son either.

So for 13 years Su Han had to deal with a crappy mother. Then just when things took a turn for the better, this guy from nowhere shows up, worms his way into your life using you as an excuse, and takes your mother away. At the end of the series, when Su Han is about 16, he seems more resigned to his lot and satisfied that his mother is happy than thrilled himself. It’s a bit sad, but it’s also something that millions of people with remarried parents have had to deal with, so it’s just part of life I guess.

TL;DR – read My Son Might be a Villain if you want a straightforward, no drama rags to riches kind of series. Especially the kind where a kid’s long lost dad suddenly shows up and is so rich and famous no one can touch him and yet is head over heels in love with his son’s young and beautiful mother. There are plenty of similar Chinese web novels, but this one rocks because of the lower levels of drama and the higher IQs of all characters concerned. Even the antagonists are smart enough to know when they’re outmatched.

The only hitch is the pushiness of the male lead and his unfriendliness towards his son. I’ve seen people online fault Su Han for being rude or a tsundere, but honestly his reaction seems normal for a 13-year old who just had a cold father-figure barge into his life. Read for the romance, not for the family warmth because you won’t get that.

My Fantastic Chef Wife – Not fantastic at all! (Chinese web novel review)

Just like Japanese isekai series often have the hero winning the natives over with superior Japanese food, Chinese time travel/other world romance series often have the heroine cooking her way to riches and/or her man’s heart. My Fantastic Chef Wife by Di Qiu is just one of many in the cooking isekai genre and doesn’t do much to stand out. However the fact that it had over 180 chapters translated made me try it in hopes of getting a long and satisfying read out of it. Rapey start aside, it could have been really good if it had wrapped up early. As it is… well, I will explain in a bit, but first the usual blurb:

Summary (from Flying Lines):

The five-star chef unexpectedly caught up with the debris flow… When she woke up again, she found herself become a peasant’s wife… Aunts constantly came to bully her families, and there were crazy relatives seeking troubles. Did they really think her strong husband was just a decoration or something?

Her “decorative” husband: “when we get everything done, how will my fantastic chef wife thank me?” “Braised chicken, stewed eel, sesame butter roll, fried meat with fermented bean curd, roasted pheasant…just name it!”

He gave her a smirk and said, “Tonight, I want something different…”

Content warning: As I said, like 80% of Chinese “romance” manhua, it starts with a rape. Worse than that, it starts with the original body of the MC Ye Xiaoxian dying of a drug overdose after being drugged with a pig aphrodisiac by her mother-in-law. I think it’s the novelist’s way of weeding out intelligent and conscientious readers. “Can you make it past this hurdle? Then welcome to the show.” Check your brains out at the door and dive in.

The male lead Xiao Baoshan was also drugged by his mother and thus was a rape victim as well. And he feels much worse about it than Ye Xiaoxian does. That’s the reason I gave this series a pass and decided to keep reading. If he had turned out to be one of those creepy, abusive “You are now my woman” kind of guys, I would have high-tailed it out of there. For her part, Xiaoxian just gets up the next day, dusts herself off, says she understands why the mother-in-law drugged them (?!). Then presto, the story moves on.

In fact Xiaoxian doesn’t even understand why Xiao Baoshan feels guilty and uncomfortable about the whole incident. Even though it’s normal for him to feel bad, seeing as he was DRUGGED BY HIS OWN MOTHER and ended up sleeping with the woman who was originally supposed to be his sister-in-law before his brother died. It’s a really weird and unnatural situation, but if you’ve made it past chapter 2 then you already left common sense behind, so keep moving! Full speed ahead!

First the good parts of My Fantastic Chef Wife

-Once you get past the first two chapters, there’s not much objectionable content. Just FYI.

-The series is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s about a chef and she’s fantastic at what she does. You will see all kinds of people totally bowled over by her fantastic cooking skills, and there are a lot of different foods cooked in almost every chapter early on. Later on she trains others to cook her dishes and innovates less because she has a busy business, but she still cooks often.

-The MC and her family are very hardworking and entrepreneurial. They wake up early to sell food in town, try new ideas, take advantage of gaps in the market, etc. The story is a bit idealistic and there’s a lot of luck involved, but eventually they move from a small roadside stall to their own little restaurant in town.

