starting 媵宠 ying chong by 假面的盛宴 mask feast -- reading the ongoing translation instead of the completed one cuz i really like the translator !!
the mother of the ML of feng xing dies as empress dowager (basically after the plot of feng xing) and gets sent back to when she was a 瘦马, age 15. baaically, she is given a do-over that she never asked for, having already lived what she thought was the best possible life
it looks to be much more aligned to the romance palace-intrigue novels than feng xing which was like 20% explaining trade, salt, and taxation lol
finished feng xing today! the translator basically finished out the last 6 chapters in the past two days just as i caught up xD
i loved it a lot, more below the cut
it is so, so immensely pleasurable to follow a non-transmigrator/rebirth heroine who is clever, erudite, determined, politically acute, and genuinely oriented towards systemic thinking around policy and economics. fang fengsheng is both a generationally gifted political actor with deep insight into how the country really works, and a practical period woman, just one with an unusual upbringing
it all builds on the masterful worldbuilding by mask feast. the commitment to detail and lack of fear of complexity means that the political-economic schemes executed by the heroine (and also by the hero eventually) are truly a cut above. compared even to works like, say, traitor baru, which are more 'systemic' focused than most romantic fiction, i would say this excels. it does have the advantage of drawing directly from history, which gives it both excellent complexity and, well, the fascination that one gets when you know that it's portraying something real from history! i truly cannot overstate the love that the author poured into their historical research for this novel, and the love that the two excellent translators poured into explaining the history. i learned so, so much about salt, taxation, corruption, the naval trade, and famine management in the ming and qing dynasties, and, being a giant nerd, i enjoyed every second of it. (i will caveat and say, i am an engineer who... as far as i can remember, never studied imperial china in any way in school so my history knowledge is quite weak)
the writing is straightforward and tonally even, although sometimes a bit dry. in its defense, the dry parts are basically a history/economic policy lesson that i feel like would be hard to make less dry, and they're always in service of helping the reader understand the brilliance in both scheming and governance that both protagonists possess
the weakest part of the book is around the chapters where they are building the academy (probably around 60-80% through the book). this section depicts the way the heroine rebuilds her life after she undergoes a massive change in life's purpose and her position in society, and in my opinion, it's a bit underdeveloped both emotionally and thematically. it's not surprising that's the writing in this section is externally focused as that's the default narrative style of the book, but i think more interiority for the heroine (and also the hero) in this section would have given the character, the romance, and the book overall more emotional resonance. instead, we're left with a sort of emotional void for a bit as the book moves into a slice-of-life without even the excitement of a running scheme underneath the surface (waiting for prince wei to eventually win the throne doesn't count). this isn't to say that there weren't parts i genuinely enjoyed in this section -- as i wrote in this post, this entire section of the plot really shows us how beautiful and special the relationship the mains are building with each other is. but i would have preferred this section to be proportionately much more that type of conversation and exploration, and less of the other slice-of-life things (which we would still need some of)
like a lot of this type of romance novel, the ML's plot eventually takes over the story. even more than fang fengsheng, he is written in a way that is quite emotionally removed from the narration (as is also common in many of these novels, which mostly default to the FL's pov and emotions). but soon the reader finds he is interesting in his own right, and his relations with his parents, and their relations with each other, are complex enough to carry emotional weight. fang fengsheng ends up being able to truly assist him ably in his quest for both survival and the throne (as they end up being synonymous for him), and their romance ended up being very emotionally satisfying to me because it was such a clear meeting of capable minds
recommended, so long as (a) you don't mind some dense explanations and (b) you don't mind the romance being slow burn and the hero being kinda aggro/dislikable for a good while
i will definitely reread this one again soon, that's how good it was. and this time i will make sure to savor all the translator footnotes and author's notes
