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The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

墨香铜臭

3.90 · Rating details · 633 ratings · 88 reviews

Can’t I read stallion novels anymore?! [TN: genre with OP protag & harem]

Shen Yuan is reborn into a young man and scum villain destined to die, Shen Qingqiu.

But it must be known that the original Shen Qingqiu was sliced alive by his disciple, Luo Binghe, into a human stick! A human stick!

Shen Qingqiu’s heart is a full herd of grass mud horses running full tilt, yet:

“It ...more

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Published 2015 by jjwxc

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Chinese Web Novels

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Jan 25, 2019 xebec rated it really liked it · review of another edition

i love lbh and i laughed a lot but mxtx writes such awkward scary papapa it rly makes me anxious lol

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Oct 22, 2018 Ellen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

the best type of trash

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Jan 06, 2020 Silvia rated it liked it

Shelves: mm-romance, funny, interesting-concept, mxtx, chinese-og

What do you rate something by your favorite author that had such a good and fun concept and kept you entertained for almost the full length of it but used so many tropes you absolutely hate and had highly questionable content but you still want to look at fanart and read fanfiction sldhdkdhdk [edit: I went with three stars because I do feel mostly positively about it]

Okay that's basically it but I do want to write a bit more about this so here's a slightly more proper review:

I'm making 2020 the What do you rate something by your favorite author that had such a good and fun concept and kept you entertained for almost the full length of it but used so many tropes you absolutely hate and had highly questionable content but you still want to look at fanart and read fanfiction sldhdkdhdk [edit: I went with three stars because I do feel mostly positively about it]

Okay that's basically it but I do want to write a bit more about this so here's a slightly more proper review:

I'm making 2020 the year I stop seeing books as just their ratings and get out my feelings about them first. I liked this book a lot for its entertaining value and I am aware that the complete translation is somewhat lacking in meaning and some of the context/subtext is lost because of it. The retranslation is better but it's still ongoing and not very far at the moment I'm writing this review.

I mostly loved the meta aspect of this. MDZS and TGCF are both fantasy novels and I still had to see the author partly tackle the real world, even just in a meta novel like this one, and it is clear MXTX can engage with readers of webnovels in a clever and meta-critique-ish sort of way (which I suppose is mostly lost on western readers because of the translation and the fact that we don't fully know/understand the context of the Chinese netizen community).

"Modern millennial transmigrates into the villain of a stallion novel and accidentally turns it into a BL cultivation novel" is such a fun concept and this aspect was fully delivered by MXTX and I applaud her for it. Everything that came with it was an absolute gem and I had so much fun reading about it, especially whenever the Self-Saving System popped up a notification. It was truly hilarious and at times it truly felt like being in an RPG (something that I also felt while reading TGCF, although in a different way). I am sure MXTX has played some, it's clear from the way a lot of this novel is written. So, as far as being satisfied with how the premise was handled and executed, I am 100% happy with it.

Now, the main three aspects I consider in MXTX's novels are plot, characters and of course the main relationship. I usually consider her plots to be very well-written and not having many plot holes, as well as being interesting and engaging. Here, I couldn't care less about the single plots or how they built up to the main ongoing plot. Despite my best effort I also couldn't keep track of most of the secondary characters because I lacked a visual reference for them and most of them didn't feel very well-rounded. By the end I could really only connect to a few of them but by then it was too late since I had spent most of the novel not even remembering who they were.

I do think that the meta aspect came in the way of me caring about the characters, especially at first when the S-S System was more present. I just kept seeing them as characters from a different novel (the in-world original Immortal Demon Way) and I was more interested in how Shen Yuan would navigate around them.

Despite this, the overall result was still engaging and kept me curious enough to keep reading every day until the end, even finishing all extra chapters.

I was hoping I would at least care about the main relationship between Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe but I actually found it the worst part of the novel. I did care about sqq and lbh separately as characters but I hated everything else, plain and simple. The tropes used were just some of my pet peeves (age gap, former master/disciple relationship, excessive jealousy&obsession, dubcon etc) and I just hated reading about them. I was hoping at least some of it (the jealousy...) would get somewhat redeemed/fixed but it just wasn't. I also needed a bleach bath for my eyes after reading the p0rn chapter, it was truly the worst thing I've ever read in my life EVER and I'll thank mxtx to never write p0rn ever again.

