#*bab

Ask anyone who has been around traumatized ppl in real life and they all will tell you the biggest side effect is them turning into grade a A-hole who frequently forget mindfulness. Meatbun writes that too esp well for Xieqingcheng and Chuwanning and the way she writes how ppl can only love them when they are at a DISTANCE from them, and ppl who are genuinely closer to them get a bruising SHOVE is what makes her writing at once realistic and fantastical. Xie Xue loves her Ge almost Blindly( and she even knows it) but does she knows her brother at any fundamental level beside that he is a nice person deep down? NO. Xue Meng is CWN's staunch supporter but does he knows CWN as a person just 10 years older than him with thoughts and desires of his own ? No.

Like we know there is a reason people say to have a life outside your platonic or romantic relationships HOWEVER in Meatbun's stories no one is truly happy with that at all. CWN for example is already super accomplished aka he is owner of three holy weapons, people respect his work, he is a sought after Shizun of his sect even if people don't exactly like him for his cruel behaviour sometimes but NONE OF THIS assuages the aching loneliness in his heart. He wants someone to love him so bad romantically but he has no one and no matter how many machines he invents for common people, or gets another bajillion title in his name, its not going to make him feel any less alone and it kills him in the inside!

Its the same for Heyu, he is an accomplished hacker, he already has made and will inherit money most people won't be able to spend in three generations, he also does some fulfulling work of helping the mentally ill people via his caring facility for them, He has saved his country I think bajillion times without asking for anything in return , he can easily make friends who would admire him if he wants to. YET IT STILL DOESN'T FULFILL the hole in his heart which can only be filled by someone who understands and love him for who he feels he is inside deep down.

I didn't read BAB so I don't know the whole context, I also don't know the fandom well (except for their memes) so I didn't know there are people complaining about that lack of punishment? But it's ironic that the reason I'm putting it off is not actually He Yu... Although, I admit he seems to be too much for me and I'm not into his kinks, lol. But I can't with the cold bottom who has to be chased until the last minute... and that's how XQC sounds. That's even why I like Erha so much, I love the fact that both protagonists are into each other and both do their sacrifices, it's not only one doing all like most BL. So, correct me if I'm wrong but what I get from your replies is that he was a terrible doctor to He Yu and still the fandom won't recognize this and put it in the same place everyone put bottoms: that they are there just to be loved and did nothing wrong? Because that's actually other of my problems with fandoms in general... they just want to read a story where the top only exist to be there for the bottom or suffer if he did something wrong... and, I mean, there are a lot of scum tops that deserve to suffer but my point is that people love so much this, they only that want that for them, no matter the story.

Anyways, sorry if I'm babbling but those are some thoughts I had reading your reply 😅

Its okay lol. Spoilers ahead//

I mean when you read the summary of BAB as is in jjwxc, what is the first thing that comes to mind when you read "cold apathetic divorced doctor X mental ill patient"?? if your mind conjures up picture of a poor victim patient exploited by their doctor kind of scummy romance, BAB is ironically exactly that but with TWIST as well because we know Heyu refuses to stand in the box of a passive victim.

The thing with BAB is it is true the story is kind of what you described aka XQC is a cold bottom that is being chased till the last page by Heyu( their most fluffy moments are in extras, that tells you all you need to know how intense the books are LOL) but , remember the summary, the cold bottom is not cold because he is genuinely apathetic. But because he is himself mentally ill. The worst kind too aka he refuses to even acknowledge that he is ill until the last arc of the book. That is why he is doing everything in his power to alienate anyone who can help him and that usually turns out to be Heyu because he is the only one who effects him THAT much.

