暴君请放手 by 一抹初晴
(Tyrant, Please Let Go aka “Beauty’s Fault“) by Yi Mo Chu Qing

他擁有絕美的容顏，卻因此淪爲仇人的玩物；她爲報救母之恩，替他承歡於他的仇人身下。終有一天，她助他得以飛出囚籠，重獲新生。本以爲可以從此自由，誰料他殘忍下手，揮劍刺向她的胸膛。“怎麼，想離開我，回到他的身邊去？”他絕美的脣角掛着陰鷙的冷笑，長劍的劍尖上還淌着殷紅的血。他的劍，怎會刺進她的胸膛？這樣的結局，是她始料未及。他冷冷地指着她：“你逃不了！我不會放過他，也不會放過你！”
He has a beautiful face, but because of this he becomes the plaything of his enemies; in order to repay the favor to her mother, she acts his body double and makes nice with his captor on his behalf. One day, she helped him fly out of the cage and regain his life. She thought she could be free from now on, but who would have expected him to be so cruel that he stabbed her in the chest with his sword. “Why, do you want to leave me and go back to him?” There was a sinister sneer on the corner of his beautiful lips, and the tip of the long sword was dripping with red blood. How could his sword pierce her chest? This ending was something she had never expected. He pointed at her coldly: “You can’t escape! I won’t let him go, and I won’t let you go!”

First of all … I spent too much time hunting down the actual book blurb, and “translating” it – TBH I obviously used google translated and edited what it spit out … What it says in Hoopla is this:

“Canon grave” is based on Jiang Feng as the main line, wrote about the jiangs pawnshop in three hundred years throughout the country. The story took place in different times. The Jiangjia Pawnshop before liberation and the Jiangjia Pawnshop after liberation were staggered.

… which is obviously fucking wrong. Also I started listening to the book in my car so it’s not as if I could’ve tried to find the source material and plug it into a translator. Anyway I’m salty AF. Especially since all the [Chinese] sites I’ve found it on label it as a romance. A ROMANCE! NO!

While the prompt for the TBR challenge this month was “furry friends” I’m ignoring it because I need to rant. (Also I considered writing a review of a book I enjoyed that had a dog, but look … I need to talk about this goddamn book more.) Calling the … I don’t even want to call him a “male lead” – even in my notes I just called him “dude” other than my descriptive “13 year old shitprince” … anyway, calling him a dog would be an insult to dogs. And not just because I LOVE dogs. I felt insane while I was listening to this book. I didn’t DNF it because I’d DNF’d like eight books over the weekend – so many that I didn’t even bother putting them all into GR. I kept listening because the first part was ok, and more I kept hoping it’d get better. I kept thinking, “it has to get better, right? Everything is going to turn around.” Well, I WAS WRONG. I think this might be the most “what in the goddamn fuck” book I’ve ever read in my life.

So first of all, this is in no way a romance. The poor heroine was gaslit pretty much the entire time. I also posted on Bluesky (BS) that I wondered if the author forgot who the actual protagonist is. I don’t think I can even call this a review – it’s a rant because I’m so mad about this book, that it exists, that I spent all this time on it, that it’s labeled romance. I got so annoyed at parts I did skip tiny sections, but mostly I listened to it at fast speeds, like some parts I listened to it at 4x speed because I was sick of all the abuse heaped on our female lead (FL).

I mean, I understood the book, but some finer points I don’t know because it’s not as if magical mystical tribes or whatever were ever part of my education in any iteration or my normal discourse. So anyway, I think the FL was part of some phoenix tribe (and she might be around 600 years old?) , anyway she’s not really human and has magic and cultivation, but isn’t allowed to use it. Supposedly her mother owes [humans? this family?] some “life saving grace” so she sends her daughter to rescue this hostage prince, but she’s not allowed to use any of her magic or cultivation. Whatever. It was so frustrating – I get there was some “using magic in the human world will have terrible consequences” which is a common trope – in xianxia (Chinese fantasy based on Taoism with a focus on immortality and gods) series it’s usually there will be some threefold rebound/punishment. But then she’s sunk. Really all she does is change her appearance so she looks exactly like the 13 year old hostage prince, and changes his appearance (I think) so he can be disguised as one of her maids.

