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. Continue reading →