#1. Quickly Wear the Face of the Devil (Novel Review)
This one got to me. It got to me! Where’s my soul-mate to pour me some milk!
I started it out not knowing what to expect--truly, the thing with Chinese novel descriptions is that they’re quite head-tiltingly confusing (don’t get me wrong, they actually bring me more joy than is healthy). World jumping? A system? Different characters??? Bestiality????????? Well, I suppose this seems interesting. I haven’t read many novels with that premise (well, actually the only one that I’ve read so far is The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, which I believe shouldn’t be compared to this because apples and oranges), so I figured, ‘hey, why not?’
And thus began my rapid descent towards obsession and pining for a kind of mutual love that can cross the bounds of time and space.
Ah! Where do I even begin?
Fengliu Shudai you absolute genius. Aside from the main relationship between the shou and the gong, the writing is absolutely something to die for. Actually, maybe not the writing -- I feel like I’m not able to accurately comment on that since I read the translated version so I can’t truly grasp how Fengliu Shudai wrote it (though, I’m currently going through the Chinese and rereading it). Rather, the fact that the author wrote more than one storyline is enough to amaze me. I’ve been introduced to a whole new world, I don’t even know how to move on from this. If I recall, there’s about s i x t e e n different stories. Forget about sticking to one plot, why not raise the bar to s i x t e e n u n i q u e p l o t s. They were so beautifully crafted, each one bringing out different degrees of face-slapping, friendship, filial piety, and fromance. The different arcs, and the difference characters -- the sky! my god (or should I say my Adonis)! Even if some characters are cannon fodder (that’s the sad truth of stories my friend), each of them are so special in their own way with different motives for their actions. Author, I can barely handle one arc, and you give me all of these! What do I do if I can’t hold all of them, I’m panicking! Truth be told, there wasn’t one arc that I didn’t enjoy. The twists at the end of each kept me reading and reading, and while some truly broke me heart, others made me laugh my butt off.
At this point, I’m buttless.
Maybe I’m too biased. But wait, what’s there to be biased over? I went into expecting nothing (once again, I admit that I simply just didn’t understand the description haha the words just went in one ear and out the other my b) but I came out wishing I could forget all of it so I could read it again. It far exceeded my expectations, and did I fall in love with the main characters? Yes. Did they fall in love with me? No, they have each other.
I will admit, maybe the biggest drawback is that the world-building wasn’t the best, but it’s not like that’s a requirement of mine. I’m a simple human being; I like what I like, and this, I like. (Is it even a drawback then?) Sure, maybe some of the explanations of things sci-fi-y or technical or mpreg or blah blah blah are kind of simple and don’t dive too much into the depths of detailing how they work, but what’s written is enough to just enjoy the face-slapping that incurs. Besides, I feel like it’s not really the world that’s the main component of the stories, but the interactions and the subtleties between the characters. After all, each arc uses the basis of human emotion to lay itself out, and that in and of itself is enough. Do I hate humans more after reading this? With a passion! But I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Of course, I’d like to bring up the main characters.
Ah.
Ah.
AHHHHHH.
Zhou Yunsheng you little bastard. Love interested you pervert. I don’t even know what to say with this, they deserve their own review. Their small exchanges, their relational development, their mutual (yet not mutual) pining for each other. It’s ironically subtle because they’re anything but subtle, and that’s what makes it amazing. This is basically just memory-loss driven roleplay, and wow am I here for it. Above all else, I have to say that what truly gets me are the little things that know about each other and continue throughout the entire novel. It’s the small things that matter, and the small things that make us fall in love.
I repeat, where’s my soul-mate to pour me some milk!
Overall, would I reread this? 100%, no doubt about it. It took a few chapters, but I fell in love with it. It’s not deep and heart-wrenching, but it’s enough to get you thinking and that’s the beauty of it. It’s especially fun to guess, who are we going to hate this chapter? who is the love interest going to be? is the love interest going to disappear? Hmm! Maybe having bets would be fun...
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get my own milk.