- #1
They frequently forget that he's the man of the household, so it's funny that the author has them go through these dramatic revelations every time AZR reminds them of his control - them gasping with eyes wide, spouting, "I wouldn't dare not believe that you would kick me out!!" (nth time)
Author writes 4th wife Wang Qinglan as a cunning woman, but only to the extent of having the common sense to actually remember that AZR controls her finances and livelihood, and... knowing to throw tantrums with unbreakable furniture (?). Author also makes her s*upid at some point by having her persuade AZR to let her hold his infant brother hostage, so - "smart" character setting obviously holds no weight for her.
[collapse]ML is the sole other smart character, but he's so s*upidly invincible that his golden finger breaks any suspension of disbelief:SpoilerHe owns the dragon whip of the previous emperor, allowing him the power to resist the emperor and punish any official. He can marry whoever, kill whoever, own as much wealth and power as possible without any consequence... Okay, author. Totally makes sense.
[collapse]An Ziran himself doesn't have much personality as an MC, but I'm hoping it's because he has more opportunities in the 400+ chapters to display something other than a sense of leadership, level-headedness under pressure, and... his vanity (the baby fat on his face disgusts him and the author very briefly mentioned he was handsome in his previous life).Even though it gets very detailed and expository regarding the political and economic conditions of feudalism, it still feels super shallow and it shows in the author's nonsensical and inconsistent writing.SpoilerI don't know why the author keeps emphasizing the low status of businessmen in comparison to literati when there's absolutely no acknowledgment at all of scholarly/cultural accomplishments and contribution, and the one scholar example is AZR's uncle, who... doesn't earn a lot (makes sense if he's spending his time scheming and not working, go figure), desires his brother's family status, and has a history of borrowing money from them. In fact author even said in ch.17 that landlords hold an essential position in the current era so...
Author also never explains the whole setting of ML's grandfather claiming to be a businessman when he magically turns into the emperor's uncle, which makes even less sense that a member of royalty would so easily make a marriage oath for fancying his best buddy's paintings.
[collapse]The shallow writing unfortunately extends to An Ziran's cleverness and strategic foresight, which actually isn't very amazing. Example, ch. 55:SpoilerA farmer's cow collapses and dies on the field due to illness; An Ziran's solution is for him and his wife to downsize their crops and expand the variety to beans and vegetables. But, An Ziran... it's a county full of rice paddies, doesn't take a genius to understand that it takes a completely different kind of soil to plant beans, let alone other types of vegetables that require dry soil. And where the heck are the cattle farmers, since all these guys bought cows that cost a fortune?
[collapse]Nonsensical writing also includes intelligence gathering:SpoilerFor some reason AZR gets spies to tell him everything, but people never consider that their info is being leaked to him - like, they always find a way to excuse AZR and give him a pass, and don't take him seriously enough to spy on him regularly for their own designs?
And then you have ch.20.1, where County Magistrate Zhang casually asks around why AZR left for the capital and finds out the marriage oath of the mandarin duck pendants that only AZR and Steward Su know... WTF? How did he just casually get this information when not even the stepmoms and half-sisters knew, let alone the servants? AZR's own sister didn't know anything until after they arrived in the capital when he sat her down for a talk.
[collapse]That we're only roughly 1/6th into the novel and these are only some of the gaping plot holes is not a bright outlook.