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HONESTLY another fave I found! Seriously, I’ve read almost 40 rebirth/second chance at life danmeis just this year alone and probably almost a 100 entirely, and not gonna lie sometimes the plot does get cliched or turns out weird at the end, but this one was my most recent read today that I found myself liking A LOT. It has all the usual expected makings of a rebirth danmei, but also tiny little twists here and there that keeps you going, and also overall being a really straightforward, comfortable but exciting read.

Summary

The novel starts with Jun Huailang and his 300+ family members and servants about to be beheaded in the city square for framed treason, all because of the new tyrant prince regent Xue Yan. In despair, Jun Huailang dies, and then when he opens his eyes again, he’s in a strange place, and sees two immortals arguing over something. A book falls to the ground and JHL picks it up, and then realizes that it’s a book - a book of which Xue Yan and JHL’s younger sister are the protagonists of. It’s basically a gouxie, angsty porn with plot novel between them and JHL and the rest of his family are basically cannon fodder and plot devices meant to move this ill-fated love and romance along. As JHL reads, the angrier he gets, because Xue Yan incarcerates his sister and she becomes his play thing, and the worst thing is that she ends up falling in love with him and willingly letting him trample all over her body and herself. 

As the immortals realize that there’s a lone soul that’s not been collected, they’re about to collect him when an accident happens - his soul is sent back in time, a few years back, before tragedy happens. A bitter, resentful JHL is intent on getting revenge on Xue Yan, and because of this, he turns up at an event that evening that would change the course of history in his past life. Instead of never having know Xue Yan, JHL meets a much younger Xue Yan for the first time as a bunch of other eunuchs and the 2nd prince is bullying him.

Xue Yan is the neglected and initially abandoned 5th prince due to a deliberate prophecy that said he was meant to curse his father, the Emperor, and so Xue Yan grows up in another country owned by his uncle, who brings him under strict regiment and trains him for war. His uncle hates his father, and vice versa, and when he’s a teenager, the Emperor sends the army to eradicate his uncle under framed treason, and he would have died, but crawls his way back to the imperial city. The Emperor has no choice but to take him in, but that’s all he does - he cares naught for his son and wouldn’t care if he really died, and so lets all his other sons bully him, and even punishes him to the verge of death a few times without even checking if Xue Yan was maligned or not.

JHL has never seen a Xue Yan like this - a weak, abandoned dog that anyone can step on - and initially, he stands by as Xue Yan is obviously bullied, trying to convince himself that this boy will end up becoming a tyrant and his enemy, but the more he sees Xue Yan, he realizes that Xue Yan was also forced and manipulated to some extent to become the cold, crazy Emperor that he was in his past life. At some point, JHL decides to be a positive force of good in his life, and if Xue Yan doesn’t do any evil, he’ll not fault Xue Yan for his past life’s crimes.

To Xue Yan, JHL is a sudden, unexpected and treasured light for him in the darkest of his days, and he knows he will never let JHL go. He falls for him, as JHL also starts realizing that all he thinks about is Xue Yan in years of absence - and the more he falls for him, the more JHL thinks that the ‘book’ he read was farce, because he cannot think of any way that Xue Yan would have abused his sister that way, no matter how far he was pushed.

Read

Novel (Online) | Novel (Translations) | Audio Drama (Slated for Nov. 2022 TBA)

Characters

1. Jun Huai Lang 君怀琅 - An intelligent young man who has a slightly weak physique and died in despair, before getting a chance to re-do everything and save his family. He also realizes at some level that it’s not just Xue Yan who drove his family to their doom in his past life, even though he was certainly the executioner, and in this life, he’s determined to drag every single person out of the shadows. In his past life, his father was framed first for taking disaster funds, and then his younger brother sacrificed himself and died outside of the city gates, before his entire family was sentenced to death. He was very isolated from plenty of important and critical happenings between Xue Yan and his sister in his first life, so much so that he has to piece together turning points in their relationship and try to prevent them in his second life. Tries to be a good cousin/friend for Xue Yan, not knowing that Xue Yan thought of him as more. He first discovers his feelings for him before Xue Yan confesses, and tries to distance himself from Xue Yan, and this triggers Xue Yan, and he cannot help but confess and kiss JHL to make his point clear. He puts Xue Yan at arm’s length, and it’s not until he’s down with the plague and Xue Yan goes to hell and back to save him, not afraid of getting the disease from close contact with him, that JHL tells him that if he lives, they can be together.