-Ye Xiaoxian is pretty and talented, but not a complete Mary Sue. Not everyone loves her, not every idea she has is successful. It’s plain that she’s good at cooking and has a decent head for business, but is bad at personal relationships. She lets things slide when she shouldn’t, doesn’t pay enough attention to potential danger and isn’t diplomatic when she should be. Her willful ignorance about how business and bureaucracy works later leads to disaster.

-Unlike most “face-slapping” novels of this sort, her extended family is not that bad. They’re greedy, selfish and stupid, but not actually evil. That leaves room for future reconciliation. While they never become very close, they do eventually develop a mutually respectful and even helpful relationship. Special props go to the mother-in-law Li Hongmei, who is Xiaoxian’s biggest supporter despite being her straight up murderer. She’s also one of the smartest, kindest and most perceptive characters in the book. My Fantastic Chef Wife is weird like that.

-The male lead Xiao Baoshan is a very decent sort who is much more concerned for Ye Xiaoxian’s comfort than she is for his or even her own. He’s neither overly pushy nor overly distant, doesn’t interfere in her business but doesn’t ignore her when she needs help. While he’s no romantic, he still does his best to do what he thinks Xiaoxian will like. This makes it all the sadder to read when she pushes him away and gives all kinds of confusing signals early on. Just talk to the man, woman!

Then the bad parts that made me stop reading (MAJOR SPOILERS)

🚩A hard reset of almost all progress is going to occur around the chapter 180 mark. Due to the combination of a corrupt official, an evil business rival, Baoshan’s own dark past and a looming war, Ye Xiaoxian is separated from her husband and loses her restaurant, her property and her reputation as a good, safe cook.

-This wouldn’t be annoying if it had happened very early, but to hit the reset button after so many chapters of watching Xiaoxian struggle from scratch and build her relationships, that’s just too much. I went and checked to see how many chapters the series has and it turns out there are over 450 out now! In other words, a story which could have been very nicely wrapped up in 200 chapters is being artificially restarted with more drama thrown in just to keep us reading. NO WAY.

Btw, thanks to My Fantastic Chef Wife, now I always check the chapter count of a series before starting. If it’s over 500 chapters and not fully translated, sorry, not reading.

-Since the title has “Wife” in it, you might expect a lot of romance, but you won’t get much. Early on Baoshan is too shy and uncomfortable, then once he warms up to the idea, Xiaoxian is too tsundere. She knows he’s shy and not smart about these things, but she still acts like a kid around him. If he pays attention to someone else, she gets jealous and snippy. If he tries to get affectionate, she finds him clingy and annoying. He runs, she pulls, he comes closer, she pushes him away. The poor man doesn’t know what to do. The reader doesn’t know what she wants. Even she doesn’t know what she wants.

Eventually, and it takes a while but eventually they work through their misunderstandings. They find their way into each others’ hearts (and beds) and things seem to be going well. Then the author forces the reset. Baoshan has to run away and leaves Xiaoxian a divorce note so his enemies won’t bother her. And instead of understanding his intentions, Xiaoxian gets mad and upset and says she doesn’t want anything to do with him any more. Which means we’re going to have to endure another 100-200 chapters before they meet again, and another 100-200 till they work things out, and so on. NO WAY.

-While it can’t be helped due to the way the story plays out, it is clear that as the series progresses there will be much less cooking and much more drama, war, political intrigue, etc. If that’s your kind of thing, sure. But if you just wanted to read a simple countryside romance with some cooking and business – like the series originally promised – then you’re outta luck.

And so for all these reasons, I decided to quit reading My Fantastic Chef Wife. The main character seems to have a screw loose with how quickly she jumps to conclusions, but that’s how she has been since the first chapter so that much would have been bearable.

The bigger problem was the bait-and-switch the author pulled. It’s like getting offered a steak, digging in, and having the plate snatched away and replaced with a salad. Nothing against salad, but that’s not what I ordered. If you give me 180 chapters of the cooking romance you promised and then expect me to read another 250+ chapters of political drama then no, I’m walking away.

