As I said, not far into the story at all, and I can appreciate the mc's character a bit. I like how the author has kept it realistic in the sense that the MC after being reincarnated into lin girl actually dedicated herself to being lin and not just acting like the old xi. The next thing I have to say though is more of a complaint, im not sure if it's because the mc's slight familiarity with her father in law, but she is behaving quite entitled towards him (and he allows it) which to me doesn't make much sense because the ML doesn't seem to be a person who would let a girl get away with half of the stuff she's said so far. Still, it may be because of the ml's feeling of obligation towards his friends daughter.

transmigrator vs transmigrator showdown

It's not that he fell in love with FL, they didn't have enough time and interactions for that. It's more that he was unable to move on from the possibility/idea of falling in love with FL in the past, and decided to torment himself multiple times throughout his life. So now, he may never escape the love-of-a-lifetime-that-got-away syndrome.

What I found fun, was the reincarnated? Vs the transmigrator. Both the protag and the antagonist are aware that they're in a novel. The transmigrator doesn't know the contents of the book though, she only knows "she's the protagonist". Our MC, is aware that the world is a book. At the very least, she has gained knowledge of past and future events. By reading the "book" near the beginning of the novel.

A really nice example. Would be Lin father going to the capital with his daughter to try and find work. Only for his daughter to get ill, so he stood on the side of the street to beg. He inadvertently drew the attention of Gao Xi (her name before her death). Gao Xi, seeing the father daughter pair, melt remorseful seeing there good relationship. She didn't have a good relationship with her father. So she gave him 20 taels of silver. He took that money, got his daughter medicine, set her up with her aunt and then went to join Prince Yan's army (our future ML). Fighting for 6 yrs on the battlefield, he exhausted his life to save Prince Yan. When his daughter found out, even though she was conferred titles, lands and money, she knew she'd never see it. So she decided to leave with her father, leaving her body behind for Gao Xi to wake up in. As thanks for saving her life all those years ago. This inexplicable connection, is also what brings the two love interests initially together.

When the antagonist realizes in her madness, that Lin Xi is Gao Xi reborn. They confront eachother in private with no one around. This, conversation is later eluded to be heard by Prince Yan. It's at this point in the story, we realize, he also knows who Lin Xi is. Because he goes back, and makes sure she can never tell anyone the truth in the future. It's also made obvious, that Gao Xi's ex-husband has also figured it out some time ago. He also realizes, he's f*cked up. He actually loved Gao Xi but didn't appreciate her, so he lost her and lost everything that should have been his. It's very unlikely he'll inherit, or even marry again. We also find out, he never actually loved the antagonist in the first place. He has to live with the knowledge, that his decisions drove two women to death because of his own s*upidity. Our end scenes describe his life as extremely mediocre, he is destined to fade into the background from now and never rise again.

she transmigrated into someone else. I feel like Gao Xi didn’t get any retribution’s or any regrets from anyone. I would have liked it better if she reincarnates as herself, stopped the engagement with the original ML, somehow encountered the current ML, and the story took off from there. However, that would have been a different story than what we got.

1) her golden finger is too much. Everyone falls in love with her, for example,

2) She’s very childish, which I can accept but sometimes she’s unreasonably childish.

3) I can’t fully accept (2) because as GAO Xi, she was ‘strict with herself’, yet she’s reborn as another woman and had a swift personality change.

4) She never got retribution for her past life. She seems to have swept that under the rug. The other characters quickly forgot Gao Xi and acted with the norm of the time - a woman died wrongfully but so what? She’s just a useless, unimportant woman, no great loss. Just forget it. However, I didn’t expect Gao Xi’s reborn self to think the same about past Gao Xi.

5) She helped her maiden family after they used her and sacrificed her. She comes off as wishy-washy overall when she does this. She also was supposed to be ‘smart’ but she made moves that constantly caused people to suspect her.

He’s so passive in his life. Too much so. Passively got married, passively left his son to raise himself, passively let the estate fall to ruin (because you know, he has so much money it doesn’t matter who steals how much from his coffers *rolls eyes*), passively granted his son’s request to get married (without anyone asking the girl), passively let his son marry 2 months after 1st wife’s death (he thinks it’s an injustice to the first wife but not enough of an injustice to do anything about it or even mention it), passively got married again, passively refused to talk to his ‘beloved wife’ about issues between them,

... passive should be his name.

He also fails to communicate with the FL. This is a part of his passivity.

He’s also ‘too busy’. But I want to call it as it is - he just didn’t care, was too passive to care, or didn’t not want to bother. He was so ‘Too busy” defending the country so didn’t even send a steward to his house after his mother and wife died and his son is left all alone in the house with no one to raise him. Also no one to manage the house. Yet, he has ‘eyes in the capital’ and ‘knew what was going on in the house’. Then dude, why did you not deal with it? Too busy? No, he’s just passive. For a great decisive general, passivity is kind of weird.

He also fails to investigate his DIL’s death, even after he understood she was his ‘beloved’ wife.

But I really didn't like how he didn't clarified about his 1st wife to other b*tches who thought he loves his 1st wife deeply. Many time MC was provoked by them for this reason but ML never said anything in the public about this matter. I can understand his reasoning for his silence but still I hoped he would speak up.