I was slightly more interested in the moshang relationship that's mostly talked about in the extras, I also loved the friendship between sqh and sqq and basically everything about sqh (I can't spoil but !!!!!!!!!)

Basically the main point of this review is to say WHAT THE FUCK I basically enjoyed everything that didn't have to do with the actual Plot™ so you might see how I am distressed and slightly worried about how the rest of my 2020 is going to go since this is the first book I finished this year sfhsghsfhfgd anyway yeah I would really recommend you go into this knowing that it definitely might NOT be for you but if you're into MXTX and her fandom I do think this is a book that has a lot of uh,,, literary? value. But definitely don't make this the first MXTX/danmei book you read (especially if you can't read the original Chinese). ...more

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Aug 30, 2019 Agnieszka rated it it was ok · review of another edition

It was so meta, I loved that about this book. Shen Yuan's epic irritation with stupid plotholes in a book he bought and spent a month reading... highly relatable. And basically how it shows how fanfiction works. Nice.
As for the rest, omg, it was such a crude crack badfic, which was probably as intended because satire, but it still made me feel like I moved back in time to 2005.

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Feb 17, 2020 Inn Auni rated it liked it

Shelves: lgbt, romance, fantasy, webnovel

BEWARE of SPOILER

Truthfully, I would have like it if it was a rebirth plot instead of transmigration. I wanted Shen Qingqiu himself to change the outcome of his previous life instead of letting Shen Yuan (the transmigrator) did it. It felt off as Luo Binghe kept thinking that his master have change. Of course he did. He was entirely a different person with the same look.

The previous plot was simple. Luo Binghe was abused to the point of no return. And when he found out that he was half demon, he ...more

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Jun 14, 2019 源 rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: good-story-questionable-morals

i honestly don't even know what was happening in the end there. you can tell this was mxtx's first novel, it's kinda choppy and reallyyy questionable at some parts. it did make me laugh multiple times, and unexpectedly tugged at my heartstrings at times LOL. the whole transmutation thing is pretty interesting i think i'll read more of this genre. | He was merely a child all along. He walked alone on this earth, ran around in the dark, and fallen countless times. He never asked for much, and yet ...more

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May 31, 2019 Ana Lucía Gómez rated it it was ok

Mmm, I read MDZS and I really liked it so I wanted to read this. Turns out for me it's not as good, I know this is the first book the author wrote so I'm less judgmental but still it dissapointed me a lot. The romance for me was developed really sloppy, and even though I did laugh I couldn't get attached to the characters.

Also the dynamic of the main couple bothers me a lot because of certain scene so that.

Now to read the celestial novel.

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Jun 02, 2019 Liz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Never before have I loved something so trashy so much.
This one has many downright hilarious scenes and simultaneously it can hit you right in the feels at the most unexpected times.
And chapter 43 is an absolute tearjerker. I will never be over the pain of ch.43 and what poor Binghe had to go through.

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Jan 30, 2020 sri added it

Shelves: fantasy, terrible

"If he had a physical copy of "Proud Immortal Demon Way" in his hand, he would have slapped his [author's] face with the book a long time ago"

It's incredible how the author managed to summarize my entire experience of reading her books in one sentence.

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Jun 20, 2019 kari rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, novels

So this novel was HILARIOUS! Shen Qingqiu is a character after my own heart. Such annoyance, rage, and disdain for the general idiocy of the world, I loved it. I was laughing out loud on the first page and was just immediately swept in. I didn't read this extremely quickly, since I read a lot of other things at the same time, and this was the fun, easy thing I'd read as a break in between, but eventually I started to ship BingQiu SO MUCH, and just had to binge the book. I read most of it, about So this novel was HILARIOUS! Shen Qingqiu is a character after my own heart. Such annoyance, rage, and disdain for the general idiocy of the world, I loved it. I was laughing out loud on the first page and was just immediately swept in. I didn't read this extremely quickly, since I read a lot of other things at the same time, and this was the fun, easy thing I'd read as a break in between, but eventually I started to ship BingQiu SO MUCH, and just had to binge the book. I read most of it, about 50 chapters within the last 4 days.

This was my second MXTX novel, with MDZS being the first. This one is way less plot driven, and not painful in the slightest in comparison. Scum Villain has some angst but MDZS made me SUFFER. My heart was literally screaming in agony. Scum Villain, on the other hand, was just a giant rom com. Everything that didn't have Shizun and Binghe together, I barely cared about. Get baby and his Shizun back together on the page, I say!

