- #1
The story itself is a bit disjointed. It doesn't really do a good job of piecing together a coherent narrative, and there's no emotional connection between the MC and the ML. Since the story is primarily a romance, this means everything just kinda coasts along without any hills or valleys. It's relatively bland.This blandness could also be attributed to the translator though. Entire paragraphs are repeated, sometimes with slight changes. Names will constantly change, especially the MC's. He's Jiang Li, or Jiang Fu, or Jiang Chuan, etc, etc. The translator also constantly changes "pheromones" to things like "information particles" so you might sometimes encounter confusing phrases and sentences referencing "information particle storms" or such. Having to recognize the mistakes and correct them in your mind can be really disorienting. Rating a story based on a translation isn't fair to the story, but sometimes it needs to be stated. It's definitely a step up from reading unedited MTL, but that's a very low bar. A bar I've seen other translators fail at getting over, but still a low bar.The basics of the story are good. The premise is interesting, the MC is clever and amusing, and the relationship is worth reading to completion. It's just that the details between things are too bland, too poorly written, or too poorly translated.