Its not an accident that the people in XQC life do not like Heyu and his ex wife Li Roqiou that much. There is something very sinister beneath XQC's tons of excuses as to why he choses to hurt these two when they get close enough to question his lifestyle choices - two people who do not have personal life support system beside him and society would look down on if things fell apart between them( he is someone who is hyperaware what society expects from men like him so that he can get the privilege of trust . That privilege definitely works in his favor when he does something covertly shitty to people who cannot retaliate back without looking terrible instead of him. That brilliant brain of his KNOWS what he is doing)

So unlike other typical stories of cold bottoms, XQC is definitely different because the plot is not acting like he is just a sweety pie beneath his cold exterior like a tsundere. At least he is not ALL that. There is legit something sinister going on with him . In fact ironically its XQC who buys into the tsundere archetype for himself. He has convinced himself whatever shitty things he has done, he has done for the good of those people and not because he is a suic*dal sociopath who would ruin anyone who would get in the way of his pre-planned death plan.

So if that kind of hardcore atypical story is your thing BAB is definitely worth a read. He is definitely not like Chuwanning. Chu wanning AT LEAST knows what are his issues. He knows he has a terrible personality. He knows his defense mechanism is being cruel and it furthers isolates him. He knows his issues and problems starts and ends with him . His real problem is that he couldn't do anything to solve these issues to form meaningful relationships. And it cost him the well being of his student/ the man he loves and he dies a horrible death in 0.5 timeline.

XQC 's case is worse than CWN because not only he does not know what his problems is, he would swear up and down that he doesn't have any! so that is why it takes so much time to "melt" him.

I won't say she is biased. I would say her story philosophy is very rooted in Asian principles of what redemption and heroism is. In typical Hinduism and Buddhism and Tao culture, what you need to turn good is to have a change of heart. In a society which values community over individualism, Your sins are not your own, its your family's too. This is why in medieval Chinese times, a traitor's entire family used to get punished alongside with the traitor. There are stories of a Confucian scholar whose glory is credited to his hardworking mother who knew the value of the right environment to grow a scholar and how she tirelessly searched for it. So you would find Meatbun stories full of references to these and how she writes redemption.

To look at Shi Mei, his one part aka Hua Binan died a horrible death while another is while alone is very much alive and is loved by people who get treated by him. Pretty good ending for a man who basically ruined and killed an entire timeline right? why did that happen? what is the difference between Shi Mei and Hua Binan??

Its because Shi Mei was the one who had to go through the 5 year arc parallel to Mo Ran too. Unlike Hua Binan who stewed in his revenge isolated from the society he wants to destroy, not looking at the faces of people he wants to kill, looking only at their worst excesses in Gueyue day in and out, Shi Mei saw their best. He saw how kind and supportive society can be to people when you are kind . THAT is what made him develop a conscience that Hua Binan lacks. Meatbun is not biased. She is VERY consistent in her theme of how society maketh heroes and They also maketh villains. It all depends on their cruelty and kindness.

It applies to Heyu too. XQC likes to steal all credit from his sister and aunty Li and Qin Ciyan on how much their support means to the stability of his life, this is why he refuses to see how isolated he made Heyu. He already is in a family who wants nothing to do with him and then as his personal , in house physician not only he terminated his term of work early, he even says it was not his responsibility to be "the bridge" Heyu needed to recover from his illness! I mean its a wonder Heyu didn't mowed down the society when we see him already. He is raised and treated like a villain his entire life. XQC should not have felt its surprising that Heyu attacked him- WHAT ELSE CAN HE EVEN EXPECT after leaving an abused and neglected kid to deal with a fatal illness all by himself!?

This review will contain some minor and major spoilers, so read it at your own risk. Disclaiming already that I read the book almost live as it was updating since chapter 10 and sourced the translation from everywhere including MTLing the Spanish translation since they used to update the fastest. They did an amazing job. They all did. Very grateful for their hard work. Also yes I have read all the R rated smut as well. Meatbun really unleashed herself and I AM SO THANKFUL.