Speaking of Binghe, he is baby. Literally baby. I love him. Protect this soft child. I want to pet his fluffy hair. He's so cute. So precious. He is just a pure idiot baby and I love him. I sound like Shizun, don't I. Told you, Shen Qingqiu is a character after my own heart.

Again, plot wise, this isn't really that dense. The whole premise of the novel is that a modern guy curses a stallion novel and subsequently glitches INTO the novel as its main villain. He's tasked by the system inside the novel to fix all the plot holes inside the story. Over the course of the events of the story, because of the changes he makes, the protagonist, Luo Binghe, falls in love with him. We are just along for the ride, watching Binghe grow up from childhood and watching Shizun be kind to him, watching Binghe's crush morph into love. Not the most complex story, but the romance was damn adorable. They are seriously fucking ridiculous. All the memes of Binghe looking at Shizun with stars in his eyes and tears running down his cheeks while Shizun smacks him with a fan are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT ACCURATE. I can't even. They're RIDICULOUS. I love them.

Other than BingQiu, my favorite characters have to be ZuZhi-Lang, the snake baby, and Tianlang-Jun. I loved the extras about both of them. What a complex story. Loved reading about ZuZhi-Lang's devotion. Loved learning about Tianlang-Jun and Su Xiyan, and also Tianlang-Jun's love for humanity and poetry. What a romantic demon prince.

I have not yet read the extras about the adventures of Airplane, but I LOVED his interjection into the story, and am really looking forward to figuring out why everyone is obsessed with MoShang. Definitely seems like a sexy ship. I might come back and talk about my thoughts here once I read this extras. ...more

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Jun 11, 2019 Tripti rated it really liked it · review of another edition

*cry cry cry*
Throughout the entirety of it I was so frustrated!!! BINGHE QINGQIU PLEASE HAVE A PEACEFUL OPEN TALK OML
poor Bingpup so lonely feeling so alone and discarded I CAN'T FJJDKFJGKJFKFJHF

UWAAHHHHH!

Though will have to say, I read MoDaoZuShi first and if I'm to compare the impact the works had on me, this one was more for light reading while MDZS was "GET INVESTED AND STAB YOURSELF TILL YOU BLEED OUT FROM EMOTIONAL OVERLOAD"
Will re read SVSSS soon uwu

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Sep 27, 2019 Nina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy

Still love to reread it.

I finished this days after I started it. And.... I've been rereading it ever since I lost count how many times I reread it. Actually I read MDZS first but because of the long chapters, I thought I tried another of the author's work. I was completely hooked!!!
And yes, I still reread it now, sometimes I choose the first few chapters and sometimes the few last chapters. ...more

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Apr 23, 2019 Christine rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, gods-and-myths, poc-protag, queer-protag, meta-geekery, adventure

3.5
Weird, but COMPELLING.

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Aug 15, 2019 Kristalia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Sobs i love it so much

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Dec 29, 2019 Susan rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, lgbt, romance

There we have it, I’ve read all of MXTX. This one is definitely my least fave (I can for sure rank it MDZS > TGCF > SVSSS), but I had a LOT of fun.

Shen Yuan, an avid reader of web novels dies in the real world and gets transported to his most hated book – The Proud Immortal Demon’s Way, a fantasy wish-fulfillment novel where the all-powerful protagonist, Luo Binghe, conquers the world and marries 600 wives – as the villain Shen Qingqiu, who is killed by the protagonist in the most violent There we have it, I’ve read all of MXTX. This one is definitely my least fave (I can for sure rank it MDZS > TGCF > SVSSS), but I had a LOT of fun.

Shen Yuan, an avid reader of web novels dies in the real world and gets transported to his most hated book – The Proud Immortal Demon’s Way, a fantasy wish-fulfillment novel where the all-powerful protagonist, Luo Binghe, conquers the world and marries 600 wives – as the villain Shen Qingqiu, who is killed by the protagonist in the most violent way possible. He is given a challenge – to survive, lest return to his dead real-world body, and fill the novel’s plot-holes.

For being a parody of 3 genres of Chinese novels that I’m unfamiliar with – Stallion novels, transmigration romances and danmei – I was still be able to be taken along with the story and *find it funny*. That’s pretty big, since usually comedies written by other cultures fall flat with me. You know, there's like, entirely different layers of context *and* the need to translate jokes to another language. Which not all translators can do........ especially fan translators.

