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Beloved by the Male Lead’s Nephew manhwa – Nonsensical but very charming (some spoilers)

Manga / Manhwa / Manhwa is a largely visual medium, so it follows that lovely art and designs go a long way towards giving a series popularity. I firmly maintain that Solo Leveling wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular as it is without the slick art.

And the same goes for Beloved by the Male Lead’s Nephew, a romance series with a largely senseless plot that is all over the place, but with art that is so nice that fans are willing to forget everything and just revel in the art. I mean, look at the very first page:

Sasha-kun, so cuuuuute! So cute I almost forgot to include a summary of the series.

After being reborn as a stalker villainess destined to die for trying to kill Archduke Calix Elluiden’s lover, Charlize Lienta fled from the capital to stay away from the archduke at all costs. But her plan goes awry when she returns a year later and rescues a poor boy on the streets… because he turns out to be Sasha, Calix’s long-lost nephew! Given her infamous reputation as Calix’s stalker, will Charlize succeed in returning Sasha without raising the archduke’s suspicions?

…Of course she will. Okay, basically you should throw all logic out of the window and check your brain in at the door when you read Beloved by the Male Lead’s Nephew. In the first place, the timeline isn’t clear. At first she says the world she is in is from a novel where “Charlize” was executed as a villain. But then we get a flashback to her past life and she was a poor orphan in a medieval era who presumably never learned to read. So when and where did she read the novel?

And at what point did she become “Charlize”? At first it seems to be recent, but then she talks about being in the academy together with Callix. Has she been in the world for a while but unable to control her actions, or did she just reincarnate into Charlize’s body but somehow their memories have merged into one?

There’s a lot that suggests that Charlize is an unreliable narrator – for one thing, she says in chapter one the original Charlize was executed, but then she later remembers committing suicide. She claims that Charlize was an unwanted stalker who never spoke to Callix in the novel, but then remembers that they spoke once and original Charlize never forgot it. Plus in recent chapters, it seems original Charlize’s affections weren’t completely unwanted after all…?

Stop thinking so hard and just focus on Charlize’s ultra-long nails that change color with her outfits. I love them so much!

Honestly, the thought that all this timey-wimey stuff will make sense one day (and the gorgeous art) is what encourages me to keep reading, because the rest of the story is all over the place and makes no sense. First Sasha is the legitimate prince and is supposed to take his place on the throne… but nothing happens and the usurper is still there, scheming against him (or actually doing nothing and the Empress does all the scheming). What’s the delay? Why a delay? First he’s confirmed to be the late Emperor’s son, then there’s an artifact that says otherwise, then no, actually the artifact was reacting to his divine power… it’s a huge mess.

Speaking of divine power and messes, there’s a divine beast that forms a contract with Sasha and supposed to protect him… then it suddenly loses all its powers off-screen and is reduced to a stone which is tossed in a lake and only shows up once to be a deus ex machina. What even is the point of its existence?

And speaking of more powers and messes, Charlize has the power to see flashes of the future when she looks into Callix’s eyes…? Or gets closer to him? She also experiences it with a side character, but it happens once and never again, another mystery. The plot is powered by these flashses, where Charlize sees something, works to prevent it, sees something else, etc. But the power has yet to be explained and is just kinda… there. I’m sure they’ll tell us why she has these powers eventually. Maybe.

I already mentioned the ineffectual Emperor and Empress who have their own thing going on, but mainly do… not very much to anyone. The Empress is easily fooled by the fakest acting even though Charlize has thwarted her plans over and over and over again by “coincidentally” being in the right place at the right now. The Emperor is presumably usurping the throne but barely appears and doesn’t seem aware of the Empress’s plans. He’s just kinda… there.

The Empress is in a hurry to have an heir, but that’s pointless until she gets rid of Sasha, but she doesn’t try very hard to get rid of him, just minor things like pushing him into a lake (where you can’t drown because it’s magic) and setting up a fake artifact. She rather spends her time terrorizing minor nobles… I told you, it’s a mess. I like her design though. The art really carries this series.

