This is a very personal (probably not popular) opinion, but this wasn't... good. [The following review is hella long. You have been warned.]
.....
I don't have anything against tragic stories, and I definitely found myself crying in the middle while reading this, but it was only because the situation playing out was so... unnecessarily depressing. How did Jiang Wenxu become such a garbage person? What reason was there for him to cheat on and abuse He Zhishu in the first place? If the author wants us to go by his personality from high school, it's not in character how he turned out at all. Did he just become an entitled fucking bastard because the power went to his head? Why didn't they explore this further? It's like he was created purely to be detested, but even then, the author wouldn't stop trying to redeem him through the course of the story.
I get that in real life, cheaters, abusers, marital rapists and the like aren't going to have a tangible reason behind why they do such inhumane things. Sometimes, people go bad, but it wasn't properly characterised in this story. He should've then been made out to be a whole villain (with no sympathy from the author or readers—not that any readers seem to sympathize with him anyway) or somebody that realized how disgusting they had become and genuinely tried to better themselves—by understanding if he truly had any love for He Zhishu he should let him go, or working on anger management, coming clean to him, just realizing he wasn't obligated to a person's love when he himself wasn't faithful. But no, he went and hurt him, raped him (that's the part that made me cry so hard, who the fucking fuck does that to someone and then tells them to get over it the next day?) and still had the fucking gall to pretend their relationship could go back to what it used to be? Only a psychopath could do this kind of thing and brush it off as not a big deal every time.
No, this story seemed like it was made with nothing but the intent to make the reader despair, and... I don't think that's nice. The utter lack of hope that comes across: a seemingly star-crossed romance in youth can turn into something so painfully ugly; some people change for no reason and don't change back; it's impossible to escape our attachments to people who hurt us, even in death; and don't even get me started on the doctor—I don't understand how he fell in love with one of his patients like that in the first place (he sees just as much of him as he would his other patients in a professional setting, so what gives?), but his story was just... doomed from the beginning. Just a bunch of tragic components thrown together in an almost sadistic way. The only plus point to me was that He Zhishu seemed to be surrounded by people (more like one person and the sweetest pets) that loved him unconditionally when he finally passed.
I felt nothing but deeply sorry or pure hatred for these characters trapped in depressing circumstances, and I don't think that makes for a great story (I give it a... 2/5?). Well, that's just my opinion, and it took me a reeeally long rant to state it, so my bad, I guess. If you actually managed to read this till here... um, sorry?
This is a very personal (probably not popular) opinion, but this wasn't... good. [The following review is hella long. You have been warned.]
.....
I don't have anything against tragic stories, and I definitely found myself crying in the middle while reading this, but it was only because the situation playing out was so... unnecessarily depressing. How did Jiang Wenxu become such a garbage person? What reason was there for him to cheat on and abuse He Zhishu in the first place? If the author wants us to go by his personality from high school, it's not in character how he turned out at all. Did he just become an entitled fucking bastard because the power went to his head? Why didn't they explore this further? It's like he was created purely to be detested, but even then, the author wouldn't stop trying to redeem him through the course of the story.
I get that in real life, cheaters, abusers, marital rapists and the like aren't going to have a tangible reason behind why they do such inhumane things. Sometimes, people go bad, but it wasn't properly characterised in this story. He should've then been made out to be a whole villain (with no sympathy from the author or readers—not that any readers seem to sympathize with him anyway) or somebody that realized how disgusting they had become and genuinely tried to better themselves—by understanding if he truly had any love for He Zhishu he should let him go, or working on anger management, coming clean to him, just realizing he wasn't obligated to a person's love when he himself wasn't faithful. But no, he went and hurt him, raped him (that's the part that made me cry so hard, who the fucking fuck does that to someone and then tells them to get over it the next day?) and still had the fucking gall to pretend their relationship could go back to what it used to be? Only a psychopath could do this kind of thing and brush it off as not a big deal every time.
No, this story seemed like it was made with nothing but the intent to make the reader despair, and... I don't think that's nice. The utter lack of hope that comes across: a seemingly star-crossed romance in youth can turn into something so painfully ugly; some people change for no reason and don't change back; it's impossible to escape our attachments to people who hurt us, even in death; and don't even get me started on the doctor—I don't understand how he fell in love with one of his patients like that in the first place (he sees just as much of him as he would his other patients in a professional setting, so what gives?), but his story was just... doomed from the beginning. Just a bunch of tragic components thrown together in an almost sadistic way. The only plus point to me was that He Zhishu seemed to be surrounded by people (more like one person and the sweetest pets) that loved him unconditionally when he finally passed.
I felt nothing but deeply sorry or pure hatred for these characters trapped in depressing circumstances, and I don't think that makes for a great story (I give it a... 2/5?). Well, that's just my opinion, and it took me a reeeally long rant to state it, so my bad, I guess. If you actually managed to read this till here... um, sorry?