2. Xue Yan 薛晏 - A seemingly helpless and powerless prince who cannot protect himself from being bullied or harmed by others, but who is actually scheming bit by bit and can tolerate a lot of hardship to get what he wants. He didn’t know JHL well in his past life and instead knew his sister, and he resents JHL’s sister because of an incident that she could not have helped, and ends up sentencing her family to death, including JHL, because of that warped but detached sort of resentment years later. In this life, JHL comes into his life, and is the only warmth for him, a treasured thing that he will kill to protect. He insisted on being prince regent in his first life because he realized the man he looked up to, his uncle, only brought him up that way and manipulated him so he would kill his own father, who stole the throne from his uncle - and betrayed, Xue Yan refused to sit in the seat that his uncle so wanted before his death. In the second, he refuses to sit in the seat so he would never have to marry and would be able to be with JHL in public.

Other Things I Liked in the Novel

Xue Yan really takes care of everything for JHL without him knowing in the first half of the novel because he realized that he only cares for JHL, and while JHL worries about things that happened in his past life and seem to be coming bit by bit in the second, Xue Yan is one step faster despite having no memory of the first life, just because everything that concerns JHL and his family concerns him too

Xue Yan is placed under JHL’s aunt, a favoured consort in the palace, and spends a few months with JHL, his new ‘mother’ and JHL’s super cute sister, and JHL makes sure his sister parades herself in front of Xue Yan and keeps calling him gege to make sure Xue Yan will never think of his sister as an actual woman

Everyone, including JHL’s aunt, are hilariously dismayed when they realize Xue Yan tops JHL lmaooo

XY dreams of their first life, where he indifferently beheaded JHL, and he wakes up horrified and guilty and destroyed, and then realizes that it actually happened when he tells JHL about it, and keeps telling him what a right bastard he was then, much to JHL’s amusement

At the end, after they win and get a few decades together, grow old together and die within a few days of each other, they both wake up in heaven and realize that their human life together was part of their immortal trials - AND THE BOOK THAT JHL read wasn’t even an actual book (i.e. not transmigration or even rebirth to be honest) because the deity who oversees these trials saw the actual story between JHL and XY and then in his free time decided to write fanfiction between XY and JHL’s sister, and that’s the book that ended up in JHL’s hands initially at the start of the novel

XY, who’s actually a god of bad omens and war, realizes what happened, and beats the deity up over and over again, and he’s stopped after a bit when someone calls his name, and he looks up to see this gorgeous, familiar xianjun, who’s the heavenly emperor’s closest disciples, who’s looking at him with so much love and relief and fondness - because the end of their supposed ‘life’ is only a beginning

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African wild dog pups

[gnomeicecream]

to pretend that horrible people cannot make good art is another way to conflate beauty and talent with integrity and morality. the works of monsters are best examined with knowledge of the author in mind but art is not inherently reflective. human beings are creative, and habitual liars- it'd be stupid to pretend art must always be a portrait of its creator

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Autistic brain really is like, "you have to overexplain so there is absolutely zero chance for misinterpretation"

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Did a brand new kind of bowling shot today

we called it the "trust the Force Luke" shot or the "through God all things are possible" shot

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behind every late diagnosed neurodivergent person is a parent who has absolutely nothing going on at all don't worry about it

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daily affirmations:

i am kind

i am in control of my emotions

it does not bother me when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

everyone in the house has the right to be in the kitchen

i am kind and in control of my emotions even when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

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Everyone warns you agaist going to the supermarket hungry, but nobody tells you about the dangers of going there too full: I do not want any of these things, for I will never require any food at all!

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a funny thing about having a Problematic Blorbo is that you'll periodically come across a post along the lines of "um let's not forget that [Blorbo] is a bad person..." listing their various crimes, and if you have a modicum of intellectual honesty you find yourself nodding along and saying yeah it's true... but it's the greyness of their character that makes them so compelling... At the same time though you have a little Saul Goodman in your ear going "your honor in their defense: who cares like omfgggg who caresssssss like come onnnnnn"

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I've been thinking of the "Can Granny Weatherwax beat Bugs Bunny" question and this is my full take for Discworld characters:

Vimes - Cares too much, too easy to piss off. Has the innate chase instinct that makes characters run into walls with realistic tunnels painted on them. Might get to arrest Bugs Bunny but the beast will just slip out of the handcuffs to help him lock them, then walk out of the jail cell to have a union mandated coffee break.

