I didn't see a spoiler thread for this book. It looks pretty cute and it's short (95 chapters!). Any spoilers? Description How pitiful is a life without love? In every happy ending, there is always a male character who either meets his demise or lives the rest of his life alone. Maybe these male characters regard feelings as playthings, or maybe they just don’t care. But what if they each meet someone who is willing to love them and spend the rest of their life with them? These are the love stories of said male characters and their counterparts, from modern day to cultivation world, and humans to vampires. NOTE: Although the author labeled this as a quick transmigration novel, it is far from one. It’s more like a compilation of individual love stories with separate male leads and female leads set in a variety of different settings and eras.
Translator here~ Spoiler: Arc 1, CEO x Actress After taking Qingruo in as a sugar baby (though they don't get sexual, he likes her cooking), rumors about them start going around. QR starts getting a lot of offers for movies/dramas, but she doesn't take any of them. Feng Qi moves into her apartment and a few months later, she has to go on a business trip for a week. When FQ is in the car his assistant Chu Yang, he expresses his doubt about QR, thinking that she has bigger ambitions to become Mrs. Feng. But CY knows da wae, he knows FQ lowkey likes QR romantically. When they reach the company, FQ calls QR's entertainment company and tells them he'll let them roll in some dough (investments). He's in a really good mood, but when he doesn't receive a call from QR thanking him (she was on the plane already, so her company couldn't contact her and tell her about the investments), he throws a huge fit and his employees all suffer hell for a week. On the day QR comes back, FQ called for a popular new actress so he could have fun with her in his office. QR sees, but she doesn't really care. She just walks to a sofa and falls asleep because she's tired from her flight. FQ hadn't done anything with the popular actress girl, she was just sitting on his lap flirting with him. He tells her to scram immediately after seeing QR fall asleep, and he's disappointed that he wasn't able to make her jealous. QR and FQ go back to her apartment, and she goes to bed after they eat. FQ goes to water her plants in the balcony and notices a paparazzi. He doesn't mind--as a matter of fact, he even waves at the paparazzi. Afterward, he returns to the kitchen and tries to clean up the dishes on the table. Messes up, breaks a bowl. Secretly throws it in a black plastic bag and stuffs it into the kitchen trashcan. Then the next morning, he tells his driver to take out the trash. QR doesn't notice. "Feng Qi silently praised himself for his own intelligence." Later on, he and QR join his friends for mahjong. Turns out QR sucks at it, FQ helps her win the money back. He gets teased, "(She's) so precious (to you)?" And he agrees. At the clubhouse, FQ meets one of his old sugar babies. She wants to get together with him again and asks him for a meal. FQ calls QR over and says, “Why don’t you come visit us at our home when you’re free? Qingruo’s cooking definitely tastes better than the food from any restaurant.” The old sugar baby stomps away, of course. Then QR asks FQ if they're really gonna invite that girl to dinner? “I was just kidding,” he reassured, and continued, “she’s not qualified to have you cook for her.” Spoiler: An Qi and Jing Cheng An Qi is FQ's ex-wife. She pursued him all through high school and became his fake girlfriend, and eventually, fake wife. After they divorce, she marries Jing Cheng. Chu Yang says that FQ is only feeling depressed about AQ because he's having a hard time accepting the fact that someone who used to like him so much is now married to someone else. And he's right, honestly. AQ and JC are not bad characters.
Spoiler: More on Arc 1 By chapter 6, QR has been living at FQ's manor for half a year already. They fight for the first time over his domineering attitude. The day after, FQ wants QR to accompany him to AQ's full moon ceremony (a party celebrating the birth of AQ's twins). FQ enters the manor and is angry when a servant tells him that QR skipped both breakfast and lunch, but when he enters her room and sees that her stuff is packed up, his anger instantly goes away. He tells her to accompany him to the party, but she rejects with "Why should I?" This immediately shuts him up. To shake him off, QR tells him to give her 20 minutes to prepare, and she goes into the dressing room. He waits patiently but then gets a call from CY saying QR called over a supermodel so the supermodel could accompany him to the party instead. FQ knocks on the dressing room door twice but she doesn't respond. When she finally comes out, eyes red, he hugs her and apologizes. He'd never apologized to anyone before. He admits to himself that she's pretty important to him now. Oh, and they're not going to the party anymore. He asks her if she's hungry and she says no, but he knows she is anyway. So he asks her to cook some food, and he princess carries her downstairs. She asks him what he wants to eat and he lists a few things, except they're all her favorites. Then they have this conv: “Qingruo, yesterday I was angry. I didn’t mean it. Don’t be mad anymore, okay?” Qingruo ignored him. Feng Qi waited a moment before lowering his head to observe her expression. He continued, ”I’ve never apologized to anyone else, not because I think I’m always right, but because I’m not used to it. I know what I said and did to you was wrong.” Finally, she responded with a softened tone. ”Feng Qi, I know you didn’t mean it, but what you said really hurt.” “I know,” he said immediately, pressing a kiss on her hair. His words were sincere. ”I was wrong, I won’t do it again.” When he proposes to her, he does it on their rooftop with fireworks in the night sky. She accepts, of course. Neither of them wants to hold a wedding ceremony because it's too troublesome, so they don't. They just get their marriage certificate done, and that's all. Afterward, FQ and CY go to get a prenuptial agreement done. For those who don't know, it's basically an agreement that divides the assets and properties they own when a couple divorces. The prenuptial agreement FQ set up benefits only QR, giving her a good chunk of his company's shares. He doesn't want to give her the agreement because it'd imply that they might divorce, but he does anyway because quote: "You know what kind of person I am—I can’t promise you we’ll be together forever. Give yourself a way out while I’m still feeling generous. It’s hard to say how excessive I might be in the future.” Basically, he's afraid he'll mistreat her, cheat on her, or something in the future. He doesn't trust himself. We learn later that it's because he thinks she's too good for him.
This arc only has 10 chapters, but the story feels so long anyway, still got about three more chapters to spoil, but I'll do that later.
Spoiler: Arcs Arc 1: CEO x Actress Arc 2: Abused ML x Neighbor Now, this one is a bit more complicated. It seems to be a normal modern day world, but it's later revealed that the ML was reborn. Because he was abused, he grew up hating the world and eventually, he made and spread the zombie virus. When he became the last human on Earth, he killed himself. And then he was reborn to when he was a pre-teen, and that's where the arc starts. The FL is a younger girl who lives nearby. She befriends him in the alleyway one day, and they become childhood friends. Because of her, he ends up not developing the zombie virus in the end. Arc 3: Demon Lord x Immortal This is one of my favorite arcs because of how the FL develops. When the ML and FL get together, they're forced to go on the run because the ML was cultivating a certain technique that made him weaker and weaker with each level (if he succeeds, he'll be stronger than before). This really pushes the FL to mature and become stronger so she can protect her beloved until he finishes cultivating. