- #1
I will happily read a novel with no real plot or drama, but this one is just not particularly good.As some of the other reviewers noted, the main comedy is from the MC's spectacularly low EQ, and he also engages in some faceslapping because his appearance is very far from an immortal cultivator. This type of character can be funny, but it's heavily overplayed here and reminds me of retail... In real life, MC would be the kind of guy to hit on and harass female cashiers because he thinks their pleasant customer service attitude is actually flirting. Actually, he does patronize a female officer in this way later because he has the EQ of a rock, and it's just... cringe. There's also a weird minor thing where he full on slaps his sister? Twice? I'd appreciate his Rated E for Everyone tactics if he frequently slapped any disrespectful person... but everyone else he throws hands are people he's actually fighting. Come on, author. Let him slap more people.The ML is very cold and his way of reciprocating MC's feelings is more of just passively accepting his fate. It's unpleasant, since the MC does effectively have total rein over the ML's survival, so the ML can't actually fully reject his advances without losing MC's protection and dying. The MC himself also lacks any interesting reasons to pursue the ML past being a face-con, which makes their relationship even more shallow. The author was trying to play on the contrast between a cheery, idiot gong and a cold-faced CEO shou, but the execution is like slamming two Barbie dolls together to make them kiss. There's just no chemistry. In such a simple novel, avoiding consent issues is very important for a sweet relationship, and in any romance, the characters should have more reasons to like eachother past "they're pretty" and "they can protect me."Regarding consent...Spoiler
At some point before Chapter 71 where I stopped, the MC does drunkenly physically assault the ML by giving him a bunch of hickeys in public, and the ML's internal monologue establishes that he was unwilling but unable to push MC away due to MC's cultivation. The MC's body's original owner was also falsely accused of r*pe, and it's established that other people think the ML is okay with/dating that kind of person.
[collapse]It's actually a shame, since some aspects are genuinely interesting... like, the MC's backstory (established in Chapter 1, he was a mortal in an immortal sect) gives some depth to why he's so unreasonable. His talent and his mortal status are intrinsically linked, which gives way to exploring how his arrogance might cover up some more complex feelings; maybe he wishes he was more normal, so his family and friends wouldn't outlive him. Maybe he became so boisterously arrogant and rude to push people away due to his mortal status, and now it's a habit he has to unlearn.A lot of these issues could be interesting in another novel, and maybe they get more fleshed out past the point I stopped, but the author failed to really give me any hope to keep going. If you want a simple, cute, no thoughts head empty story, you can probably do better than this.