TL;DR

Read My Fantastic Chef Wife if you’re looking for a rather frustrating experience (here’s a link to the series btw). Things take a while to go well, then when they do, reset! Back to square one. If you like slow buildups and many challenges in the way of a romance, go for it. Me, I’m out!

Ascending, Do Not Disturb web novel review – My kind of slow romance

Ascending, Do Not Disturb by Yue Xia Die Ying is a Chinese web novel that comes up very often when you ask for suggestions for romance with supportive, non-crazy, non-rapey male leads. Fans call that genre “fluffy” romance, but even then not all fluff is genuinely fluff all the way through. I’m happy to report that Ascending, Do Not Disturb is one of the good ones, though. Not perfect, but really good and fun to read, worth the time to try.

Summary: A deposed young princess named Kong Hou is picked up by an old cultivator and taken to the world of cultivators to cultivate. Blessed with supernatural luck and natural talent, she quickly begins to make waves not only in her sect but in the cultivation world at large. The series is fully translated and can be read here: Ascending, Do Not Disturb.

Cons:

– The chief problem is that the main character, Kong Hou, is a complete Mary Sue. Just total, perfect, almost entirely without flaws, loved by almost everyone except the baddest guys. She also has supernatural luck, which is one of her character definitions.

The drawback of all this is that it’s impossible to get under her skin. You can see the falling in love process and sympathize much more closely with the male lead, Xuan Zhong (Xi) than with the female lead. This is not enough of a problem to ruin the series, but if you want to read about a female cultivator’s love adventures, you’ll be a bit disappointed.

The second drawback is that her supernatural luck takes a lot of the tension out of things. If they need a certain herb, whoops, the grass she just happened to pull up is the herb. The random flowers she looked at are super rare once-in-a-lifetime blooms. The fish she bought is the best in the world. Etc. etc. So although the story is supposed to be a journey of adventure and struggle and hardship, in practice almost everything goes Kong Hou’s way, which is rather boring.

-This Mary Sueness also extends to Kong Hou’s sect, the Splendid Cloud Sect. They’re the smartest, happiest, secretly the strongest. It extends to their city, Harmonious City as well, where all the citizens are so bright and happy and prosperous and clever. You get sick of the endless praise for Kong Hou, Splendid Cloud and Harmonious City, especially in the last few chapters.

– While the male lead isn’t the crazy type, he is still a bit possesssive, and inclined to be extremely cold and unfriendly to any male who even looks at Kong Hou funny. Which is a lot of males because she’s Mary Sue. It’s a bit annoying the further you get in.

– Huan Zhong lies a lot to Kong Hou throughout the series. They’re mostly “white lies” that don’t hurt anyone, but it gets uncomfortable because of its high frequency.

– Misunderstandings occur galore, but not of the series and dumb type. They’re usually humorous. Like people misunderstanding Huan Zhong’s and Kong Hou’s actions of sending fish home – they’re just sending random fish, but it turns out to be super expensive and precious fish. Or people think they’re lovers, wait no they’re not, no wait they are. Even they misunderstand their feelings towards each other before they finally come together. It’s a con because I usually hate misunderstandings that aren’t quickly resolved, but it’s not too bad in this series.

-The last thirty or so chapters were a slog. First you have to read a ton of PDA between the two lovers. You’re so handsome, kiss kiss, you’re so beautiful, hug hug, I love you. Then all kinds of characters come out of nowhere with their centuries-old romance that gets dragged up, then there’s a long period of separation, blah blah, finally the confrontation with the final boss, THEN the end. Seriously tedious stuff.

Pros:
– It’s a slow romance, but it’s not really that slow. Most of the time I dread series with the “slow romance” tag because either the characters meet at a very young age and take forever to get together, or they meet once and then only very very sporadically until poof, suddenly they’re in love. In Ascending, Do Not Disturb, the characters meet early, start travelling together, and have lots and lots of interactions that show them getting closer. That means it’s not a mystery what they see in each other or what brought them together like it often is in other series.

