After Defying the Villain’s Fate for Nine Lifetimes, the Heroines Turn Mad! Chapter 18 Discussion

A very interesting novel that follows a man pushed to the brink by a world intent on casting him as the villain despite him starting off very innocent and kind. Almost a thousand years of false accusations and good deeds backfiring on him over the course of 9 regressed lifetimes slowly erodes his emotions until escapism and despair leads him to fully embrace the villain role.

Spoiler

Upon accepting his lot and genuinely acting despicably, he is finally shown a small bit of hope among the despair in the form of a system that rewards him for evil deeds and promises he can escape to another world if he fully commits to the role of a villain. It seems, however, that in this 10th life, when certain people's hatred for him reaches its peak, they are suddenly forced into a dream world where they are made to watch the entirety of his 9 lives from an outside perspective in all their suffering, to see how they themselves created the man they so despise.

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I would give this novel 5 stars, except that it does this thing I've seen a lot in Chinese novels where they take a break from storytelling to exposition dump a bunch of setting for a LONG time, often giving either a long-winded explanation about something we already know about or droning on about something that doesn't advance the story at all. I wouldn't even mind all that much if it weren't for the fact that the latest available chapter will end in the middle of a really interesting development in the story that I'm excited to see play out, I'll wait anxiously for the next chapter to drop, and then when it finally does, most of it will be pointless info dump and the story doesn't advance at all. For example: Spoiler

At the end of chapter 17, the 2nd victim to be forced into watching MC's 9 regressions is s**ked in. The first victim went mad with grief and self-loathing over how she had treated MC and decides to dedicate her entire life from then on to doing everything she can for MC and fighting back against the world that treated him so unfairly. Very interesting. So I'm excited to see jerk number 2 start to realize the hell he has been inflicting on his (until now) innocent Senior Brother, and see how he'll react. Well, chapter 18 drops, and about 3/4 of it is describing in detail how MC had stolen an important plant from his Junior Sister that would have helped her grow (something we already knew had happened even without all the extra detail), and why this plant was so important to her (information that doesn't advance the story at all). By the end of the chapter, the 2nd guy hasn't even fully understood that the events he is witnessing are real, or even that they're different from what he had witnessed during this lifetime. At most, the last line of the chapter is the beginning of him noticing something might be up.

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All in all, the only reason I'm so bummed when they stall like that is because it's such a fun read when they finally get the ball rolling again. My advice is to let the chapters build up for a bit and then binge read them as a group.