web novel Archives - Animefangirl!

Real Missy Relies on Food to Counterattack Chinese web novel review (ending spoilers)

Last time I wrote about a heroine who wasn’t originally human. Turns out that’s a whole genre of Chinese romantic web novels, and I quickly found another one in the same line. Real Missy Relies on Food to Counterattack has a heroine, Tang Qiaoqiao, who was originally… a cooking ladle in a cultivation sect’s kitchen! I can’t make this up… but someone already did!

Summary (condensed from Novelupdates):

She is an ancient profound iron ladle from the cultivation realm. Tang Qiaoqiao has good cooking skills. She cooks on one show and also on the next show. While filming, she also works part-time as a chef in the crew. She has become popular.

Shen Yue was paralyzed after a car accident. His temperament changed drastically, and his life seemed to fall into the boundless darkness. At this time, she was the only light in his life. Not only she healed his legs, captured his stomach, but also occupied his heart.

What, if his legs are cured, they will get divorced? Don’t even think about it!

There you have it. Tang Qiaoqiao takes over the body of a mediocre C-rank starlet who also happened to be the “real” daughter of the Tang family versus the “fake” daughter Tang Rou. All that AND she happened to marry the usual cold CEO Shen Yue even though the original Tang Qiaoqiao was in love with Shen Liang, who is Shen Yue’s nephew and also Tang Rou’s boyfriend.

Sounds like the perfect setup for a dog’s blood drama, right? Nope! The full series is very short, at 101 chapters plus 1 side story, and in that time, almost none of the things you would expect from this kind of family drama occur. BTW you can read the full thing as a cleaned-up machine translation with videos and pictures of the food at Pure Love Translations.

Anyway, like I said, no dog blood drama despite the over-the-top setup. Firstly, there’s very little tension with the Tang family. I’ve written before about hating the trope with the “real” daughter coming back later and the family having to choose between her and the “fake” daughter.

In Real Missy‘s case, the Tang family comes down firmly on the side of the “fake” Tang Rou. Meanwhile Tang Qiaoqiao is not even human any more, and what happened to the original Tang Qiaoqiao is never addressed. Therefore, the Tang family doesn’t want her, and she doesn’t want them either. There’s one short showdown and everyone sensibly decides to leave the other party alone, the end.

Secondly, nothing happens between Shen Liang and Tang Qiaoqiao because again they’re not interested in each other. Shen Liang comes to love and enjoy Qiaoqiao’s cooking just like everyone else does, but the relationship stops there, if nothing else because he’s terrified of his uncle Shen Yue. Without Tang Qiaoqiao to serve a foil inflaming their passions, Shen Liang and Tang Rou quickly fizzle out as a couple. He’s focused on trying to make it as a star, so he loses interest in her when she tries to leak their secret relationship. Eventually she moves abroad with the rest of the Tang family and they disappear from the series forever.

Thirdly, there’s no family drama on the Shen Yue side as well. Shen Yue’s mother takes an immediate liking to Tang Qiaoqiao (and her cooking) so no one objects to their relationship. The one sister-in-law (Shen Liang’s mother) who tries to be unpleasant is quickly put in her place by Qiaoqiao’s almighty cooking, while her husband is thoroughly cowed by Shen Yue’s cold demeanor and hyper-competence. The teased rivalry between the two brothers doesn’t go anywhere because Shen Yue simply lets go of the family business and starts his own which is even more successful, the end.

As you can detect from the above, Tang Qiaoqiao silencing rivals and making friends through her cooking is the whole theme of the book. They took the title Real Missy Relies on Food to Counterattack very literally. Her food is soooo good that absolutely everyone who tries it is won over, plus it even helps with stomach ailments, paralyzed legs and other minor diseases. She even starts growing her own vegetables which are somehow also the best things ever.

The chapters follow a predictable format where, as a minor star, Tang Qiaoqiao goes onto a set to film and show, ends up cooking, and wins everybody over including the audience and a growing army of fans. There’s also some comedy in there about how her original iron ladle nature makes her stronger than the average person, leading to the nickname “King Kong Barbie.” That part is actually pretty funny but doesn’t really go anywhere.

Okay, okay, but what about the romance between her and Shen Yue? Well… TBH Shen Yue is not a very nice guy. A combination of his despair over his paralysis coupled with his disgust with Tang Qiaoqiao (remember the original TQ was in love with his nephew) means that he is outright rude to her and verbally abusive for quite a ways into the novel. It’s hard to feel good about that until he starts softening up.