– The characters support, respect and care for each other throughout the series with only one big conflict, which is quickly resolved. This isn’t one of those series where they bicker and banter and hate each other until suddenly they don’t. You won’t have to feel bad rooting for a nutcase married to a doormat like often happens.

– It’s short and complete at 158 chapters. That’s my kind of series. The chapters are also long and meaty, none of this “dividing one chapter into 3 for more views” nonsense. None of that reading 2000 chapters only for the author to drop the series nonsense. Plus because it’s short, the story is also focused – gather ingredients to cure Xuan Zhong, and develops rapidly.

– It’s clean. By clean I mean no sexual assault (kissing or holding a character against their will), no rape or attempted rape, no dumb aphrodisiac storylines, no other sexual content. It takes the main characters a long while to even hold hands, and then everyone’s like “GASP! THEY’RE HOLDING HANDS!!!!” I’m occasionally blindsided by series that start out normal and eventually turn into smut, like The Lady’s Sickly Husband, or that one with the runaway ninja. They should tell you upfront if that’s the case. Happily enough, Ascending, Do Not Disturb is suitable for even young teens to read.

– It’s not all sugar and light. It’s mostly sweet , but there are dark undercurrents and some dangerous moments. These mainly revolve around evil cultivators who go around doing some pretty gnarly stuff, mainly to mortals but also to cultivators. It never descends into horror, but it does have some moments of danger.

-It’s mainly a romance series, but it does have a decent amount of cultivation discussion and action. It’s not one of those “female cultivator” series where she either doesn’t see the guy for 1000 chapters because she’s too busy adventuring, or one of those where she immediately abandons her sect to chase a guy. There’s a mix of everything that was promised when you read a romance cultivation manga, so that’s great.

-Shoutout to the translators at Dreams of Jianghu for an excellent translation that was very smooth and easy to read. I deplore the current trend of people publishing unedited or barely edited machine translation for quick views and cash. This is a well-made and edited translation that made the reading experience much more pleasant.

Summary

Ascending, Do Not Disturb is a short, fun romance manga with a loving, respectful relationship between the two main characters. In the world of Chinese web novels, it’s like a flower planted in a heap of manure, as the Chinese proverb goes. As I listed above, there are a number of problems with it, most notably Kong Hou’s Mary Sue nature and the sluggish nature of the last third.

If you want a good romance web novel, though, this is a satisfying read that will keep you busy for a few days in a row and leave you happy. Give it a try if that’s your thing!

The Banished Villainess’ Husband web novel chapter 2 (retranslated) + thoughts

The Banished Villainess’ Husband chapter 2 (retranslated)

An explanation of what this series is about and how/why I came to be retranslating the first two chapters can be found in the previous post on the topic. An explanations of my thoughts about it and why I dropped it after a few chapters (not that I had any intention of doing the full thing) follows after the chapter.
Author: Komori Kiri
Raw link: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n8287fp/

Chapter 2: Banishment
“So anyway, the Prime Minister is completely furious, right? He’s gotta be.”
“Yeah. That’s why…”
“That’s why you want me to marry her and go along with her?”

A desperate measure that satisfies the desires of the King, the Prime Minister and Alephaldo all at once.
Haha, it’s so ironic that it’s almost funny.
Mm, today’s tea is as tasty as ever~.

“More tea.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Fran! Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Well you’re just a count, so we don’t have a choice, do we? So yeah, okay, I’ll do it.”
“Y-you sound so flippant about it!”
“Welp, time to go pack~”
“… …”

After finishing my second cup of tea, I returned to my room and packed my things.
I understand my father’s concerns, but we have no other choice so we can only obey.
And to be honest… I was a little happy inside.

Lady Elana is the daughter of a duke. She’s way out of my league. Even if I proposed, she would never marry me because I would probably not be the head of my family. What’s more, she was (Lord) Alephaldo’s fiancée. Even calling it a one-sided crush was a stretch…

“…~♪”

That’s why I hummed a little song to myself as I packed my things and left the house.
Father and Mother looked rather conflicted as they saw me off, but my little brothers were still small so they bawled out loud. At least my brother Rooth was too old for that and he was somewhat aware of the situation, so he tried to hold back his tears, but…

“Y-you can come home from time to time, okay?”
“Yeah no, that’s impossible.”
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“H-hey, Rooth! You’re a boy. You’re too old to be wailing like that!”