As one can see from my rating, I really love the book and also highly recommend it. If you have read the tags and understand their gravity that is. (If you read the book pretending you can handle the warnings and then cannot handle it and complain here, the fool would be you) I also think its one of the most misunderstood book of the author Meatbun who does not eat Meat since her breakthrough with her first novel Dumb Husky and his White Cat Shizun. I will explain in a bit.

First of all the kind of book MB writes, its about not just one bad guy and the good guy who redeems them. That is one of the most fundamental misunderstanding of the basic skeleton of her genre. No, what she writes is Gong X Shou pair who are both very unlikable people by any normal standards (hilariously enough the weak rival love interest here in the end gave up on pursuing Xie Qingcheng because he finally saw how rancid he really is and he is not into it LMAO) . Yet it does not stop them from falling in love with each other and getting a second chance in life despite the terrible things they do to each other, to other people and being terrible in general. Her exploration of redemption, love and its limit is not one dimensional as one usually expects in stories like this, so to pretend she writes her shous as some minimally flawed martyrs who never do anything wrong is why I see so many people give this book very weird reviews. Granted Xie Qingcheng, the apathetic, paternalistic shou of the story is definitely the greyest character Meatbun has written in her shou gang, but still. I don't think she was giving Chu Wanning a ringing endorsement with him weaponizing his authority as a Shizun to beat his student in jealousy and never communicating his thoughts which resulted in his tragedy in 0.5 timeline (or Gu Mang from Yuwu being hailed as a good person for patronizing Mo Xi on what is or is not good for him and nearly getting him killed because of that).

XQC was once personal doctor to a deeply neglected and mentally ill child He Yu and story starts from there. He has his own turbulent secrets due to which he acts hypocritically throughout the story which ends with him having chronic suicidal impulse to self destruct his life. That includes leaving a 14 year old He Yu to fend of his own illness which is explained in detail in first 3 chapters alone, that its fatal if not managed carefully. XQC however is opposite of Chu Wanning where he is extremely reluctant to take responsibilities of his wrong doings and his patronizing attitude towards those he thinks will get in the way of his one and done death plan.

He also is deeply reluctant to be a bad person so once you start reading his perspective in the story you would be tempted to believe every lie and every well crafted excuses he gives himself to act like a shitty person (aka breaking his Hippocratic oath in the name of "I was not mentally equipped" only to see him happily take care of another teen who is suicidal and mentally unstable called Chen Man… the devil is in the details) . However you must not. XQC is not just mentally ill himself but also a psychiatrist, if anyone knows how to lie and gaslight people its him. If you read any other label of dark story where one of the person is a doctor to a mental ill person, you would be tempted to think the doctor is exploiting his power over the mentally ill one to get his way. Its DEFINITELY true for Xie Qingcheng too but just not the way people expect and hence they think he never is doing anything wrong when compared to wrongs He Yu does. That is a logical fallacy which will cost readers understanding of what is going in this book.

People say that He Yu is written with mental illness as a shitty excuse to get away with so many bad things he did, however he fully justifies his presence as a heroic personality despite his dark side too. If it weren't for both the good things and bad things he did in the story, Xie Qingcheng would have died ages ago after traumatizing him and his sister and everyone and all the sacrifices so many side characters did in order to get the ultimate villain of the story get their just desserts would be in vain (including but not ending in XQC's deceased parents).

This is He Yu's story fundamentally. A child like the Cinderella archetype who was never cared for despite having a deliberating illness, his condition being made to be shamed and hidden by his affluent family and that being exploited by his own doctor for his own self destructive ends to keep him at his arms length, to the point of letting him having hallucination and not even telling him about it like a red flag doctor would. Through the course of the story, he snaps and gives up too because the burden of being alone and isolated mentally and yet being told to make bridges with the society without any help. But due to guilt and determination he vows to do better and save himself at any cost necessary and save as many mentally ill people as possible who are shunned and left to die by the society who do not understand what is it to live with an illness which will never allow them to have complete control over who they are.