Luckily Tang Qiaoqiao is more focused on her cooking and acting than on winning his favor. Since she is not hurt by him but rather finds him amusing – especially how he can’t resist her food at all, that makes him a little less odious. And once he falls, like the typical novel CEO, he really falls hard and goes out of his way to sponsor and support her movie career without being overbearing about it.

He also confesses quite early but gives her the space and time to process her own feelings and decide if she reciprocates. Yes, this might be hard to believe, but he is not rapey at all. A little stalkerish, but not rapey. The bar for Chinese web novel CEOs is truly in hell.

Meanwhile Tang Qiaoqiao’s plan when she first became human was to cure Shen Yue through her magical cooking, and then divorce him for reasons that aren’t fully explained. Once Shen Yue cottons on to this idea, he does his best to woo her and succeeds, so she eventually changes her mind. They become a couple for real, have a cute little baby, Tang Qiaoqiao’s food and acting empires both take off spectacularly, and they all live happily ever after, the end.

Simply put, Real Missy Relies on Food to Counterattack is exactly what it says on the tin. The “real” daughter cooks her way through every single crisis and wins the day. No, it’s never explained how a cooking ladle came to life in a CEO novel. And due to her inheriting OG Tang Qiaoqiao’s memories, you never get the comedic hijinks that you normally get when a non-human has to deal with becoming human for the first time. Instead, Mary Sue the Super Cook just cooks for 102 chapters and gets her man, the end.

For all that, I actually really enjoyed the series. Last time, I said Lady of Fortune was boring because there was no drama. In Real Missy, that flaw is countered by the very short length, so that the whole thing is over by the time you start wondering, “Where is this going?” and receive the answer “Nowhere.” The food Tang Qiaoqiao makes also sounds and looks very delicious (I enjoyed the recipe videos the translators added) so this isn’t one of those series like My Fantastic Chef Wife where you come for the cooking and get served stale drama instead.

Recommended for anyone who wants a quick, heart-warming read without thinking too much.

Lady of Fortune, Jiao Niang Chinese web novel review

I haven’t read any Chinese romance web novels in a while. I enjoy the face-slapping and the romantic tension, but they were always kind of… rapey. Or full of over the top dog-blood drama. Or otherwise uncomfortable to read, either from the start or as the story developed.

I dreamed of a world where a Chinese romance would exist with no rapey prince/CEO and insane antagonists, and at last I found it in the form of Lady of Fortune, Jiao Niang. Even better, it’s complete and relatively short at 215 chapters including side stories.

Summary (condensed from NovelUpdates):

Ye Jiao, an ancient ginseng root, woke up to find herself already riding in a wedding sedan chair—a wedding meant to bring a sick groom good fortune.

Qi Yun was frail and sickly, plagued by an ill-fated birth chart and constantly hovering near death’s door. Yet after marrying Ye Jiao, his health began to miraculously improve.

Only then did they realize the luckiest person under heaven was actually his own wife…

Just because it’s complete doesn’t mean I finished it, however. I stopped around chapter 64 firstly because I ran out of the better translations and had to switch to brain-melting machine translations, and secondly because the main character Ye Jiao got pregnant, and romance series always decline for me when babies come into the picture. Most readers seem to live for the precocious “little bun” scenes, but that’s where I lose interest unless I specifically signed up for a child-raising series, in which case the baby had better come early.

That said, I still highly recommend Lady of Fortune, Jiao Niang for any readers looking for a series full of positive and supportive relationships. It’s not just the one between Qi Yun and Ye Jiao: almost all the relationships in the series are positive. For example, their world is some alternative ancient China where almost no one has concubines. The Qi patriarch doesn’t have one, none of Ye Jiao’s acquaintances do, even the third prince they run into has only one wife. Improbable, yes, but it also reduces the drama and tension of a series set in ancient China by 70%. Happy (one) wife, happy life.

Meanwhile Qi Yun is, of course, appears to be the usual “cold to every one but sweet to my wife” character, but we quickly discover he was largely that way because of his long illness. He’s actually fairly warm and caring not only towards his wife, but also towards his family, especially his two brothers Qi Ming and Qi Zhao. There’s no sibling rivalry even when he recovers and begins to shine brighter, and although his sister-in-law Madam Fang is shown to be a bit petty, she only tries some minor scheming and quickly gives up (as of chapter 64 anyway).

Meanwhile Ye Jiao is initially sold into the Xu family by her sister-in-law and her second brother Ye Erlang, but unlike most examples of this trope, her family doesn’t hover around trying to suck up or insisting that she owes them money. Since she’s not the original Ye Jiao anyway, she doesn’t go looking for them and they don’t come looking for her unless they have business with her. If you’re looking for annoyingly persistent relatives being face-slapped ever chapter, this isn’t the series for you.

