后宫女配她太难 (Hòu Gōng Nǚ Pèi Tā Tài Nán;The Harem Supporting Female Has It Too Hard) by 咸鱼火锅 (Xián Yú Huǒ Guō; Salted Fish Hot Pot)
Historical Chinese romance web novel published in 2020

Lianxi transmigrated into a novel she read—

Strictly speaking, as a tragic side character with a gruesome death.

Lianxi cried bitterly. Rather than meeting such a miserable end,

She might as well take matters into her own hands—at least it would hurt less.

Thus began her hilarious journey to seek death…

The tyrannical and ruthless emperor who only loves killing: Noble Lady Lian’s brain…???

The harem beauties: She’s insane!!

Ok first of all, this is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read in my life. Also, I have to say I really love the wide variety – and hilarity – of cnovel author pen names. Some are poetic, some are clever or hopeful, and some are absolutely silly – like this one. I think I’ve explained “salted fish” before – but basically it’s someone who doesn’t want to do anything. As in even too lazy to turn over when lying down. I believe it originated as an insult, but was quickly adopted by overworked (millennials) and became “goals.”

The prompt for the TBR Challenge this month is “back in my day…” which … look 99.9% of my reading are historical, and it’s all cnovels all day, so this is what we get. I don’t recall if it’s set in a real or made up dynasty – that’s not the important part, but it’s definitely set in Ancient China. As I mentioned, it’s one of the funniest books I’ve encountered. I was laughing so hard through almost the whole thing. It pulls back dramatically on the humor near the end, but goes harder on the romance.

Our heroine is Lian Xi – we don’t really get details but it felt like she was a college student or just out of it, and she transmigrates into a cannon fodder character in a novel she read. That’s the reason she’s so desperately seeking death – she’s a vicious supporting character who schemes against the protagonist of the novel (fails to set her up and get her raped …) so then the truly vicious hero – the emperor – to vent his beloved’s anger, has Lian Xi’s character tortured, raped, then dismembered via being pulled apart by five horses. She keeps dreaming the punishment, which makes her desperate to die on her own terms, and go back to modern times. She’s a delight but not the brightest, so she doesn’t really try to think things though, she just wants OUT. (And you can’t really blame her…) Hence her hijinks.

It. Is. HILARIOUS. If she wants to come for you she absolutely doesn’t care if you drag her down with you – in fact that’s what she’s hoping for. One phrase she uses that stuck with me is “come on, let’s hurt each other.” Ironically her life is saved a few times at the beginning when she asks the emperor for death. Obviously it’s not a normal thing, and everyone is constantly horrified by her antics. Then there’s the fact that she’s a transmigrator and doesn’t know or remember all the rules. (One being looking directly at the emperor isn’t allowed. So she does it, and everyone just thinks she’s bold and “flirting” – not that she’s clueless.) It’s the perfect mix and she’s a chaos muppet already so …

For our hero … well I felt it wasn’t really clear when the emperor fell for her. Definitely he first thinks there’s something suspicious about her, then that she’s interesting … He’s twisted because he was horrifically abused as a child, and his mother was truly insane – and punished in the way Lian Xi dreams that [her character] dies. So … that’s his beginning. He’s incredibly cruel and scary … though very tolerant of Lian Xi. (And his younger sister.)  He also sees that Lian Xi does make good points – she’s willing to say what others aren’t (why bother? What’re they going to do – kill her? Yay!), and that she actually often tries to protect the innocent. So he’s not all bad. He’s not good to his harem, but he is an excellent emperor and very good for the people.

Literally like the first sixty chapters (they’re short) are all Lian Xi running around seeking death. The first few chapters she figures out she can’t kill herself. So she quickly tries to instigate others into killing her. Of course she doesn’t consider other and outside factors.

It’s of course not all fun and games – I mean the reason behind Lian Xi desperately seeking death is dark. There are some timeline switches too – where at one point she [almost] dies, but instead of going back to her own world she’s thrown into the original plot of the book (a lot of things had changed in what we were reading/the transmigration timeline).

There were some plot holes, but I felt it wasn’t too serious – this obviously isn’t a book that takes itself that seriously, and it isn’t to be taken that seriously. I was vastly entertained, and know I’ll absolutely be re-reading it in the future. I even already started another book by the author. (Alas it wasn’t as good.) But I read The Harem Supporting Female Has It Too Hard in a day.

I didn’t love the ending, and felt there was a bit too much “bathroom” humor for my taste … but those honestly were my only complaints. (And it wasn’t that bad, but there were like … five mentions of ear wax and that was five too many for me. (… I also think the author has a very unique kink, but I’ll leave that to you to find out/decide.) I also felt there wasn’t quite enough to establish the relationship, but I was willing to go with it, as I almost felt that wasn’t really the focus.

If you want an unconventionally humorous read, you absolutely have to give this one a try.

Grade: A-