The emperor who destroyed dude’s country and took him (and his older sister) hostage and brought them into his palace/harem falls for FL, and she falls in love with him too. From go he knows that she’s a girl not a guy … but he thought she was 13. (And look, 15 was the age of majority for girls in Ancient China, but THIRTEEN ISN’T FIFTEEN.) *breathes* Then there’s the fact that everyone in the world thought the emperor was having a relationship with a 13 year old boy, but they weren’t upset AT ALL about the age – just that it was a guy. (FL figures out quickly the emperor is taken with her, and I think she could only do a face change – so she tells him that her parents raised her as a boy and she’s cross dressed her whole life and nobody knows she’s a girl. The emperor thinks she’s the actual “prince.”)

You know what’s terrible? That’s not even the worst thing. In fact this was the sweetest part of FL’s life in the entire like fifty goddamn hour book. I’m too mad to check exact times because I don’t want to know (I think it was over 48 hrs, I don’t know how many minutes.)

Dude – the 13 year old hostage prince – is a fucking piece of goddamn shit. Like, ok, yes, we should feel sympathetic to him. His life was literally turned upside down – his country was destroyed, he watched his mother, father, (his father’s concubines), and his siblings get slaughtered before his eyes. Even commoners were killed by this invading force. Only he and his older biological sister were spared. However, his sister is taken as a concubine, and … well I’m not sure what his exact title/role is … but obviously he becomes … the “love”/plaything of the emperor. (Well, not him, but FL, but … everyone thinks it’s him…) So I get him super hating the emperor, and being mad FL eventually falls for the emperor. (I really didn’t think she did but … apparently by the end of the three month period she had developed feelings…) But dude constantly misunderstands FL and blames her. She tries to protect him, but he just has the worst take on her actions every time. In part it’s because she is afraid to explain things to him because she doesn’t want him to be more upset or suffer … but man I really wish these people would’ve communicated. (He definitely would’ve flown off the handle and ruined things though – all the goddamn time. He has ZERO chill or brain – in fact pretty much nobody in this goddamn book was smart – and he’s understandably angry the whole time, but has zero self preservation. Instead of being actually grateful to FL for LITERALLY GIVING UP HER BODY IN HIS PLACE – he accuses her of just wanting glory. During one outing dude is glaring at the emperor … and as a mere palace maid to a hostage (or in general) that’s something that’ll get you killed – to distract everyone from dude being so obvious, FL trips and falls into the emperor. Dude yells at FL for that and says she just wanted to cuddle with the emperor. FL is upset about being wronged, and doesn’t explain her actions. Shit like this is CONSTANT. Dude starts hitting growth spurts and is also ill, so FL changes his job from being her personal maid to simply brew tea, first so it’s an easier job, secondly to keep him away from the emperor (who actually is smart) so he won’t notice “wow this palace maid is growing fast and looking more and more like a guy” – but dude doesn’t get it, and just thinks FL wants to be free to be loveydovey with the emperor and ignore him. Of course she never TELLS him why either… though I do understand her being sick of constantly accused of shit while she’s doing him a favor for [no real reason].

The blurb is true – she does actually rescue him out of the palace (and nearly loses her life a few times), AND HE STABS HER IN THE GODDAMN CHEST when she tries to leave AFTER HE ACCUSES HER OF MORE SHIT. He is INCREDIBLY emotionally and mentally abusive. I was so happy FL was finally about to leave BUT NOPE. Worse, while she’s mostly dead, dude finds someone to steal her immortality and suppress whatever cultivation/magic she has so her family can’t find her. He also threatens her with her mother and tribe – says he’ll kill them all if she leaves or kills herself, and even stations a small army outside her homeland. (She does actually try to kill herself to get away from him, which leads to him taking even more drastic actions – at one point he directly kidnaps her mother….)

It gets worse. He rapes her, isolates her, as stated effectively imprisons her, lets his [“other concubine”] torture and humiliate her, heavily restricts her food so her meals are worse than the lowest servant’s, and eventually makes her do heavy manual labor.
And on top of that, everyone – EVERYONE – keeps telling her how he loves her, and actually secretly cares for her. I’m beyond flabbergasted. Like … I kinda have no words. At one point when he manhandles her again and sexually assaults her, her personal maid is all excited and says “look you’re favored again!” … With friends like that who the fuck needs enemies. These fucking assholes also gaslight her into staying and helping him become emperor. Then when he becomes EVEN MORE of a monster (destroys the country that took him hostage, kills commoners, executes everyone in the palace – except for a 5 year old prince that he imprisons in the same palace he lived in as a 13 year old hostage…), people emotionally manipulate FL into trying to talk dude into … stopping his insanity, which of course makes him go into further insane spirals, where he accuses her of only caring about the former emperor and just insane shit. (Too upset to think of better/other words.) Dude also has a biological uncle that helped him take revenge and provided him the army etc, and instead of being grateful dude decides to kill his uncle – FL saves the uncle and dude accuses her of [extra] “betraying” him.