It’s definitely MXTX’s first novel though, written in high school too, no less. You can tell how much she grew as a writer between this and MDZS. But it is also pretty damn sophisticated in themes and character for a high schooler, good on ya girl. It’s also 100% the kinkiest novel lmao let ya freek flag fly. You can definitely tell she well full indulgent for this one, and toned herself down for MDZS. Which is a WILD concept!! I have no idea why (view spoiler)

It was just a load of fun. It's just so fuckin funny. Shen Qingqiu screaming internally the entire time, trying to fix this AWFUL novel while being oblivious to making the protagonist fall head over heels with him is just. Such an experience, I loved every moment. The romance was nice, it was just SO funny... but also, dear god, there was so much of the miscommunication AND yandere tropes - doesn’t set me on fire like Wangxian and Hualian unforch. Plus, I wish there was more time spent on the side characters like Liu Qingge, Liu Mingyan, Yue Qingyuan, Mo Beijun and Zu Zhilang. Seriously, this is the only one of her novels with the biggest OT3 *and* lesbian side ship potential. SO MANY WOMEN.

At least you know she gets better at exploring the world and side characters in her others novels, when she’s not trapped in writing parodies of intentionally garbage novels lol ...more

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Jan 31, 2020 Seb marked it as dnf · review of another edition

i hate mxtx in a way that's beyond human comprehension

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Nov 25, 2019 qikiqtarjuaq rated it really liked it

This fucking book. It is so hysterically funny and meta, and while your guard is lowered from the laughing, it stabs at you with knives and feelings. I love Shen Qingqiu as a narrator, his outrage at all the bad villains, the plot holes, and best of all: his complete obliviousness to his own attractiveness as well his own feelings/emotions.

The main premise is after Shen Yuan dies in a freak accident, he transmigrates into the body of a cannon fodder villain named Shen Qingqiu in a book he used This fucking book. It is so hysterically funny and meta, and while your guard is lowered from the laughing, it stabs at you with knives and feelings. I love Shen Qingqiu as a narrator, his outrage at all the bad villains, the plot holes, and best of all: his complete obliviousness to his own attractiveness as well his own feelings/emotions.

The main premise is after Shen Yuan dies in a freak accident, he transmigrates into the body of a cannon fodder villain named Shen Qingqiu in a book he used to constantly criticize. As someone who has spent more time than I really should have reading the same harem novels that Shen Yuan lambasts, I felt a real kinship with Shen Qingqiu's snarky commentary on the state of the braindead villains and the ridiculous plots.

"You think you can do better? You're up!" In this new world, Shen Yuan has to try his best to avoid the original Shen Qingqiu's fate in the books, and in the process, turns a harem novel into a BL novel when the protagonist falls in love with him.

The central pairing: Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu. Shen Qingqiu (Shen Yuan) is a snarky modern day dude just trying to survive in a fictional world of cultivators and demons, and along the way he develops feelings and attachments. Luo Binghe is in a lot of ways the typical yandere love interest - overpowered (by design and for meta reasons), obsessive, possessive, and intense in his pursuit of Shen Qingqiu. If you can look past any objections to Luo Binghe's yandere-ness, however, this is a ship worth reading for the slowburn of Shen Qingqiu's feelings - from oblivious denial, to attachment, and then his reluctant confession. His feelings are something that sneak up on Shen Qingqiu, and it's so amazing when he realizes it. From a personal preference point of view, I love misunderstandings and pining that happens due to one character's obliviousness, so Luo Binghe's angst worked really well for me in this book too.

On Extras: For most c-novels, the extras are nice fluffy epilogues that you can do with or without, but that is not the case for Scum Villain. SVSS's extras add a lot of dimension to the secondary characters, and are absolutely worth reading to get a full picture of all the backstories and things going on in the background that didn't get covered in the novel. Until I reached the extras, I had no idea why everyone was crying over Original Shen Qingqiu, who by all accounts sounded like The Worst. Then I read the extras and had my heart crushed into tiny little pieces.

Warning: The sex scene at the end of this book is (intentionally) brutal and very graphic. Not for the faint of heart! ...more

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Aug 07, 2019 Ririn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, fantasy, romance

This book wasn't perfect but the characterization was so GOOD. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu could always make you feel for the characters even the one considered to be the villain. This book was mostly humor, but damn if I didn't cry in some parts. And yes, yes, I know Binghe's love/obsession towards his shizun isn't healthy (!!) but I cried when Shen Qingqiu died in his arms and then he kept his body for 5 years, I just.... T__T why.