The theme runs throughout the whole Lady of Fortune, Jiao Niang. People are generally nice and decent to each other, and those who are not are still not as terrible as other examples in other series.

The romance—the whole point of reading a romance series—is extremely positive. Qi Yun does get slightly jealous of a few things (including a rooster, of all people) but he’s secure enough to understand that Ye Jiao only loves two things in this life: him, and food. And he respects that by not being jealous or confining, not trying to touch her against her will, no rape, no harassment, nothing. Even when they finally sleep together, it’s fully consensual with no hints of hesitation or discomfort.

For Ye Jiao, there’s genuinely nothing in her head besides loving Qi Yun and eating good food. Okay, and she’s interested in medical herbs to make her beloved husband better, and she treasures good relationships. But in general, due to her past history as a spiritual ginseng and not a human being, she is too empty-headed and disinterested in others to be a Mary Sue. If she has food and Qi Yun, that’s enough for her.

By the way, shockingly enough, she cannot cook. If I had a dollar for every heroine in a Chinese web novel who wows the whole world with her astonishing cooking skills, I’m positive I could retire, but for once there’s a series without such powers.

She’s not even that great a healer either, and mainly helps Xu Jing recover by holding his hand, being near him and eventually raising a medical plant that makes him much better. Though apparently he always remains a little weaker than others despite that. A Chinese fiction heroine who isn’t an action girl, isn’t a miracle doctor, isn’t a fantastic cook, can’t even embroider… what kind of rare beast is this?!

So Lady of Fortune, Jiao Niang is a nice change from the usual toxic dog-blood series in a lot of ways. It’s not perfect, however. The biggest thing, and the reason why I quit, is that the lack of drama unfortunately makes the series highly predictable. Like yeah yeah, Qi Yun will become filthy rich, Ye Jiao will have babies, the third prince will probably become emperor, blah blah. In most series you can guess the conclusion, yes, but you stay for the twists and turns and the face-slapping along the way.

Or at least if the heroine does anything beside eating and sleeping, then you read for the delicious recipes or to see whose life she saves with her mighty healing powers or whose butt she kicks with her awesome ninja skills… something, anything! There’s nothing like that here, so if you want the fluffiest of fluffy romance series with the greenest of green flag MLs, this is your series.

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.

Overgeared webtoon review – Very standard power fantasy

Overgeared? More like overrated, am I right? I’ve seen people commenting about Grid / Greed all over the place even in the manga that has nothing to do with it. It was always a bit baffling because I read the original webtoon that got cancelled after about 20 chapters. It was nothing special. I tried to read the web novel, but between the so-so translation and Greed’s juvenile thought processes, I couldn’t get into it.

But eventually all the references piqued my interest again and I finally tried the new webtoon. Right when 87 chapters were out, so I got a nice good binge out of it. I learned a lot of Korean while I was at it too – not from Overgeared but because I forced myself to do one brief Memrise review or Anki review for every chapter of Overgeared I read.

Summary: Shin Youngwoo, Username: Grid. In the words best virtual reality game , bad luck always revolves around him. But he stumbled across a job during a quest, the strongest legendary job out of over 2 billion players!

Like I said, a standard power levelling fantasy. Weak loser with plenty of debt suddenly finds a wonderful job/artifact/whatever and becomes powerful. His whole family depends on him, his classmates and former bullies are green with envy, every hot girl in the game longs for his touch… You’ve seen it all before. If you haven’t, I have. And better done, to boot.

It’s a very common thing in Chinese cultivation series, though it usually involves finding an ancient treasure or realm. For Korean series, the whole gimmick about finding a hidden, powerful class was popularized by The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor, and I don’t think it’s been done better since then. I’ve also enjoyed other series, usually involving time travel, about characters becoming overpowered in game worlds.

I have a special love for Emperor of Solo Play because it’s short and complete and the MC was so utterly self-destructive… then it caught up to him in the end XD! It was so silly that One Man Army mocked it by having the MC consciously take care of himself and his finances. Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed The World was okay-ish, except for the “romance” and some ridiculous shenanigans outside the game. It’s also complete and not that long if anyone is interested. Reincarnation Of The Strongest Sword God was interesting early on, but got so ridiculous with the power creep that the author wrote himself into a corner and had to drop the series.