I waved away their cute farewells with a smile, climbed into the carriage and headed to Lady Elana’s mansion.
Looking at Father, it seemed he had accepted our fate.
The servants at Lady Elana’s mansion seemed resigned to it as well. I could tell because even though they couldn’t hide their mixed feelings, they showed me to the reception room right away.

“Ohh! Eufran!”
“Good morning Mr. Prime Minister~”

The Prime Minister was the first to come in. His face looked so murderous that I almost spat out the black tea I’d been served.

“I was moved! By your gallant figure last night! Please take good care of my daughter!”
“(His face is too close!)… Haha, well, I’m sorry you had to settle for me, but I’ll do my best~.”
“Waahhhh~~~! I wish I could punch my past self! For laughing and thinking your report was some kind of joke! My daughter! Please take care of my daughter!”
“All right.”
“…”

Oh, he means the report where I said that Lady Rifanna had won everyone over. Well even I would have found that hard to believe. I smiled and nodded to say yes. I don’t have any special talents, and my family is just above average. I won’t be able to give her a life as luxurious as her current one, but…

“I’ll do my very best~.”
“*sob*!”
“Umm, so, could you release my hands, Your Excellency~? And your face is too close… And could you wipe your tears with your handkerchief?
“You’re such! A kind young man! Really!”
“Whoa, this is the first time anyone’s told me that.”

Maybe the Prime Minister has lost his marbles after overcoming his anger yesterday.

“…Compared to you, Prince Alephaldo… He sure did a fine job abandoning that engagement! He even completed all the procedures last night!”

What? Wouldn’t both houses normally have to discuss it first?
Wait, or did he involve the Guardian Dragon? He’s good at that sort of thing, isn’t he?

“And on top of that, he’s throwing her out of the country the very day after canceling the engagement!”
“…”
“It’s too much! It’s just too much for my poor Elana!”
“Well… it is rather sudden…”

Did he get the Dragon involved in that as well?
You sure are a handy weapon to have, Mr. Guardian Dragon.

“Mr. Prime Minister, as far as I know, neither Lady Elana nor any of the fiancées of the prince’s friends ever bullied Lady Rifanna.”
“What? What… did you say?”
“Please investigate as carefully as you can. Your daughter isn’t that kind of person. Please believe in her.”
“… … Eu-Eufran!!!”
“Gweh!”

I’ve given up on getting his face away from mine.
As he murmured in my ear, he hugged my neck tighter and tighter… I’m choking…
I’m gonna die.
I don’t wanna die in the arms of an old man.

“M-Master, the young mistress…”
“Huh, what?”
“…”

Someone was looking down at me with an extremely suspicious gaze.
Uh-oh.

“A-a-ahem! Elana… take care of your health, you hear?”
“Y-yes… Thank you for taking care of me, Father and Mother.”
“…”

Lady Elana’s mother wordlessly wiped her tears away with a handkerchief. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister turned his back on her… yup, I have a full view of his ugly crying mug…
She’s their beloved only daughter, after all. All she had was a single suitcase. I picked it up and offered her my hand. She obediently placed her hand in mine.
Whoops, that was close.
I almost smiled there.

“…I apologize for getting you involved in this.”

She said with a gloomy look after we left the house. We loaded the carriage with our luggage, then I opened the door for her, took her hand and helped her climb into the carriage and signaled the coachman with my eye to set off.

Up to that point I hadn’t replied to her. Once the carriage set off, I began to study her carefully.
She was in an extremely understated dark brown one-piece dress with a decorative hat. Jade-green hair with eyes like a calm ocean. Doesn’t she want to ask where we’re going next or what’s going to happen to us?

“You’re pretty quiet now, aren’t you? You were so bold and outspoken yesterday.”
“Y-yesterday… yesterday was my… big moment, that’s why!”
“Hmm, is that right.”
“W-what is your problem?! What is with that frivolous attitude after I went so far as to apologize? Sh-shouldn’t you be comforting me?!”
“Since you’re not depressed, you don’t need comforting, do you ?”
“Urgh…”

Huh, she’s much livelier than I’d thought. That’s good.
As long as her spirits are up, we’ll manage somehow.

