Newlyweds Daily Life in 1990s Chapter 134 Discussion

I had high hopes for this novel. It started out very well and I liked the MC and ML's interactions. It's also a pretty short read so I understand if the novel tries to move fast. However, the longer it gets, the more questionable the author's reasoning becomes. Things just conveniently happen to move the plot along. It felt like the author couldn't make up their mind on what they wanted the novel to be so they tried to dabble in a lot of different things and then just drop it when it's no longer needed. For example, after MC gets married, she rents a shop with the help of ML in order to continue her hotpot business. There's an explanation that in her previous life, her parents had some amazing recipes that they left to her after they passed so she managed to memorize these. So her hotpot business is booming for like less than a year and then she just, quits. She quits because she was going to Beijing after finally passing the college exams. So she opens a restaurant, it makes a ton of money, then she just closes it down after it served its purpose and everything is fine. There's no further mention about her hotpot recipe or making money once she gets into college. Like, the first part of the novel only talked about her setting up a stall in order to sell some skewers to make enough money for college then nothing else comes out of it in the rest of the novel.

And then there's the relationship between the MC and ML. At first, they agree to get married for just one year until she passes her exams then they get divorced. Then suddenly, one day she just realizes she's in love with ML. Like, this girl went from hiding scissors under her pillow on her wedding night because she was so freaked out about sleeping in the same room as ML to suddenly not wanting to divorce because she just happen to fall in love with him. If you MTL chapter 78, MC passes the exams and gets admitted to the top university in Beijing. ML's grandma is worried she might leave ML cause lots of college people do that to marriages with rural people. So she tells MC her worries but says she still thinks of MC as her granddaughter even if she leaves ML. Then MC realizes she's not as happy as she imagined and it literally says "He Yeqing couldn't let go of Grandma Shen, and she couldn't let go of... Shen Li. Yes, He Yeqing couldn't bear to leave Shen Li. After discovering this fact, He Yeqing accepted it very calmly. And it's not surprising that she fell in love with Shen Li. After all, he was handsome, could make money, and didn't have all the problems of other men". And that was it, that's how she fell in love with ML. And ML's reasoning was that he loved her for a long time yet it's unclear exactly when and where and how that happened.... like, if this was how you were going to get them to fall in love then don't make MC so resistant in the beginning to the point of wanting to hurt ML to suddenly wanting to tell him she likes him. And even worse is that once MC realizes her feelings and tell ML, then ML still wants to get divorced. Like, hello??? The girl you liked for a long time suddenly wants to be a real couple and now you're worried that she'll find someone better in college so it's better to divorce now than later???? And then MC goes on a mini husband chase which was literally like a few chapters on how she's writing down a plan on how to get ML's heart and no man can resist all these attacks to one date and then she fails and goes to college without ML agreeing to become a real couple. All he said was for her to wait until they meet next time to ask him again. Ok, dude like if the author hadn't kept telling the reader that ML does like MC then you wouldn't know it from the way they interact. You really can't just chalk it up to, oh he's cold like that all the time. No, if any normal person irl acted the way ML did then no normal girl would think they were interested in them.

And it gets even worse, like I have so many issues towards the end that I decided to give up on chapter 134. The main "twist" at the end was done so poorly and the reasoning felt so forced that I just gave up. Spoiler

It turns out the reason why MC's mother wanted her to fail her exams and then rush to marry her off is because MC is not her real daughter. Apparently MC was switched at birth by the fake mom because fake mom's real daughter was born with a heart disease. So fake mom switch them so fake mom's daughter can live with a rich family and get the healthcare she needs. And even the switching was done so poorly like omg, I've never heard of such a lazy reasoning. Fake mom gives birth by herself at the hospital, she is told her daughter has a heart disease and most likely won't survive so she's sad, goes into the hallway with daughter, overhears two nurses gossiping about the child they are going to deliver back to the mother, the child is MC and fake mom learns MC's dad has a high position and super rich, and then they gossip about how good MC's life is going to be and how beautiful the child is compared to this other poor girl who came out so skinny and thin and has a heart disease which fake mom realizes it's her and her daughter they're talking about, then nurse A gets convinced by nurse B to leave MC in her stroller in the hallway so they can do something, fake mom switches the two children and runs out of the hospital and ta-da, easy switch. Like, does the author think people are that s*upid??? The nurses were literally talking about how beautiful and healthy this newborn baby looks and how skinny and pitiful the other baby is in comparison and NO ONE NOTICED THE DIFFERENCE????? ok, children can look-alike when they are born BUT NO ONE ASKED WHY SUDDENLY A HEALTHY NEWBORN IS NOW SO SKINNY AND SUDDENLY HAS A HEART DISEASE???? Like, the author literally said the doctor took one look at fake mom's daughter and knew she had a heart disease. AND YOU'RE SAYING THE NURSES/DOCTORS WHO ARE SUPPOSE TO GIVE THE BEST CARE POSSIBLE TO THIS SUPER RICH FAMILY CANNOT TELL THAT THIS INFANT SUDDENLY HAS A HEART DISEASE WHEN IT PREVIOUSLY DIDN'T????