Point I’m trying to make is, Overgeared has been done before. I honestly think it’s popular with people who haven’t read many of these kinds of series, so something like this is new and satisfying to them. The money-grubbing habits of Shin Youngwoo a.k.a. Greed are old hat to me, he’s not particularly good-looking or smart or witty to make it understandable why people are falling all over him. He just makes good weapons and is lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. That’s all it takes to make the ladies fall over themselves for him.

Buuut, I didn’t make this post to trash Overgeared, believe it or not. If power leveling fantasies are your thing – and honestly they are mine or I wouldn’t have read so many – then it’s a decent read. You still get the rags-to-riches experience you crave, and unlike many other heroes Shin Youngwoo does actually pick up a (virtual) wife if that’s what you’re interested in.

It’s just that compared to other series, the world is very narrow and poorly fleshed out. Shin Youngwoo has been based in the same two towns for 90% of the series’s length, so you don’t get the variety of locales and NPCs that you do in most RPG manhwa. He’s been hanging out with the same people, using the same weapons and artifacts (until recently), fighting the same small pool of enemies and the same overarching bad guys (church of Yatan). So it’s not bad, but it’s not impressive either given what other series in the RPG power leveling fantasy genre are capable of. He’s not even enjoying his money apart from buying a fancy car he almost never drives.

TL;DR Overgeared is overrated but not actually bad. You can do better, but you could do a lot worse than reading it if game world series are your thing. I’ll still be reading it as updates come out, but really it’s nothing special.

My Fiance is in Love with My Little Sister – Only if you like pointless tragedies!

The past two posts I’ve written have spoken about romances that go nowhere. But it can get worse – you can have a romance that goes nowhere repeatedly. That’s if you’re masochistic enough to read “My Fiance is in Love with My Little Sister” (婚約者は、私の妹に恋をする).

Summary (from novelupdates)

Aah, again? My fiancé was gazing intently at my charming younger sister. When I saw the blaze that lit up in those cold eyes, I was assaulted by deja vu. My fiancé had been in love with my younger sister even in the last life. There was nothing I could do but watch. And, by some karma, I was someone who kept returning to that exact moment.

Right, so, it’s exactly what it says in the title and in the blurb. There’s this lady… and it’s been a long time since I read it so I don’t remember any of their names. Guess I’ll google it. Okay, the lady is Ilya, and nobody can be bothered to mention her fiancé or her sister’s name, so I’ll call them F and S.

Basically Ilya has been reliving her life over and over again from the point where F meets S and falls in love with her. The sad (?) thing is that, despite knowing that F will inevitably fall in love with S, Ilya can’t help loving him or wanting to be his wife. In her early lives, she kicks up a fuss, turns into a villainess and gets dumped/executed/something messed up like that.

In subsequent lives, she tries different things like pretending she doesn’t know about the relationship – but sis dies somehow and everyone thinks she did it. In another life, she attempts to flee the marriage, but gets sold into prostitution and dies an ugly death. After another, she goes mad upon losing her child. In still another… I forget, but either way her attempts to escape from this loop of losing her fiancé to her sister end in failure.

Eventually, after several loops, a mysterious man/crow (Karasu?) shows up. And heavy hints are dropped that her fiancé, at least, is being controlled somehow. In one loop there are several occasions where he feels one way, very fond of Ilya, but is physically unable to say so or act lovingly. It’s like something takes over him and prevents him from doing what he wants. In a sense, he’s a victim of the loop as well. But who set up the endless time loop? Why? How long will it go on? Why is Ilya forced to fall in love with F and F with S?

Welp, don’t think you’re ever going to find out, because My Fiance is in Love with my Little Sister just goes around in circles for ages without ever addressing the key questions. Most likely the author hasn’t a clue so s/he is just buying time while figuring something out. I forget around which chapter finally made me drop it, but eventually the author got tired of Ilya’s story and started writing some nonsensical gibberish about the crow… I think? Either way, there’s only so much glurge and tragedy a person can wade through before they get tired and start wanting either a conclusion or an explanation.

I checked the details on novelupdates and the web novel is still running at 55 chapters with no updates since February 2021. So… you just want a repeated tragedy of Ilya, F and S, and someone getting killed somehow, welp, go ahead. Just don’t expect satisfaction from it. It’s just weepy romantic tragedy. Ilsa simply can’t move on from F, F simply can’t move on from S, so it’s not even one of those “I’ll be happy in my next life!” or “I’ll live a slow life in the countryside!” deals. There’s zero satisfaction or lasting joy to be found in My Fiance is in Love with my Little Sister, so prepare yourself.