“Well, enough about that…”

“W-what is it?”
“Let’s talk about our next move. Did the Prime Minister… did your father tell you anything?”
“No… nothing. Last night, orders came from the palace for me to leave the country today, but that’s all.”
“I heard about it this morning.”
“W-what?!”

When I laughed out loud, she scolded me: “This is no laughing matter!”
I’m so glad she’s in high spirits.

“Anyway, that means we’re in this carriage with no fixed destination in mind.”
“Are you serious?!”
“…Not entirely.”
“Which is it?!”
“Actually, I have a relative who married someone who lives near the border in the next country. I was planning to go through them to find someplace to live.”
“Oh!”
“If they can put us up for a while until that’s arranged, we’ll be able to get by as long as we have a roof over our heads. However it’s quite a distant relation, so they might very well refuse. If they do, we’ll just have to start our lives there by carrying our luggage and begging the commoners to rent us a place. What do you say? Sounds like we have a delightful future ahead of us, right?”
“~~! S-should you be laughing when you say that?”
“At any rate we won’t be able to live the way we used to. That much is for certain.”
“…”

When I grinned cheerfully at her, her shoulders suddenly drooped dejectedly.
For some reason she muttered “I’m sorry” again with her head down.
Why?

“No, I don’t mind. It seems like fun, really. But this must be rough on you, seeing as you’re a duke’s daughter and all.”
“Oh! I-I am fine!”
“Oh really? In other words, you’re prepared to suffer quite a bit?”
“Y…yes… but, umm, you’re…”
“I told you, it looks like fun so I don’t mind.”
“Looks like fun, he says…”

Just being together with you is exciting.
Man, this is a real problem.
You just never know how it’s going to turn out in life. To think the one-sided love I didn’t think stood a chance in this lifetime would actually come true~.

“I don’t have to be ordered around any longer, I don’t have to be mixed up in pointless power struggles either… I’ve been really busy these days, so I can think of it as finally getting some rest.”

Plus I get to be with Lady Elana. This is the best. Since Alephaldo made such a grand announcement about marrying Lady Rifanna, there’s no way he’ll try to get Lady Elana back. Our marriage papers must have been filed with the state by now. It’s a marriage that my father, the guardian of the law, plotted together with the Prime Minister and King to arrange. The procedures will all be completed today, I’m sure.
Along with the suspension of our rights as citizens. They probably won’t go as far as to strip them entirely. Even though they’re acting like we’ve lost both our citizenship and our court ranks, once they find out she’s innocent, they will recall her. Naturally I’ll be able to go back as well, but I’d rather live peacefully with her in the next country. Being a central national figure is nothing but a pain in the ass.

Alephaldo and his “school friends” do nothing but boss me around, after all.
Well guys, good luck making it on your own from now on.
We’ll do our best over here as well.
That’s all.

“You’re such an optimist…”
“It can’t get any worse. Probably.”
“I hope you’re right.”

Two hours passed as we chatted like this.

“We have arrived at the border.”
“Thanks~”
“Excuse me?”
“Well then, young master… I umm, I’m really…”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. It’ll work out somehow. Thanks for driving us. Say hi to my father and the Prime Minister for us.”
“What?”
“Yes sir… Well then…”
“*neeeigh!*”
“…Huh?”

We got out of the carriage once we arrived at the border. We had two suitcases to our names, and I had my beloved horse.

“…Eh?”
“Well, time for a fun walk. Lady Elana, can you ride a horse?”
“Huh? What? …Ehhhh?”
“What?”

What’s wrong?

“W-wait… Please wait a moment, Lord Eufran… Umm, a walk?”

“Hmm? Lady Elana, if you can ride a horse then just get up on Lucy. She’ll be carrying our luggage as well, so we can’t both ride her.”
“Umm… I can’t ride a horse.”
“You’ll have to walk then. Here’s our luggage, Lucy.”
“*whinny*”
“Umm…”

Lucy is my beloved horse. I got her as a birthday present when I was young. We brought her along by having her join the carriage horses. My dad gruffly sent her off with me, saying that it would be impossible to walk all the way to the next country, so we’d have to take my horse part of the way. It sure is nice to have her. She’s a horse for riding and hunting, not a pack horse, but having her around still makes a huge difference.

