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I read Why Not Soar Your Majesty and it is the funniest story I’ve ever read ever and I love it sososososososo much.
Plot synopsis, so that my explaining funnies will make sense:
Tang Xiao, our dashing female lead, plays as a male character on a game, where she spends all of her time trying to bother Su Muzhe, flirting with female characters, and being a dick. She is infatuated with Mu Cheng. Unbeknownst to her, Su Muzhe is Mu Cheng. Mu Cheng knows that Tang Xiao is the asshole being an asshole in the game, but Tang Xiao goes a pretty long time without figuring out that Mu Cheng is Su Muzhe.
Tang Xiao is the MOST shameless character I’ve ever encountered in my entire life and I love her so goddamn much. Everyone in her server finds immense joy in killing her repeatedly. She got killed by Su Muzhe early on in the game, and so she changed usernames and spends an entire month repeatedly proposing to Su Muzhe as obnoxiously as possible. She gets caught and immediately tries to pretend she doesn’t know what they’re talking about. She’s an idol and she spends a good amount of time bragging about her own good looks. She finds out that Su Muzhe is bribing people (to bother her) with signed pictures of Mu Cheng, and she says that she will marry her if she gets Mu Cheng’s nudes (not actual nudes, just half nudes, but still)
Su Muzhe agrees to marry Tang Xiao and Tang Xiao, who did not expect this result, immediately panics. She ditches the first wedding and only agrees to the second for those nudes. She legitimately thinks that Su Muzhe is a girl, and she never consider that Su Muzhe might be a guy until she hears his voice and realizes that he is one.
She very loudly proclaims her desire to sleep with Mu Cheng IN FRONT OF MU CHENG. Granted, she doesn’t know it’s him, but still!!! She flirts with other players, Su Muzhe appears to kill her. She badmouths Su Muzhe, Su Muzhe appears to kill her. She exists, Su Muzhe is filled with a strong urge to kill her.
(Mu Cheng does this because he is her next-door neighbour and he can hear her cussing him out and he thinks it’s cute. He’s an embarrassment, I love him.)
Tang Xiao eventually realizes that Mu Cheng is Su Muzhe, and she’s so embarrassed that she can’t even talk to him. Mu Cheng literally kills every single person that dares express any attraction to her (in game), and she does not realize that he likes her. Tang Xiao tries to bribe one of the other players with (more) pictures of herself, and they offhandedly ask if Su Muzhe is willing to trade (more of) those pictures for pictures of another actress, and Tang Xiao just does not understand what’s happening. “What does she do with them?” I don’t know, Tang Xiao. It’s a mystery.
At one point, Tang Xiao inadvertently seduces all of the girls on set, and Mu Cheng’s reaction is “Now I have to ward off WOMEN, TOO?” Mu Cheng is so jealous, constantly, he would be the most happy if Tang Xiao only ever spoke to him and nobody else, but he’s a gentleman, so he takes out his fury by killing random people in a video game and pretending that nothing is wrong while wholeheartedly supporting all of her choices and spoiling her rotten. He lets her use his account when she gets banned, and he is unsurprised and exasperated when she immediately takes advantage of this to mess with everyone. He does not care if Tang Xiao calls him “wife,” even after they know each other’s identities. He turns down all of his acting and modelling offers so that he can be her housewife.
Mu Cheng is definitely the most obvious man on the planet, but it’s okay because Tang Xiao is the dumbest person in the galaxy. She is not supposed to game, so she does it secretly. She isn’t supposed to drink, but she can’t help but drink the wine when it’s pretty. She is asked repeatedly if she wants face, and she always, always, ALWAYS responds “nope.”
AND YET. She is so smart! There’s a whole plot where you think “oh, dumbass XiaoXiao’s gonna fall for this,” and she NEVER DOES. She’s unflappable. A director tries to manipulate her into a sexual relationship and she kicks him in the balls. The wild world of fame just does not affect her, she is uninterested unless it’s about fighting her antis, in which she turns on her alt accounts to bug them. She is well aware that she’s gorgeous and she uses this to her advantage as often as possible.
She has a strange relationship with Chief Ning that nobody understands and that makes Mu Cheng absolutely furious with envy. He is so jealous of Chief Ning. He is SO jealous. (She does not realize this, except to think “why am I sitting in the warzone?”) Mu Cheng spends the entire second half of the novel boiling over with lust, but he is very patient. He would like to absolutely destroy Tang Xiao, but he would also like to wrap her in bubble wrap and hand-feed her and cuddle. He is having the absolute time of his life making her so angry she swears like a sailor, but he is the only one allowed to see her in that state.
I am obsessed with their relationship. It’s so pure. It’s so horny. Tang Xiao accidentally tells Mu Cheng to his face that she would very much like to fuck him. He makes her food and he always asks what she wants for dinner. She showed him her ability to take off her bra without taking off any of her clothes and he almost died. Her room is covered in pictures of him. We never find out where he put the pictures he got of her. He thought she was attractive when he saw her sing in flawless French, then fell for her when he heard her cursing like a particularly badmouthed sailor. She wants to fuck him so bad but she cannot even make eye contact with him when he’s not wearing a shirt.
Their relationship! Is! So! Cute!
I could ramble about this all day. I loved this novel, everyone should read it and then come back and agree with me that it’s super funny. There are so many setups for love triangles and they go absolutely nowhere because Mu Cheng can only see Tang Xiao and Tang Xiao only ever even looks at other men because they vaguely remind her of Mu Cheng. It’s sooo funny, I read it in one night, I have Not Slept, I am So Tired, I love Chief Ning and his weird relationship with Tang Xiao with all my heart, Tang Xiao finds out that Mu Cheng saw her perform years ago and her response is “I’m jealous that you got to meet me while I was so young,” it’s perfect, Tang Xiao is perfect, I love it.
