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!