Ridcully - Classic hunting season scenario, but has enough charisma to probably still get a few good shots off before the inevitable.

Rest of the wizards - No survivors, only Bugs.

Carrot - The intense near-magical narrative aura of well meaning innocence should make him immune, Bugs will likely be forced to be the villain of the episode.

Lord Vetinari - Flattened by a comically large anvil in the first few minutes of the episode, unclear if it was all a part of his long term strategy or not.

Moist - Has the 'lovable trickster getting away with it' energy, but nowhere near Bugs level. Already fell for the "old lady who swallowed a fly" scenario with the stamp slugs once, won't fare any better here.

Death - Definitely one of those "character is trying to avoid death" episodes, would go back and forth. Might actually get to end Bugs but his spirit will reappear in Death's domain and ruin his garden.

Nanny Ogg - The ultimate in anti-Bugs technology, a gleefully annoying old lady who doesn't give a fuck and definitely won't be the first to instigate the plot bearing conflict. This is a full sweep, he's the episode antagonist.

Granny Weatherwax - Too win-motivated to not lose. Would have to break the story to have any chance. Might do it.

Magrat - Will have sappy ideas about helping the poor animal which honestly has the 50:50 chance of either getting slapsticked or Bugs ending in a ye olde stroller&pacifier gag.

Colon&Nobby - Designed in a lab to be totaled by Bugs Bunny.

Tiffany Aching - A child that also has a large pan that is the perfect thing to hit someone over the head with and make a BOIOIOINGGG sound, so great odds.

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types of nap, ranked by me (an experienced napper)

the siesta: the oldest and most reliable form of nap! you go to sleep around noon. you wake up an hour or two later feeling well-rested and prepared to face the rest of the day. this is the pinnacle of nap perfection. 10/10

the businessman’s nap: you have a limited amount of time on your hands, so you schedule a nap into your packed timetable and set an alarm. you spend half the duration of the nap worrying that you’re wasting valuable nap time by lying awake, and the other half sunk into a torpor so deep that when your alarm rings, it takes you a good few minutes to remember your own name. once you’ve splashed some cold water on your face you feel much better. 7/10

EW STICKY: you were cold at first, so you piled on the blankets and wriggled into your favourite comfy sweater. this was nice. now you are awake and trapped in a horrible sweaty gordian knot of your own devising. this is not nice. when you peel off the sweater you find to your horror that you have left an actual damp patch behind on the bed, like some sort of giant dead fish that can’t stop leaking its gross fish juice everywhere. 5/10 it was at least cosy to start with

the interrupted nap: someone barges into your room and starts talking to you. “wtsfhggl?” you enquire. they give you a judgemental look, and ask why you are sleeping in the middle of the day. “ghhfshsxkls,” you reply, graciously. they tell you to get up. you get up. the rest of the day feels like an extension of whatever dream you are having before you were disturbed. you boil with quiet resentment and shame. 4/10

the unsuccessful nap: you are tired. you want to take a nap. you lie down. you wait. you wait. time moves sluggishly forwards. you wait. your brain feels like a cup of mushy porridge but your eyes refuse to close. the noise of your fan is infuriating. you wait. eventually, you are forced to accept that this nap is simply not going to happen, and you have wasted 45 minutes doing absolutely nothing. god fucking dammit. 2/10

the handy-dandy fast-forward button: you really just want this day to be over as soon as possible, and the best way you can think of to do that is to take a nap. you only meant to sleep for an hour, but when you wake up it is already evening. the day is over. you glean no satisfaction from this. you kill time until you feel justified in going back to bed again, and spend the rest of the night tossing and turning, unable to sink back into the blissful stupor from which you so recently emerged. 0/10

The Unpleasantness: when you fall asleep, it is dark. when you awaken, it is light. this is the natural order of sleep, but perverted into a form that is frightening and wrong. you feel deeply unsettled and do not know why. are you sick? what does time mean? what does anything mean? maximum despair. -1000/10.

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My dog's really a study in Buddhism. He can see my muffin wrapper and he's miserable. Crying. He needs to eat my muffin wrapper so bad.

I get up and throw it away. He forgets about it immediately and happily goes to sleep.

You are not sad because you do not have a muffin wrapper, my beautiful boy, you are sad because you want the muffin wrapper.