pluckaduck's manga / #strong female lead(144)

heavy spoilers the novel was so...draining. essentially, it's a subversion of the mc-fell-for-and-forgives-rapist-ceo genre. it's a bit too unnecessarily long. whereas the manhua just encapsulated the main points, skipped the unnecessary details, and made their relationship sweeter than it looks. mc is testing his boundaries the whole time and seducing him so he won't kill her. it's very very very angsty. it is true that the ml changed into a pampering lovesick guy, but his core didn't. he's still very ruthless, will lose patience, and monitors mc bc he doesn't trust her. tbf, she betrays him many times but he can't bear to kill her so he locks her up. the ml is the embodiment of all the tropes of the generic bossy-ceo type, but his inhumanity and coldness are not glossed over so that's nice. he was so madly and desperately in love with fl, even delusionally believing that her heart will soften someday, only to find out she still loathes him, yet he can't let go... it was pretty pitiful to read. well, he does eventually give up trying to win her heart, was even indifferent to his death, and finally lets her go with yuanze once all his crimes were exposed and the enforcement officers came. karma really bit him in the ass. chen huaguo(?) represents the dumbass naive reckless self-righteous female lead of those stories. spoiler: when the fl went missing with yuanze, a drunk ml hooked up with chen guo. when they realized she was pregnant, he wanted the baby to be aborted, thinking she'll use it to tie them together. so she planned to run away, (runaway pregnant wife trope, yk?) but she got killed in a car accident. in the end, she hated him but still very much so loved him. the fl is so strong, mentally. she's walking on thin ice. there were many instances her plan fell through but she never gave up for the sake of her loved ones. it was very emotionally exhausting and at one point, she wanted to give up and live as dead (spoiler: she was kidnapped and brutally raped or gangraped. the kidnapper was one of her customers during the time ml prostituted her. before this incident, fl's best friend who felt betrayed by fl, ended their friendship. ml was responsible for these instances, indirectly or not). but nope, stands back up and again resolves herself to exact revenge on ml. her plans never actually do work tho, bc at the stakes of the lives of her loved ones, and bc ml is as unkillable as a cockroach. and frankly, she only manages to escape bc ml finally gives up.