Unfortunately this is going to be a long and somewhat rambling review, as I have very mixed feelings about this novel, most of it leaning towards the negative. From just the first half, this was genuinely a really entertaining and engaging read, but as the story dragged on, the weaknesses in the writing became difficult to ignore, and certain aspects of the plot detracted too much from my enjoyment for me to actively recommend. However, this isn’t to say that it’s an awful read by any means, and if you are able to ignore a somewhat lackluster plot for smut and a pretty decent CP dynamic then this may be for you.
A lot of this review will be complaints, but I just want to also say upfront that it was not a difficult novel to finish despite my finding parts of it quite boring especially in the second half, and all things considered I wouldn’t say it was a waste of time to read. It’s a bit longer than I expected, mostly because the chapters did drag a bit, but I did find myself enough entertained by the dramatics that my rating is about average still. The story was definitely carried for me in part by this shou's character design which I genuinely loved, as he's unapologetically evil and very seductive when going after what he wants, being a rare powerbottom that’s actually the more vocal one in bed and also, shockingly enough, really likes his gong.
I started reading with pretty low expectations, but actually found myself enjoying the first half of this novel so much that I started to raise them, perhaps to my own detriment. The start of the novel is an interesting premise with the MC Ji Huaizhen pretending he’s actually this other guy that shares his face, Lu Shiyi, who is treated as a good person while he himself is seen as well, the universally despised Taifu. Ji Huaizhen encounters the ML Yanchi early on, and noticing that the other seems to have feelings for Lu Shiyi, continues to cosplay as the other in their interactions and deceives the other under this false identity. As he interacts with the other, he starts to fall for him too, and their romance at the start is really sweet with an undertone of dread as we know that it won’t last what with how it’s built on a lie.
The first round of dogblood was genuinely heart-wrenching to read, nearly bringing me to tears and definitely giving me some heart pain, but the way that the rest of the story played out after this with the excessive dramatics turned out to be so ridiculous and badly written that after that point I just couldn't find myself to care for most of it. When it came to the characters’ emotions, only Ji Huaizhen gets much description, which is necessary as he never speaks his true thoughts aloud, and despite the perspective in this novel sometimes shifting to an omniscient view that vaguely describes how other characters are feeling, it's all very limited and mostly feels thrown in for plot convenience. Yanchi does have some more emotional scenes, but I found myself really detached from his suffering as much of it felt too unnecessary for me to get invested.
The politics in this novel are just too basic, especially for a novel where the political drama is the center stage for all the relationship angst, and the schemes are so straightforward that it's honestly an insult to intelligence trying to call this MC scheming. His biggest play is just holding characters hostage that others care about so that they'll do his bidding, ad when things don't go according to his initial plans he has no backup plans to salvage things other than sacrificing himself. There's some supposed twenty thousand personal troops that he has command of too, but there's barely any mentions in this novel of what these troops are doing, how they're being taken care of, or even just where they are. Ji Huaizhen literally pulls them out of thin air when he wants them, then when they're not necessary they vanish back into his imagination.
What I found really annoying while reading is how many plot points feel like they are just put in for convenience. When it helps advance their relationship, one of them will suddenly be really ill and weak, needing to be taken care of by the other, but when weakness is not necessary to the plot they’ll be strong and capable once more. Broken bones mean virtually nothing other than forcing our MC to be carried around by his strong ML, and lethal injuries quickly heal if the character is still necessary to the plot. The setting is also mostly just normal historical with no fantasy elements, but there are two moments where the ML suddenly gets some random wuxia powers with being able to use his qi to turn papers to dust and then extinguish candles. Otherwise though, there’s no other sign of wuxia in this novel and no one else has any powers either, making these moments stand out in their randomness.
Our MC Ji Huaizhen’s personality is so weirdly inconsistent at times that it’s often hard to justify or make sense of his actions. He’s silent when it’s needed for the drama, then cannot shut up at other times when he’s being supposedly manipulative or mean. He does have quite the complicated backstory and I liked the build up with slowly revealing how much he had suffered in the past, but there’s also a sense of discordance in reconciling his past with how he personally feels as most of this backstory is told from the mouths of others and not his own. He’s supposedly evil, which is emphasized at the start with how he will just order for people to be killed, but his actions by the end are so whitewashed that it reads disingenuous. As an example:
Parts of this story that should be really emotionally poignant ended up falling flat much of the time due to a variety of poor narrative choices. There's many places where emotions and actions could have been elaborated on but are glossed over to preserve the image of characters, and some really important character deaths happen either way too suddenly and randomly to be processed, or just happen entirely off screen. The way that MC will order for characters to be murdered also ends up reading like a parody what with how we rarely ever see them suffering, and this lack of proper description into the suffering of characters beyond our MC's internal drama carries on throughout the whole novel. The only character that we really get to see suffer is Ji Huaizhen, as even our ML Yanchi mostly just goes through it off screen:
The best part of this novel is probably the romance in the first half of it, as both our main characters have pretty interesting character setups and complicated backstories that point to some inevitable relationship conflict, making for an engaging read as you wait for things to blow up. Their smut scenes are also very entertaining as Ji Huaizhen is extremely talkative in bed and will often instigate things and actively seduce Yanchi, which I think is quite rare with historical shou especially. He likes to complain about Yanchi’s skills and direct him around a lot, and it’s fun seeing this character that is constantly lying finally showing a real side during intimacy. The two of them are very compatible and they have a lot of chemistry together, and there’s actually no noncon or even dubcon undertones, which can be rare to find.
What bothered me throughout this novel though is just how young our ML is, being only 17 at the start, and then 19 after the time-skip. This is compared to our MC who is 26 years old yet somehow lusting after a 17 year old boy, and then later doing some honestly pretty terrible things to him despite how much he’s suffering inside while doing so. Somewhat annoyingly too is how Yanchi seems to have no backbone when it concerns Ji Huaizhen, and despite being betrayed, tortured, lied to, etc, he still pines after the other, saves his life, and even forgives him before the other can utter a single word of apology. While we readers can see how much Ji Huaizhen hates himself for his actions, as Yanchi is not a mind-reader it’s just a bit too convenient how easily he ends up forgiving him. Despite being shown as angry or bitter, as a reader you’re never actually convinced that Yanchi is genuinely out to kill our MC or even actually hates him, more than he hates himself for being deceived.
Many parts of this novel made me laugh of disbelief over how badly they were handled, and I just couldn’t enjoy the dogblood what for how lacking the build up to it was. To explain too much would all be spoilers, but suffice it to say that for my personal preferences, I don’t enjoy when dramatics are thrown in for a single chapter then ignored after the chapter ends. If there’s drama then I like seeing the consequences play out realistically rather than being glossed over. I also prefer when characters receive more karmic retribution for their actions, rather than it all being played off as them having no choice. If you’re going to write an evil MC, then at least commit to the bit and have him be genuinely evil rather than in the last few chapters of the novel going back and trying to make him out to be a good guy who has always wanted to reward good and punish evil. What were all the random killings at the start for then if this is how we’re going to end??
There is one major plot point in this novel too that genuinely makes no sense to me after finishing and is so foundational to the plot that it actually is a bit ridiculous:
There’s also a really random side CP in this novel, though I wouldn’t say it has much plot significance or development enough to make it compelling:
Another plot point that bothered me is one that concerns a major character’s death, which is the same type of complaint that I have about there being no lasting consequences or emotional depth to this story: