I don’t really like rebirth novels much but I gave it a shot because good reviews. It is cute, and it is sweet as the reviews said…but still a bit too bitter for my taste.
MC, ML and their relationship
MC and ML are both officials serving in the imperial court. A number of events happened in their first life, leading the two acquantainces (with unspoken feelings) to become political enemies in different camps in the imperial court. In their first life, it’s roughly said that MC was originally more on the cowardly and for-the-people side, but ML’s decisions was more on the colder, sacrifice-for-the-greater-good side. This led to issues where MC and ML couldn’t really accept each others standpoints, and they struggled to communicate. So yeah, it’s bitter here.
In the second life, MC and ML meet differently. MC also has a bit of a gold finger, where he knows some of the events of the future. He knows that in the future, the main project that caused his death was still forcefully implemented by ML and received controversial reviews, but still mostly good. However, he was rather angry to find out that he was considered a traitorous official while ML was highly regarded. This leads to MC being very cold to ML on their first meeting.
ML himself puts in a lot of effort to warm MC. Gradually, MC starts to realise that this life is very different from his past and starts to interact with ML more normally. He also slowly begins to understand ML’s point of view. MC and ML still have different standpoints at times, but ML fully abides by what he said while they were studying in their second life (something like, “no matter what happens, I promise I will stand by you through thick and thin” after MC sort of glosses over that ML will “kill” MC in the future).
It’s really hard to describe their relationship. Their first life is basically one where they fully loved each other, but couldn’t accept each other’s viewpoints so their love was completely buried. Their second life is far more communicative, trusting and loving. They had different values, but they would properly talk it out and give it a go, leading to a far more rewarding career and love life.
Past life and the side stories
Being friends-turned-political enemies in their past life where MC has a tragic ending and ML lives in pain for the rest of their lives…from what I’ve read of their past life, it is angsty and bitter. Both MC and ML could have handled it better, but they were also very unlucky for sure. Thankfully, the story doesn’t go into too much depth for it. MC accepts that he could have done things better in the past and generally comes to understand ML’s actions as well.
ML occasionally has flashbacks / warning dreams too, but he never recalls the whole thing. The events in the past life leading up to MC and ML’s death is actually covered in a side story. ML actually ends up marrying someone else (it’s a warning in the synopsis, which is kinda why I didn’t want to start reading this), but he never has feelings / does it. It ends up being full of infidelity and destroys ML’s last relic of MC. Anyway, it’s bitter and toxic.
There’s also a side story where MC and ML both go into the future and are students…but it’s still in MC and ML’s original timeline. MC accepts it well and I guess MC did accept the mistakes he made in his first life. The author did kinda say that their second life was really just a chance for both MC and ML to undo their regrets and become better versions of themselves but…I still feel like it kind of invalidates the effort he put into his second life. Anyway, mixed feelings.
The bad drama
Now MC’s second life, MC transmigrated into a bad drama. There’s a few mentions of blurred passerby faces, green screens (the essence of many filming shots) and so on. It’s quite strange but they sort of gradually fade away. There’s also a number of “settings” where the MC does a double take thinking, as expected of a bad drama. One is the frequent coughing up blood haha.There’s a female protagonist and a male protagonist. They’re mostly comic relief with not that much screen time…with very cheesy lines. Some people will like them, some won’t like them.
Conclusion
Overall, this story was cute and both MC/ML were intelligent and played an important role in the story. This story wasn’t really it for me though, a little bit too bitter and left me with some mixed feelings at the end.
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