- #1
To be honest, people's criticisms of how overtly patriotic and nearly nationalistic the MC acts is pretty valid. As a native Hong Kong citizen myself, it was actually quite interesting to see how Hong Kong is mentioned and used. It's pretty accurate, citing actual people and places in HK as well as HK history. Like very specific roads and even our MTR system.The author is very academic (MC is a genius researcher so a lot of complicated chemical and biology lab names are used and to a relatively okay accuracy). So I think the author should be quite aware of the situation with Hong Kong. Not sure if the author was trying to get past the censors or something.... but a lot of the knowledge about Hong Kong is really well researched so I can't see the author being unaware of the controversy between HK and China. There's this one specific line I remember where the MC is in Hong Kong and he meets China researchers who talk about how excited they are for the MC to come back to China eventually and the MC directly says, "I never left China." Like WHOA isn't THAT a political statement? Not surprised though a lot of Novelupdates novels set in the 80's tend to push communism, disdain capitalism, and promote China policies.That being said, aside from the China pushing language (which happens a lot. Even though the MC lives in HK as of ch 96. he's always supporting China interests and trying to revive the motherland etc.) and politics, it's pretty interesting. At least the scientific plot of the story is pretty interesting. Beginning of the novel is very good, but declines a little.As of ch. 96 there is minimal romance between the MC and ML.Spoiler about the ML below:Spoiler
The ML is also apparently autistic and I disagree with some of the language the author uses regarding his situation. I believe there's talk about the therapist being excited that some of the ML's 'autistic tendencies' have begun to fade and uses language of 'cured' etc. Again, kind of close-minded but given how pro-China the author is I'm not surprised.
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