Okay, so we established that Sasha the nephew is adorable, Charlize has something interesting going on in her backstory, the villains are a joke, the story is a wash… what am I leaving out? Aha, the romance! And the male love interest! It’s easy to leave him out because while he is very handsome and a very nice guy (no yandere stalkers here), he’s also very flat and boring. But boring is good when it comes to manhwa male leads. Some of them can be completely insane, so a relatively normal guy is lovely. It’s just that he really needs to not be so passive because there’s a lot going on around his passive, good-looking head.

Seriously, he doesn’t really do much except dote on Sasha and be nice to Charlize every chance he gets. I’m very interested in Callix’s relationship to the original Charlize in the previous timeline. He seemed to merely tolerate her stalking out of pity for an abused girl who was pushing everyone away. But later on he seemed to feel more than pity for her. And we get a flashback showing he was crushed at her death, but was it because of love or just more pity? Will the series ever address that, or am I hoping for too much?

I’d also like to see what he plans to do with Sasha, because as of chapter 42 he just spoils him rotten at home. Which is cute, but doesn’t get us anywhere. I’m guessing he wishes he could just keep him safe and let him grow up as an ordinary child, but unfortunately the Empress won’t allow that. That’s why Callix needs to take a stronger stance about pushing for the Emperor to step down and Sasha to take the throne. But no, he would rather go on playdates and slowly get closer to present Charlize… Yeah aight, you do you, I guess.

TL;DR Beloved by the Male Lead’s Nephew is a series you read when you want to go “awwww,” and “kawaiii” and just have fun without thinking about things too much. I think it’s called “fluff,” though most fluffy romances do attempt to make sense. Also read it when you want to see nice art. I love Charlize’s nails, though fans have mixed feelings about those talons, haha. If I read to the end – and I have no intention of quitting anytime soon – I’ll write a follow up post explaining how things turned out. Until then!

Small Shop Owner in the 60s Chinese webnovel review (spoilers)

You ever read a romance web novel for dozens and dozens of chapters, only for the translations to run out just when the male lead confesses to the protagonist? No? Then you haven’t read Small Shop Owner in the 60s (六十年代小店主), and you’re better off for it.

Summary:

Xu Nannan, the owner of a Taobao shop, wakes up and becomes a rural girl Xu Nannan in the 1960s.

Every day they only eat a wild vegetable chaff dumpling. Working from dawn to night, she carry a hoe and went to the field to exchange for workpoints.

Fortunately, her Taobao shop followed her back to the 1960s, and she was finally able to do some sideline work. (Novelupdates)

I mentioned last time that there wasn’t enough face-slapping in Raising Babies in the 70s, which reduces half of the fun of reading back-to-the-past Chinese novels (of which there are many, many). Usually the setup is for them to introduce truly infuriating family members, neighbors and in-laws, whip up the reader’s outrage and then deliver catharsis in the form of consequences, or verbal/physical beatdowns. It’s a satisfying formula when done right, and indeed the soap opera, dare I say much of entertainment, revolves around unpleasant people getting their due comeuppance.

If that’s what you want, Small Shop Owner in the 60s delivers in copious quantities, slowly ramping up from small infractions to much more serious ones. But at the same time there’s a healthy (?) mix of bad and good people, so it’s not a complete crapsack world where everyone is out to get the female lead and her sister.

For example her immediate family is cold, greedy and scheming, and many of the villagers are indifferent, but the main authority figure is reasonable, there is a kind family that helps them, and when they report serious issues to bigger authories, action is taken swiftly and thoroughly.

In fact, on the balance of things there are more good and helpful people than bad ones. The first people she tries to sell illegal milk powder to turns out to be so honest and friendly that he and his wife even adopt Xu Nannan and her sister. Her first boss loves her so much he takes her under his wing, and almost all of her co-workers love her. She never gets caught or into trouble for black market dealings or buying antiques, and so on and so forth.

