- #1
For most of the novel, I really hated Mu Xiaoxiao because she was the type of female who solely relied on her looks. The author emphasises many times that she relies on men and that, while talented in cultivation, actively chooses not to really focus on her cultivation. But that's okay because the men and her original harem of men all spoil her and they always place her at the top. So that was annoying. But what I really liked was that the author emphasises that her character is because she is written like that in the original novel of the world.
The author notes that she's written like a shallow FL, and it is because of the plot that she's like that.
The MC tries throughout the story, not really to fight back, but to tell the original FL Mu Xiaoxiao to rely on herself. But there's always a conclusion by other characters that Mu Xiaoxiao, who has never faced hardship and doesn't know the world, just can't understand.
It's not until the very end when EXTREME SPOILER (Mu Xiaoxiao dies) like the veryyyyyy veryyyyy end like 300 chapters + end, where Mu Xiaoxiao is cast from her gilded cage and forced to see the war and live hardship. Only then (and this is still after days of starving and sobbing for someone to save her) that she realises she can only depend on herself.
I also liked how Qiao Wan notes to the original FL that her character of pandering to men and cuddling up to them is not her original face but a mask she wears to continue enjoying her privileges. But the original FL just wants to continue enjoying her life so she doesn't want to change - even though she knows its precarious. #Relatable. But sadly, she faces life, and in her last actions, does she try to redeem herself.
[collapse]So there's this like subplot that surfaces every now and then with the original FL.Back to the main character. I love how Qiao Wan develops. DEFINITELY not a started strong-ends strong. You see her progress and you see her get pushed down a lot. You see her unconventional modern nature showing up in her actions. But my favourite part of this (aside from the plot) is probably the interactions with other characters.There's so many extra characters that support her throughout the novel, like every arc she gains a couple new people, but I actually remember all of them because she reminisces about them even after they've parted and they also keep showing up.Even though this book is only 300 chapters, which I thought was quite short actually for a Xianxia novel, there's a lot of meat into it. A lot happens in just 90 chapters. I'll try to briefly go through the arcs, if you don't mind spoilers. I might forget some though/mix up the order but approximately here:ARC SUMMARIES HERE: SpoilerBackdrop about the world: there was this demon-cultivator war like 600 years ago where they sealed the demon emperor.
Beginning: world building. Qiao Wan establishing herself in the sect/she remembers that she's in a book, the usual. Mu Xiaoxiao comes back (original FL) comes back and Qiao Wan is forced to confront that yeah she's just a sub. Yeah, she's treated a lot worse than Mu Xiaoxiao. Yeah, she should have no allusions. She meets a couple friends here (Gao Nan <3, Ma Huaizhen (more like a teacher whatever) etc). She dream walks into people's dreams and meets people.
Mudstone realm Arc: secret realm that the FL gets them wrapped into. It's here that Qiao Wan loses her already shallow reputation (bc everyone knew she was a sub except her). Apparently she has some demonic energy in her or something. Qiao Wan is ousted from the sect essentially/loses her cultivation which was pretty bad and restarts. Fakes her death.
Demon emperor intermission: I think this is what's next. She meets the demon emperor. I was like ooo possibly ML??? They fight. This isn't really an arc. She goes into a new cultivation style: body cultivation!!
Cen family arc: This arc is pretty long. She's working as the maid of a family and this is kind of the first exposure to like cultivation world political drama through families. The family gets attacked, there's like so many chapters of the family getting attacked by another family and demons and some of the disciples from her previous sect show up and realise she's here!!! This is like kind of her badassery coming into play. Introducing Cen Qingzhou or something. Cen something. Forgot. But Cen.
Another sect like heavenly light or something its called arc: Qiao Wan has some demonic energy in her that keeps showing up and she, with Cen, go to find Cen's master - some hotshot cultivation master #1 buddha monk guy - to help her. The master helps her. Turns out he was her dream mentor. He beats the sh*t out of her to control the demonic energy. It doesn't really work. He just beats her up in a cycle to make her pass out. whatever. Dream mentor guy is called Miaofa.
CROSSDRESSING COMPETITION ARC: Loved this. There's this competition at the heavenly light sect that shows up every 10 years where all the sects come with their disciples. Usual stuff. Qiao Wan wants to compete but her demonic energy keeps hindering her so she gets taught to split her consciousness into two and she makes like a separate avatar of herself that she can control. She calls it her second account lol like gaming. Anyway, she also makes her second avatar a MAN!!!! And she also makes her **** huge lol. Anyway this side identity of hers is called Lu Cixian. She's lies and tells everyone she's a lone cultivator and makes a huge impression in the competition!!!
Ghost town arc: Don't really remember this. It's just another stage in this competition and crazy stuff happens. Like people getting sacrificed, people dying. Lu Cixian makes hardcore bros here because she/he so cool like that.
Sad Cen arc: Cen is revealed to be the vessel of the blue-eyed buddha. So he's like the reincarnation of some super strong OP demon guy who has terrible karma and everyone hates him and thinks he should die because of it. Cen is forced to like give himself up to a sect for peace and Qiao Wan desperately tries to save him but unfortunately she fails. Cen also gives her a bodhi seed to thank her for being his good and only friend. Also Qiao Wan almost dies.
