Return of the Swallow

Associated Titles: 锦堂归燕, ROS

Author: 风光霁月 (Beautiful Clear Moon After Snowfall)

Status: Ongoing [ongoing raws at 1092]

Key words: historic, intelligent female protagonist, sibling rivalry, politics, schemes and conspiracies, enemies become lovers, caring male lead.

Link to the translation site(s) at the end of the review

Qin Yi Ning survived in the wilderness after her foster mother died, and when she was 14 it was discovered she had been swapped at birth by her father’s enemies, her father being the powerful Prime Minister of the imperial court. Although she might have lacked understanding of the noble society, her quick wit and sharp instincts made her instantly realize that she wouldn’t be able to survive without acting and protecting herself from other’s schemes. Specially,  from the poisonous girl that had been occupying her place all these years, who, afraid of losing support, already turned QYN’s family against her from the very beginning. Therefore, QYN needs to try hard in order to keep her standing in the household.

But this novel is not all about the petty confrontations within the inner residence, that’s the least. The world is unstable, and the country is ruled by an incompetent Emperor that commits atrocities with only the slut Empress in his mind. When the actions of the court start to threaten her family and even her own self, being thrown into the turmoil of the decaying country and the imminent war, she has no other option than involving herself with politics and plot from the shadows.

Amidst the face-slapping and scheming, we readers find a small oasis in Pang Xiao, the young general from the enemy country. Despite having a blood feud with QYN’s father, he ends up hopelessly falling in love with her. He is a sharp and intelligent man himself,  and he holds no grudge against her and pursues her passionately. He is mesmerized by QYN’s beauty and intelligence, and he greatly cares for her even before realizing his own feelings. Being a brave general, sometimes he is arrogant and domineering, but ends up softening at her sight. His shameless small tricks make our innocent MC flush red, but although he hides it well he also has his own moments of shyness.

This novel is definitely a gem among chinese webnovels, both the writing style and plot are superb. The characters are deep, with several layers to them, and you can never be too sure of anything or anyone. Our MC is a girl with character, strength, intelligence and a bit of wilderness, able to plot and scheme when necessary, but also inexperienced, sometimes unaware of major plots surrounding or concerning her, which adds realism to it. And she is so good without transmigrating or rebirth elements, which I deeply appreciate. She learns and changes to become stronger, but also has a heart made of flesh that aches at the dismissal of her good intentions or her powerlessness to act at times.

And the romance is really delicious, I personally love the ‘enemies become lovers’ premise, and PX can really steal a lady’s heart with his sweet and smooth moves, really yummy to read. Still, they need to face several tribulations due to their opposing stance and the complicated politic situation, their journey together is definitely not smooth sailing.

And as I said, when reading this novel you can’be too sure of anything or anyone. Author can perfectly kill someone you thought would stick around for a long time in a single moment, and in the most unexpected way (yep, anyone read Game of Thrones? you get the feeling then). It isn’t one nor two the times the author caught me totally unprepared with certain situations, there’s no use in anticipate since it will always end up in a different way from what you thought. The only thing I feel I need to point out is that the first chapter is really, really hard to read. I started reading it once and dropped it because I couldn’t get past the first chapter, don’t do that. I know it will be cumbersome, but past the first chapter the real story begins and will be in no way uninteresting or boring, so don’t let that boring first chapter stop you from discovering this marvelous novel!

As for the translation, it really is high quality. The translator puts a lot of effort in keeping the high quality of the original text, and she achieves it, so the end result is truly a gem.

Links:

Description, chapter directory: NovelUpdates    Original TLion site: VolareNovels

Other novels with contemporary intelligent MC in ancient setting: Empress with no Virtue

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