It's about a married actor catching his husband of 27 years together in the act with another, much younger man and beating his wayward husband with the baseball bat. He broke his teeth, bones, internal organs and smashed his pen*s. This is worse that the ancient Chinese punishment of beating a person's ass with a board! After that he ordered him to meet him a week later in the Netherlands in order to divorce! Obviously, their marriage is not recognized in China, so the guilty party would get nothing afterwards.

For some reason, most reviewers and all commenters love that scene of brutal spousal violence. Like it's their dream come true. Do readers really think that consensual s*x between adults outside marriage deserves such response, no matter who did it, a wife or a husband? We all wish to kill the bastard, but how many of us would act on that feeling? One loving spouse actually beat another spouse into a pulp with a baseball bat? A husband being another husband's judge, jury, and executioner? After thirty years of impeccable love and mutual devotion?

Next, that young lover mu*dered the actor and his soul transmigrated into another actor's body. So, he continues his career as an actor and finds himself another husband. His new husband does not know, of course, about his beau's violent streak. The actor never tells him about who he really is, his true age (50, not 20), or what he did to his first husband.

He never actually seeks revenge on the cheating husband or the mu*derer, well... besides beating his husband so agressively that he will never be able to have s*x or function normally in his life ever again, which is surprizing for a character in a Chinese novel. Usually it is a revenge driven life afterwards.

Nor does he ever feel that he did something wrong when he used that baseball bat on a couple in the middle of their pleasant encounter. Instead, the two men who sneaked away to have s*x while he was working just desintegrate, each on his own gets his life ruined in one way or another. The cheating husband truly grieves the loss of his beloved and regrets, but not enough to expose the mu*derer and his own homosexuality to the public.

Maybe the ML was guilty of investing too much in other people, one was a movie director he invested 30 years of care and hundreds of millions in, another - a young fresh meat he invested in as his younger brother, a protege. He invested so much that he felt that they were his property, that he bought their loyalty? So after his death neither the old movie director (the widowed cheating husband), nor the young actor (the director's lover and a mu*derer) made it in life.

Anyways, the ML and just about everyone else are portrayed as hard working professionals and rather normal people, nobody perfect. To me, this novel was missing something, maybe some good deeds or purpose, although seeing a 50years old man surviving devastation and starting from scratch is sort of heroic, of course. The problem is that he got an incredible advantage this time - a new body blessed by gods (he was not beautiful nor young before) and God-level skills in acting, singing, dancing, high EQ and IQ, etc. So it was a smooth sailing for him. The only challenge he faced was to believe in eternal love again after his first marriage failed. But his new hubby managed to convince him to take the risk. Their first kiss was when both were accidentally drugged (smoked pot) in ch 52, but that was not the moment when they got together or one began the pursuit of the other. This is a v e r y slow burn romance with a v e r y reluctant pair of participants.

In short, well written, very well translated, full of great insights into entertainment industry and fandom works, but missing something special that would make me feel happy or touched by grace as I was reading it.

the main character suffers from a deliberate betrayal from the people he trusted. As I say, its one of the common trope but the author did a good job in utilizing it. The hatred of the said main character cannot easily be pacified and through this betrayal that had led to his untimely death because someone just turned a yandere. Just like the typical transmigration novel, the main character was given the second chance, to seek revenge and walk his way to recapture the entertainment industry.