Buping arc: Qiao Wan gets recruited by this super broke and tiny sect to be their headmaster. She's like wtf why and they're like u blood pacted it when u were about to die. And she's like shitttt ok. But the Buping sect has this one mysterious old master guy who like teaches her pretty good - Luping or something. He tells her to go back to her OG Sect to vanquish her inner demons and she's like I dont want but he's like no go and she goes.
Back to the OG sect: Qiao Wan... a lot happens here. She's here to get this sword manual from her old master. Also a competition is happening at her OG sect and a lot of people who knew her as her male identity Lu Cixian rock up. She uses both her identities concurrently. Wipes the floor. A lot of people are like omg I didn't know Qiao Wan was so strong and also HUHH She's dating this guy called Lu Cixian wtf?!?!? Because they don't know that's also her. Some more relationship turmoil with the OG FL and Qiao Wan and the guys. Qiao Wan learns again that even though sm happened and they thought she was dead, they still instinctually favour the OG FL more and try and cover her. Even when the OG FL is blatantly wrong.
Mini fairy realm: In the competition of the OG sect, it goes wrong and the realm is like corrupted. Crazy monsters rock up. Bunch of people die. Qiao Wan almost dies. Some political drama with the cultivation world families happens here. The OG FL frames Qiao Wan AGAIN but this time it fails. And then like the demon world rocks up, turns out they're behind the fairy realm stuff, and Qiao Wan's uncle - the current prime minister of the demon realm - shows up also. He showed up in the beginning arc but I was lazy to type it. Qiao Wan almost dies and in her mind-death place she meets her dad.
Spoiler about her dad.
Turns out Qiao Wan's father is one of the demon army general's who went missing ages ago. He defected and created the Buping sect casually. Wanted to live life lowkey. Found Qiao Wan's wandering modern soul and used his own flesh and blood to make a body for her, so she's his biological 'daughter' kind of. Before he died, he sealed like a part of his soul into her spiritual consciousness. Which explains a lot.
Anyway, Qiao Wan gets super strong with the experience from her father talking to her and uses sword manual to kill her uncle's army. They freak. Qiao Wan reveals that she's also actually Lu Cixian!! People freak. Then Qiao Wan is like super injured from the sword manual backlash eeps.
War arc: This confused me because I thought this was the extra but nah. Qiao Wan has amnesia and wakes up, thinking she's just transmigrated into this world, and there's a second demon war happening. She introduces modern weapons but like spirit powerifies it to compensate for the lack of technological advancement, which helps the war a lot. Unfortunately, cultivators are loosing really badly.
In the end, the demon emperor gets resurrected. Her dream mentor guy Miaofa kills the emperor and Qiao Wan has to kill him because Miaofa is basically the buddha reincarnated. Which is good because he's super powerful but its bad because he's super powerful and can't control himself from entering his buddha state and killing everyone. Basically, he can see the good and bad karma of everyone and his inner buddha self is like KILLLLL everything especially cultivators who steal Qi from heaven and are therefore also evil!!!! So Qiao Wan kills him.
Unfortunately, a beast tide shows up when the army is like about to perish and Qiao Wan sacrifices herself to kill them.
So cultivators win but Qiao Wan and Miaofa are dead. THIS IS WHY I WANTED THERE TO BE A TRAGEDY TAG!
Extras: So this is where I am now <3 turns out Miaofa and Qiaowan's soul scattered and can be found but it takes years. Except they can't find Qiaowan's soul. BUT they realise she's in the modern world and they cross worlds to get her!!! After her sacrifice, she woke back up as a college student like wtf!!! Except she's a college student who's super powerful, super fast, super etc!!
Extras are now just Qiaowan ferrying between the modern world and trying to graduate and the cultivation world where she's like a level 10000 idol to everyone for saving them.
That was all the arcs. I skipped a lot of stuff that is important, like the side characters and their development and tried to mainly focus on Qiaowen.
[collapse]I'll also drop a spoiler here about who the ML is.SpoilerIt is technically Miaofa but there's basically no like actually getting together until the extras.
[collapse]I'll drop a spoiler about their romance timeline. This spoiler is short, dw.SpoilerHe rejects her because he's technically like the Buddha and strongest cultivator, but in the extras after they f*ck!
[collapse]I'm trying to think about what else is mentioned.Well, just read the tags. Definitely put more emphasis on cross dressing which I LOVEEEE some Mulan stuff soooo fun and emphasis on BAMF MC. I usually read only romance but this was sooo good you don't even notice. I even waded through MTL for this.Hmm... running jokes through the novel I liked was Qiao Wan's accidental picking up of erotica and other characters finding out. Like someone is like I'll tell you gossip about famous cultivator they're trying to find if you buy one of my products! She's like urgh and takes a product randomly and hears important plot information. And then finds out that she accidentally bought erotica of that cultivator and then later that cultivator finds out.This was a really long review lol but I really liked this novel !