The first three quarters of this novel really were near perfect for me, and I loved the relationship buildup and characterization of the two leads. The action scenes were exciting, the military training arc a lot of fun to read, MC’s character growth was great, and I found the romance just so cute as these two are quite the cuddly and touchy pair with each other. They have a somewhat more antagonistic relationship at the start, that slowly shifts into mutual camraderie and respect, and their romantic relationship also starts pretty quickly as Yu Fengcheng basically sexually assaults his way into Bai Xinyu’s pants, but the tone is so cheerful and lighthearted that it reads more just like a comedy sketch between them.
I loved watching this spoiled crybaby grow into himself and become so much more confident in his abilities and actually find his own internal drive to succeed. Up until about three quarters of the way through, I really was having such a good time with this, and was waiting for everything to go downhill as premise of this novel is a crematorium so scum gong abuse awaited. However, once this supposed crematorium arc began, I almost completely lost interest as there was honestly nothing that the ML even did wrong for a wife-chasing arc to be commencing. Perhaps it’s because this is the last of the 188 series that I’m reading, but almost every other scum gong in this series did worse than the ML in this novel ever did, and most also had to repent way less than this ML ended up repenting.
I can’t explain how hard I cried of rage reading the last part of this novel, basically for 10 chapters straight up until Bai Xinyu finally accepted Yu Fengcheng back. The worst thing this ML did was sexually assault him at the start a few times, which Bai Xinyu long forgave and never even held a grudge for. His reasoning behind what he was actually unable to forgive Yu Fengcheng for was so weak to me, and just angered me more than made me sympathize for him. Seeing this poor ML fall over himself just to win back someone he shouldn’t have had to fight so hard for made me upset beyond words.
I do wish I could rate this higher as the character growth really was so good for most of the novel, but the last quarter of this novel makes me unable to raise my rating any more than this. Every time Bai Xinyu brought up the mountain situation again I thought I was going to lose my mind. The ending was really abrupt as well and I was jumpscared by the “end of main text” despite most things feeling like they were wrapped up, just for how much I wished there had been a bit more husband chasing (yes, not wife chasing). Why on earth this novel even needed wife chasing to begin with will forever remain a mystery to me. Crematorium novels need a scum gong to make sense and this novel literally does not have one.
Really I don’t have too much more to comment on this. It was a fun read and I thought the couple dynamic was really cute pre-crematorium, and while I’m struggling a bit to feel the same way about them after the time jump and reconciliation, they are in fact still cute. What helps I think is that Bai Xinyu also has his parents to deal with and had a hard time coming out to them, so it does offer a bit more explanation as to why he made so many excuses when it came to accepting Yu Fengcheng back. I do wish there maybe would have been a bit more emphasis on this being the reasoning behind his behavior and feelings about the other man, rather than continuously emphasizing on how he felt like the second man.
The side character that kept starting drama did eventually apologize and say he was in fact just starting drama, but Bai Xinyu even after that point was still holding things against Yu Fengcheng. After a certain point, it just felt repetitive because at no point in this novel did Yu Fengcheng ever treat him like the other man. Even pointing to the mountain situation that started everything I’d still say he wasn’t the other man, as it was literally just a choice between who needed medical attention more. I could just continue to rant on this…
Either way, Bai Xinyu’s treatment of Yu Fengcheng at the end soured the story a lot for me and I spend way more crying over Yu Fengcheng’s feelings than I ever did over Bai Xinyu. Not really what I expected of a scum gong novel, but also I’m glad to have adopted another son in this 188 group. I’ve finally finished all novels in the series, and this one is probably higher ranked, though not my favorite in part because it didn’t actually live up to the expectation of actually being a crematorium. 10/10 for Yu Fengcheng he may be my favorite gong in the series if Zhao Jinxin didn’t also exist. Shui Qian Cheng is truly a writer for gong cons.
Also great side characters overall in this novel, each one was very memorable and really interesting in their own right. Yu Fengcheng’s uncle was my favorite every time he appeared, he livened up the experience of reading a lot.
Some other mild things to note are the somewhat subtle and also not so subtle moments of racism that are present throughout the novel, dehumanization of their enemies, and violence that gets mostly glossed over. I think it would have been interesting to see more of the psychological aspects of war and how it affects people, but this really wasn’t the novel for that I guess. We kind of just sped past all the war and fighting and went straight into the emotional drama, which was far less interesting to me all things considered.