However the scumminess, clinginess and sheer persistence of the antagonists, particularly Grandma Xu and the rest of the Xu family, more than make up for the niceness of the other characters. They prevent the series from being too saccharine sweet and ensure that we get regular doses of face-slapping scenes to keep our morale high.

Now, on to the romance. In a change from the usual, Xu Nannan doesn’t magically wake up with a husband, and indeed the male lead (Lin Qingbai) doesn’t show up until like 50 chapters in, maybe more. And neither character instantly falls in love with the other, but rather they start out with a friendliness that develops into something deeper as they keep finding excuses to spend time together.

The male lead Lin Qingbai is not the usual cold, unapproachable face-paralysis kind of guy either. He is a bit distant from the ladies compared to his disgusting playboy brother, but that is appropriate for the times. And he can smile, he can laugh, he has normal emotions, he doesn’t touch her inappropriately, he doesn’t get violently possessive when other guys show interest in her, he doesn’t try to restrict her movements, he doesn’t fantasize about locking her up… man, when did my bar for male leads get so low?

Random picture of couple on bikes because Lin Qingbai woos Xu Nannan by picking her up on his bike.

The main downside is that he smokes. Normal for the times, but really icky. Also the 10-year age gap is off-putting not because of its size but because she’s 17 and he’s 27, and the difference in maturity is a bit much. 27 and 37 would be a-okay. Plus he comes with an annoying family, especially his brother, but then again so does she (and how!).

In all, it’s a healthy and relatively fast-moving romance, which is helped along by the prevailing attitude of the 60s, which held no truck with this “male friend/female friend” stuff. As soon as you guys are seen together more than a few times, everyone starts asking when the wedding is.

And so, after being together for a while, others start asking questions and Xu Nannan tries to put some distance between them. But then she misses him terribly, she runs into him with his family, he introduces her as his “partner” and takes her away. Then he asks… “So do you agree?” … AND THEN THE TRANSLATIONS END BEFORE WE CAN HEAR HER ANSWER!!!! NOOOOOOO! No updates since August 2021 is just too cruel :’-<

I always worry about the translator/site owner in such cases. Anything can happen to any of us at any time, after all. The cause of a sudden translation stop can range from benign or even positive (won the lottery and moved to an island resort) to very bad. Fans can always machine-translate the rest of the series (in fact the “translation” of Small Shop Owner in the 60s is barely-cleaned machine translation anyway) but a life can’t come back. Stay safe, wherever you are.

So as I said in the beginning paragraph, we get a build up to a confession and then nothing unless you want to MTL the rest. Which I can’t be bothered to do because raw MTL hurts my brain. Engines like DeepL have made great progress, but it’s still hard to read. It’s easy to figure out that Xu Nannan and Lin Qingbai will marry and live happily ever after, but what about all the side characters?

From Novelupdates reviews, I learned that Lin Qingsong rapes Xu Hong and gets away with it, and that Xu Nannan’s birth parents get divorced and her mother dies miserably in poverty, but what about everyone else? The Xu grandparents? Liu Qiao and her scheming daughter Xu Meizi? Xu Nannan’s neglected sister Xu Ling? Her mine worker friends? Teacher He? Etc etc. I’m quite curious, but I already decided to put the series behind me, so I’ll just paper that curiosity over with the next series and move on.

I recommend Small Shop Owner in the 60s if you want a balance of characters and drama in your face-slapping novel. Not too crazy, not too boring. Also if you want non-pushy actually kind of decent male leads because the bar is set in hell these days.

Lastly, a word on the “twist” in this series, which is that Xu Nannan has access to her Taobao (think eBay or Amazon) shop and can buy and sell things there. This does not make as much of a difference as you would expect, mainly because a 15 year old girl splashing around large sums of cash would attract all kinds of questions and lead to horrible consequences.

