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This is a showbiz story through and through! The focus of the novel is on the movies enacted by the MC, with the romance and the drama of showbiz acting as fairly prominent subplots. It kind of disseminates the whole showbiz scene? At least, by exploring the stories of the characters in movies as well as the actors that play in them.CHARACTERS: 4.5/5General Thoughts: AHHH! The main characters in this novel are a breath of fresh air. The MC is a very realistic transmigrator that regressed in age (he doesn't lack the maturity of someone his mental age should have -- which is a fault of a lot of similar stories). And in contrast to him was the shockingly outwardly-stoic-but-inwardly-a-maiden ML LOLOL, who brought that hint of youth and freshness into the story~ The side-characters were great too, of course! I can tell the author worked hard to make them seem like real people -- even the cannon fodders had their own stable character settings.Rong Xu (MC) :The MC is a transmigrator who was a highly respected actor in his previous life. In this new life, he ends up in the body of a similarly named young master (who has nothing to do with the showbiz industry). Pitted against by his relatives, he decides to give acting another try!He's very calm. Definitely not your average protagonist. It's why I don't necessarily think the cast are the stars in this novel. As a protagonist, the MC doesn't immediately catch your attention, but the more you get to know him, the more you'll like him!Qin Cheng (ML) :At first, you might think that he's your average ML LOLOL! He certainly looks like it outwardly. He has serious facial paralysis and is unable to express himself outwardly. He falls in love with the MC at first sight but stoically pretends to not even care for him. Etc. Etc. LOLOL, BUT this ML is actually an adorable young-maiden type inside! His duality makes for a lot of great scenes -- most of which are humorous (giving this mature novel a bit of freshness) but also some that are just super sweet!Oh, and as for his character settings~ He's also a young master in this novel, and his mother was friends with the OG!MC's mother. He had never met Rong Xu before, however. Since he was too busy with his acting career (he's at the top of the top!) SETTING: 5/5Although the setting is fairly vanilla, the work the author put into making the readers understand the showbiz industry definitely wow-ed me~ It's not my favorite aspect of this work (I like the ML too much for that LOLOL), but it's certainly my second favorite!ROMANCE: 4/5As mentioned, the romance is mostly a subplot in this novel~ But, with the uniqueness of the main characters' dynamics, I ended up liking it more and more. At first, I was iffy on it, but sooner or later, Lotus Seed with Orange Stuffings won me over ;) PLOT: 4/5The plot here is more chill than usual so you might find yourself getting bored at some parts if you aren't interested in the stories of the film. I honestly don't have much to say about it? I just think that it's the kind of novel you pick up on a day when you just want to relax and are not looking for anything too complicated.RATING: 4.25/5This was a good read for me! But, since I didn't finish (I only read up to the manually translated parts), I can't say how much I would have liked it if I read it till the end. Still! I do highly recommend this story~ Especially for the ML (hehe) and the worldbuilding! The stories the author tells through the movies and television shows were also really good and worth reading on their own!RANDOM RATINGS:
- Personal Enjoyment: 4.5/5
- Literary Level: 4.5/5
- Humor Level: 4/5 (this story has some pretty funny scenes!)
- Angst Level: 3.5/5 (although the overall mood of the novel is light, the stories inside of the story were mostly tragic T.T prepare for feels!!!)
- Heat Level: 2.5/5 (this novel has a couple of PG-13 scenes, and maybe even more than that in the future??? I rated it like this just in case, but all I really saw were steamy kissing scenes~)