Then … there’s a princess – the daughter of the emperor who took dude hostage. She’s also a horrible person (though compared to dude she’s practically an angel…) Anyway she tries to kill dude a bunch of times while they’re all still living in the palace, and sets up a scheme that does actually lead to the death of dude’s sister. (I think that was the saddest part of the book – I literally cried. I also stupidly thought things would turn around… anyway.) Shitprincess does not feel guilty AT ALL, and isn’t punished for her actions. (She does set things up so there’s “no proof” though anyone with a brain could see through it – but of course the emperor chooses not to punish his own daughter, especially when the empress pleads for her.) The princess is married to a general, but she’s awful to him and his parents too, and runs away. She’s captured by human traffickers, but before she really suffers anything, she’s rescued. Ironically, by dude’s uncle. She lies about her identity, and they eventually fall in love, and lowkey she and dude’s uncle have a lovely (chaste) sweet relationship for six years.  I was just … are you fucking kidding me. Shitprincess had the heroine’s halo the entire book. She faced 0 consequences for all her terrible actions. (Well, she eventually tries to kill dude, fails, and kills herself, but she was about to die anyway. Wasn’t sad about any of this, and it really felt like this was just to try to make us feel sorry for her.)

Anyway, believe it or not things get even worse. Dude when he becomes emperor gives the [other concubine] the title of “imperial noble consort” but doesn’t give FL any title at all. After another blow up where he tells his guards he’ll never see FL again she’s FINALLY like “oh I guess this does really suck, and none of this has any meaning” and kills herself. (She had tried before, but there was that whole threat against her family – BUT – the author then adds “well that was all really just an excuse, and he won’t really do anything to her family when she’s dead, so truly she just stayed because she was in love with him) and I wanted to set things on fire. Anyway after she’s dead he’s all “oh shit was I wrong?” and of course has regrets. BUT NOT ENOUGH. NOT ENOUGH! HE DOESN’T SUFFER NEARLY ENOUGH. NOT NEARLY.

Anyway, the crown prince of FL’s people (who was her only friend, and helped her a few times, and wanted to rescue her a bunch but she always lied to him and said she had to stay with dude and help him … *sigh*) – comes and takes FL away. And “surprise” she’s dead but not REALLY really – and he restores her immortality etc, and the last chapter is 200 years later, SURPRISE somehow she has a daughter, and apparently dude is the father. (He I think got killed by someone – it was pretty brushed over and I do not give a fuck) – anyway the end is he appears again and it’s this like ~joyous abrupt thing. I actually thought the audiobook cut off early and listened to it like five times, AND THEN I even looked for the source material, and no, that was the ending – just “oh dude appears 200 years later! Yay!”

It was all so fucked up. Like what the fuck was even the fucking story. AND WHO THE FUCK THINKS IT’S A ROMANCE?! Even with cultural differences, THIS WAS NOT A ROMANCE. And you wouldn’t think you’d have to say it, but “it’s ok he rapes you because he loves you” IS NOT ROMANCE OR OK. I definitely thought it was a tragedy by the time I was a quarter into the second part, and it felt like I was being gaslit more for the sites to tell me it was a romance. There were ZERO SWEET MOMENTS between FL and dude. The “sweet” moments were “I’m just being cold instead of actively abusive.” I mentioned I wanted to fight the people who labeled this a romance, and other than the fact that they aren’t worth the time, they do deserve a beating.

😅 I … don’t know how many of you can understand Mandarin but this is where I listened to it/why I wrote the WTF title of “Beauty’s Fault” down because what in the actual fuck, title people: Hoopla. And part 2. … Although maybe I’m not that smart because I’m considering the other book by the same author Hoopla has…
😐 looking at the “actual” cover of the book now, I’m realizing it was much more indicative of the story too…

Grade: F
I’m actually mad this book exists. If I had a printer I’d seriously consider printing out a picture of the cover so I could literally set it on fire.