And then the fake mom and fake daughter. OMG. I just can't. The novel literally goes from hotpot business woman to amazing top scorer college student to suddenly MC is such an angel and fake daughter is so evil even though fake daughter is supposed to be the female protagonist of the novel MC read. Apparently, fake daughter knew at age 5 that she was not the real daughter because fake mom once tried to kidnap her back and leave MC with her real family. It didn't work because fake daughter fainted, fake mom thought she harmed her real daughter, so took back MC and promised to herself to take this secret to the grave. Ok, first, if the fake mom loved her daughter so much, then what's up with her not liking her other daughter just as much??? Like, fake mom has 3 kids, an eldest daughter, the fake daughter, and then the youngest spoiled son. Yet, the author didn't say much about the relationship between eldest daughter and fake mom. There was even a mention that eldest daughter is upset that fake mom was trying to give MC a better marriage than her. And it's not like the fake mom loved her eldest daughter over MC either. Fake mom even tried to get her eldest daughter a match that wasn't good so... suddenly with the fake daughter she becomes so much stronger and her motherly love is overflowing?? Yeah, I don't buy it. It honestly felt like an attempt to create drama. And then the author is like, oh MC's real mom has a lot of feelings for the fake daughter because she grew up under her yet... fake mom didn't have those memories and feelings either yet happen to just unconditionally love her daughter after not seeing her for years or even getting to know her. With how selfish the fake mom has been throughout the novel, suddenly being a mom that'll do anything for their child is such an OOC change that is hard to ignore. And then it felt forced that the author was trying to reason why MC's real mom couldn't be a real mother in the beginning because she still had feelings for the fake daughter. Even though everyone witnessed the fake daughter pushing her real mother to the ground and choking her because she thought she confessed to the birth switch. Like, they literally saw the fake daughter attack her birth mother because she got mad at her. Yet author was like, but MC's mom has so much feeling and love in taking care of her all these years so that's why fake daughter still lived with MC's parents. And MC's dad is described as someone who doesn't spend a lot of time with the fake daughter but only goes off what MC's mom says so that's why he didn't noticed how spoiled and selfish she is. Like, excuse me? MC's dad is apparently supposed to be smart yet he doesn't noticed how weird it is that this daughter he took care of for years can do something like this to another person??? And they still let her stay with them for several months afterwards. And it only ended when the author brings fake daughter's real relatives to the capital so they can act horrible and give MC's parents an excuse to kick fake daughter out of the house and start to mend their relationship with MC. Like, the author tries so hard to whitewash everyone related to MC and then kick down everyone else that it's so blatant it's hard to read.

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There are a lot of other small things too that just adds up and it really made the MC go from being a good, morally sound character to someone who is just being handed things the author gives out. And don't get me started on the random car crash that happened to MC who said the plot is suddenly trying to kill her. Like, all throughout the novel, there is no mention about the plot having power over MC and suddenly at the end, it's randomly thrown in there? And then after that one accident, suddenly MC says the plot no longer has a hold over her??? It was like it was only there to add another chapter for no reason only to make the MC look better??? Yeah, so I've decided to drop this novel even though there's only a handful of chapters left. If you don't mind obvious plot holes and OOC characters who are only there to drive the plot then you can give this a read. It is a short read too so if you're super bored, it's not the worst novel but there are definitely better ones out there.