The story is about how no person can be joined to the society and live a normal life on their own steam. Even Xie Qingcheng who lies and is proud of doing it on his own and doesn't understand why He Yu cannot do it on his own forgets the people in his life who made him feel normal and functional. He has to become that bridge and be the good doctor he was meant to be like his mentor but failed to do so for He Yu and that is his arc. Just like He Yu's arc is to find the bridge and save people like him.

If anyone has read forced love genre stories, its usually the shou characters who written this way abused, neglected and gaslighted by masculine care taking figure so they don't know any better when the exploitative gong is who they fall in love with. Meatbun pulls a reverse Uno card and presents a case of "what if it was reverse and Gong is now the shou?? What if the Shou like characters change to Gong instead and are not willing to sit back and take the lies and abuse any longer and snap back??? " The story like every Meatbun story is not about perfection of love or being an example. That would be a mistake to expect from her and the genre. But this is about the redeeming/healing qualities of love and how it can change two fundamentally unlikable people and change the world. Meatbun's writing is very compelling this way as anyone who read 2Ha at least knows.

Writing style wise its also very well done and I would even say one of the best First person POV work to ever exist! You actually feel like you are in the head of another person. The way a person can misinterpret what they see, misremember dates or time, change the way they felt about something or someone as time passes or lie to themselves about certain things makes the writing a very layered and hard text to quickly get into. There are also parts in the story where you are not even given transparency on what the POV is thinking (and its deliberate as one would understand in last chapter before the extras) Moreover the story is written from perspective of a severely mentally ill man who flirts around the idea of suicide too so the narration has a tone of depression and darkness to it.

I have seen a lot of people complain about the darkness of the text, the cyclical nature of the violence and misunderstanding (which again, comes from misunderstanding how the Shou is just a poor meow meow and its not about his redemption along with He Yu when its wrong to think so)but its a necessary part of the story. You cannot write a fluffy text with characters whose mindset is not fluffy, you know? Not to mention the mystery plot of the story which deals with the idea of exploiting temporary mental illnesses that grief and trauma can bring by the villain, also gives lots of dogblood and torture material to read about.

Also XQC: *Calls him an asshole for EnDaNgErInG some hypothetical girl he never met if He Yu dared to propose to her, absolutely in panic, not at all composed*

Also, XQC: *Refuses to be the bridge He Yu wants and needs since he was a child because he is an A-hole and liar and a s*icidal idiot*

XQC:" What is He Yu's problem? why is he not healing??? I was okay at his age , where its going wrong???"( chapter 1-110, totally ignoring his mentor and remaining family who were there for him instead of running away)

I think its about superiority v/s inferiority complex as well. XM looked down on MR from a place of superiority complex. He needlessly used to think he is better than him and hence CWN, someone he respects and considers above him is certainly above MR's reach to be respected too. That toned down later. The lesson seems to be that one can work on superiority complex if one tries hard enough.

Whereas XX comes from a place of inferiority complex. She thinks she is nowhere near capable enough as her brother, she certainly has done enough crap against her brother's wishes to exacerbate that feeling. Yet she feels immense emotional gratitude for being taken care of aka someone she puts on pedestal means she would never direct the resentment of feeling inadequate against him. She finds HY's ingratitude in her eyes hence extremely discomfiting, since in her eyes HY has always been younger and unequal.

So watching someone like that who on paper is superior to her to, gain a higher moral ground in that video leak incident pissed her off even more. Her already existing terrible inferiority complex hence increasing. To find out later that HY may or may not have forced himself on XQC which made her feel "relief" could be both homophobia and her feeling better about her own self after the video leak episode made her unconsciously feel bad about herself.

I think this is why XM's overall attitude about image narcissism remains the same whereas XX is practically unrecognizable from her first appearance. This is why she has no emotional incentive to change how she looks down on HY unlike XM, who found it more emotionally rewarding to let go of some his superiority complex against MR. XM gains a friend this way.