The level of scrutiny and lack of privacy in those days also means she can’t buy or sell anything too modern, or even use such things in her personal life. However the shop does play a role because taking out useful items like milk powder here and there helps her befriend her benefactors, and more importantly keeps her and her sister from starving to death before they finally get out of the Xu family’s clutches.

So if you’re expecting some dramatic business shenanigans with the Taobao shop, nah, at least not at chapter 89 where translations stopped. The female lead doesn’t use her ability to shop from the future to buy history books and find out what’s going to happen next either, though she does stockpile antiques. It’s implied that she’s avoiding standing out too much or rising too high because of the Cultural Revolution that is coming in 1966-76 (I’d find a way to escape to Hong Kong if I were her), but either way she doesn’t do anything too flashy in the chapters I read. Just FYI.

I Just Want to Freeload on Your Luck – chinese web novel review (dropped)

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.

Update on False Confession (Korean manhwa) – Still going nowhere fast, spoilers up to chapter 64

Long title, but it summarizes everything I want to say about False Confession even after it came back from a long hiatus. You can refer to my first post about False Confession, in which I said it was promising but sluggish and not satisfying because of the extremely long-drawn out pace. 18 months and several chapters later, my opinion remains the same.

Even worse, the previously nice art has devolved significantly, especially in the case of the hero Cavert, so it is much harder to get excited about the future of the relationship. You can talk all you like about lookism and egalitarianism, but it still remains a fact that beautiful people attract more eyeballs than plainer ones.

Fans of the series are already familiar with the premise. If you keep reading regardless, you have to get used to the way things are in False Confession instead of wishing it was something else. There are other series with more decisive heroines or more attractive male leads, better art, faster paces, etc. That’s why this will be my last time whining about a series I choose to read, and one that has clearly shown that it is a deliberately slow and meandering and wishy-washy series.

But since this is my last time whining, and I’m gonna have a good and proper whine. Priestess Renesha is soooooo annoying! They might as well have titled the series, “Renesha learns to say no,” because eventually she will learn to express herself clearly, but for now it is super irritating.

She doesn’t love Cavert. She has some affection for him, and there’s some part of her that feels she should like him because he’s so obviously into her, but no, she doesn’t like him yet, much less love him. It’s only at chapter 64 that she claims to have some sort of romantic feelings for him, but it’s more because she was frustrated he didn’t kiss her than any other reason.
Nevertheless, because of her inability to clearly say no or turn anyone down, she is stringing him along and giving him false hope. This is by her own admission, that she is just going with the flow until some other lady appears for him. But how will any other lady appear when you are firmly occupying the “lady” seat, going on dates with him, visiting his home, being his escort to parties, etc? It’s just cruel.

She keeps entertaining the shady Prince Elviniraz even though she can tell he’s up to no good. She does this because she’s still attracted to him and flattered by his offer of an affair (she says otherwise but it’s obvious) so you have to watch this girl officially date Cavert but get all blushy and flustered around Elvin. Pick one, girl. Or pick neither. Or heck, both. But PICK!!!
The rest of the story isn’t going anywhere fast either. The Imperial family is still being shady and trying to recruit Renee. An unspecified threat is out there in the world and there’s going to be an expedition (yes, another) but at the rate it’s going it will take till 2025 for them to go. Meh.
Even worse, another expedition will mean having to watch Renee in close proximity with Prince Elviniraz again, acting all confused and upset when he flirts with her, then all weepy and trembly when Cavert confronts her. It was annoying enough the first time so I am not looking forward to a second dose.

TL;DR False Confession is irritatingly slow. The romance isn’t going anywhere fast, the rest of the story isn’t going anywhere, the art has dropped in quality and is getting worse. I actually worry about the health of the artist, especially after what happened to the Solo Levelling artist. There isn’t any reason for me to follow this regularly.