“Um… are you serious? We’re…. seriously… walking?”
“Yup, walking. And we’ll probably spend the night out in the fields too!”
“… …”

I gave her a thumbs up with a grin. Lady Elana looked completely depressed. 30 seconds later, she whispered, “Please let me ride the hose after all,” so I put her on Lucy and began to walk. Before long, the sky began to darken.

We found a wide place near the road to sit, made a rough fire pit with some stones and put in some sticks I had picked up. I brought matches, so I set fire to dried leaves and small branches to create a camp fire.

“Would you like some jerky?”
“…I’ll eat it.”

Haha, her face is completely lifeless.
Well, that’s only natural.

“Want a blanket?”
“Yes… please.”

I took a thin blanket from the bag and handed it to her. I knew she would be new to this kind of thing, but she seems to have suffered quite a shock. As the only daughter of a duke, she probably never thought the day would come when she would sleep outdoors.

I munched on some jerky and tended the fire.
Lady Elana stared at the fire as she chewed her jerky without a word.

End of chapter 2

Thoughts on why The Banished Villaness’ Husband doesn’t make a lick of sense, and thus I dropped it after just three chapters.

As I said after chapter 1, the whole premise is off. The beloved only daughter of a duke wouldn’t immediately be married to a random stranger just because she got dumped in public. That would only be adding insult to injury. The answer to “my daughter got dumped” is not “force her to marry the first guy who comes along.” It’s just too stupid and speaks ill of the intelligence of all the characters in the series.
It’s even worse because nobody says that she has to be banished alone. In other words, Elana’s next fiance doesn’t have to be Eufran and the marriage doesn’t have to be right away. If she needs bodyguards and servants, the combined strengths of the Prime Minister and King should be more than able to provide enough protection for her before she leaves the country.
That realization makes chapter 2 even dumber. Why should the Prime Minister’s daughter, the daughter of a duke, sleep outside and eat beef jerky? With at least 12 hours notice of the banishment, and with the border being only 2 hours away, that was more than enough time to appoint companions, pack proper equipment, set up waystations and camp sites where she can rest, arrange for accommodation in the next country, contact the relative who lives there, etc. Naturally you can’t march a large army into the next country, but enough servants and guards to fit in two or three carriages is well within the realm of reason.
Just in case an explanation was provided in a later chapter, I went ahead and checked chapters 3 and 4. They do explain why the dragon is so important that everyone has to bow down to Rifanna, but nothing is said about why the Prime Minister’s daughter must sleep on the ground and fill her belly with dried meat, why she can’t have servants, why a horse-drawn carriage can’t cross a border (some stuff is said about magic dragon scales powering stuff, but they shouldn’t affect animals). Lazy writing at its weakest.
It’s also quite unbelievable that Eufran sent a report about Lady Rifanna to the King, the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice, they all thought it was a joke, they all didn’t notice how close Rifanna was getting to the Crown Prince even though they’re two of the most important persons in the country… really? How can they set him as a spy over the Prince and then not believe what he says? If they think Eufran is so stupid as to joke about something like that, why would they trust him with Lady Elana’s life? It beggars belief.
My final objection is less about the story, more about the lead character Eufran. It pisses me off how gleeful he is about getting to marry the Crown Prince’s ex-fiancee. A woman he loves, but who barely knew he existed and who certainly didn’t have any feelings for him. And it becomes clearer as the chapters go that he didn’t even know her well, he just liked her looks. His impression was of someone who was prideful and selfish, and he was looking forward to taking her down a peg. What a creep! And what about her state of mind? What about what she wants? Nobody cares. It reminds me of this viral picture of a creepy Chinese man marrying a disgusted-looking Uyghur woman:

Dunno how I’m supposed to enjoy something like this. The story is dumb and the main character is creepy. Two chapters is enough to know where to stop.