And ah, my fave Shizun, Shen Qingqiu, aka Shen Yuan the annoying otaku ...more

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Aug 21, 2019 Áo Hoa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

4/5
The author's writing is really my cup of tea: funny details/sentences, sarcastic remarks and a lot of twists.
This was her first novel, so I didn't have any high expectations when I started reading it. But it surprised me. I was upset at the time and the book cheered me up (that's why I ranked it 5/5 even though it should be 4/5 lol). It is really entertaining, even more than Mo Dao Zu Shi and Tiān Guān Cì Fú. I like the way I didn't need to think much when I read it.

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Sep 04, 2019 Madalyn (booksandcatsandnaps) added it · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbtpqia, fan-translated

Not sure how to rate this honestly because you know those books that you have a blast reading, but probably wouldn't recommend unless the other person has like your exact same tastes?

This is that kind of book. It isn't meant to be taken seriously and there is definitely some really problematic things in here, but guuuuuuuys, I laughed so much reading this! And I really needed that.

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Feb 23, 2019 B. Jean rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, romance, xianxia

Currently caught up to the most recent chapter 95. I'm loving this, I didn't expect to like it more than Heaven's Official Blessing, but somehow I do. Not that Heaven's Official Blessing isn't excellent, they both are.

Now I'll have to wait for the updates like everyone else, but wow, what an author!

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Sep 07, 2018 Nessa is currently reading it

Shelves: asian-author, mlm, fan-translated, comedic-funny, sensitive-content, graphic-violence, fantasy, historical, web-novel

There’s a new fan translation that’s better explained and better translated at https://faelicy.tumblr.com/post/18503... though it’s still recent so it doesn’t have many chapters done yet so for the MTL it can always be found at https://www.novelupdates.com/series/t...

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Apr 07, 2019 Miss Susan rated it really liked it

Shelves: reading-around-the-world, lgbtqia, poc-author

light novels are too powerful, every time i get into one it eats my brain until i've read it all

addendum: having read some of the extras i would like to say that we are BANNING papapa in this household. truly terrifying behaviour!

4 stars

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Sep 24, 2019 Amanda Prado rated it liked it

Shelves: queer, fantasy, read-in-2019

3,5 stars. super fun, but unfortunately LIs with yandere tendencies aren’t personally my thing so yeah

but it’s so funny how you can see mxtx just well FULL self-indulgent on the kinks + trashy romance tropes in svsss, and then toned them down + presented them in a more “acceptable” way in mdzs

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Aug 21, 2019 Merythapy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: asia

You can definitely tell it was a first novel but somehow I was still completely addicted?? I actually really loved SQQ and the whole concept of going into a book and the system and everything. Usually characters go into books they love; it was really funny to see someone go into a book they hate.

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Oct 17, 2019 ▪️◾️▪️ Jenvile ▪️◾️▪️ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, gay-lgbt

I really enjoyed the first 60% of the story but then it got a little bit repetitive and confusing by the last 40%. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did with MDZS, but the first half is definitely quick paced, fresh and exciting!

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Jan 19, 2019 Roquel Roquel rated it liked it

I love it. I have cry, laugh and become a puddle of feelings.

It's a good start to know all the world and how the system works. Very recommended

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Aug 10, 2019 SJ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Really liked the first half of this and thought the frame narrative of the game system was funny. The back half has a major tone shift, which I knew was coming but liked...less.

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Jan 19, 2020 Imani Chestnut rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'm going to try and make this concise by using the review of this that I did on twitter, but the short version is: I loved this book an almost insane amount.

The long version is:

I went into Scum Villain not expecting a whole lot, especially because everyone said that MXTX's writing always gets better with her other works compared to this one, so a part of me was prepared to be disappointed. Let it be known now that I was an utter fool.

I'd always heard that everyone thought that Scum Villain's ...more

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Jan 19, 2020 Claudia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: gay

The only transmigration novel I like.
Transmigration novels all have an interesting starting concept: contemporary real-world person's soul transmigrating into a novel's character body. Some transmigrated character lack all body memory of the fictional character's body so they need to learn from zero or peril, but this protagonist doesn't have this limitation, he's only limited by not going Out Of Character under threat of death. Which, all right, sounds reasonable.
But I still don't understand ...more

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