That said, as I already mentioned, there are all kinds of series out there even in the genre of isekai romance with magic and politics. Some may like a faster pace, some like Mary Sues, some like more flawed characters with more room for character development. I’m not sure what group I fall into, but I do know I get pretty impatient with slow series, so I think False Confession will be one of those series I catch up on once a year and binge-read. That’s for the best.

The Evil Lady will Change – Refreshingly sensible romance

I discovered that despite the Chinese raws, The Evil Lady will Change (恶女会改变) is actually a manhua based on a Korean web novel. That explains so much about the sheer decency of all the characters in it. This isn’t to say that all Chinese romance series have rapey male leads or comically evil female rivals, but… a LOT of them do. Enough that many fans reading The Evil Lady will Change were like “Wait… is this really a Chinese series?” It’s that surprising.

Summary:

Athanasia Cloix, a woman whose elegance and beauty is akin to that of a swan lake. Due to some rumors, however, people began to misunderstand and belittle her. As she suffered through these unfortunate events, she agreed to a political marriage with the Winter-comer who’s also known as the “Northern Monster”.

“As the Grand Duke, I will do my best to accommodate your needs and desires. But love alone is something I can’t give to you.” Unbeknownst to her, that very man will change her life and thus a new fate is about to unfold.

Yeah, you know the drill. Neither you nor I have ever read a series with an arranged marriage or “we definitively won’t fall in love” relationship where the main leads actually succeeded in not falling love. It’s a foregone conclusion, so the issue becomes watching the process instead.

The huge plus in The Evil Lady will Change is that both leads have very decent personalities, to the point of being Mary/Gary Sues. Athanasia (a.k.a. Aisha) is competent, kind and friendly, same with Ryan. They treat each other respectfully and maturely with no childish bickering or arguing. This isn’t one of those series where you’ll wonder what they see in each other.

As a double plus, they aren’t excessively dense about their feelings either. Yes, it does take them a little bit of time to realize their “won’t fall in love” pact is hokum, but once they do, it doesn’t take long for them to confess to each other and deepen their relationship after that.

What’s more, there are no credible love rivals wasting large swathes of chapters trying to make a relationship happen when it’s not going to. Both Aisha and Ryan have previous crushes which have helped shaped their personalities but which they have also firmly moved past. I enjoyed seeing Ryan put his old flame firmly in her place before she could even try something with Aisha/Athanasia. None of that nonsensical “maybe he still loves her and I’m still in the way” crap that some series spend ages on.

All this to say that The Evil Lady will Change is a great read if you want a refreshing romance with mature and sensible characters in a mature and sensible relationship. I hear there’s a happy ending as well, though that’s par for the course in these series.

Unfortunately there’s no perfect series in the world. There are a few downsides to this series, one of which is the terribly spotty quality of the translations. Which isn’t the source material’s fault, but is still a flaw anyway. I already explained at length how unfair a bad translation is to a good series, so you can refer to that post if you’re curious.

The second, bigger flaw is that the story doesn’t make a ton of sense. Part of it is the bad translation, but even accounting for that, it takes a while to get some clarity on what a “winter breaker” is, what the Arundi is, what winter actually works like in the series and why it needs to be sealed? unsealed? To be honest I still don’t fully get the plot or what the bad guys are trying to achieve and why. The series doesn’t focus on the main plot often enough, is the problem. So you’ll get a satisfying romance but everything else going on in the series will be ???

The final thing that bothers me is the disappearance of Aisha’s dumb little sister she was constantly compared to. I’m sure she’ll appear again eventually, but I miss her. She was so clueless and hateable and it was fun to see her true colors being recognized by everyone once Aisha wasn’t around to serve as a foil. Well I’m only at chapter 90, so she might show up again later. There are hints that something sinister was behind the excessive love she received from others before.

I’ll update this post once The Evil Lady will Change is complete, but for now it’s a satisfying romance to read with a couple you can really root for because they’re so decent. And eventually the story will make sense and we’ll get to see Aisha and Ryan save the world and live happily ever after. I’m looking forward to it!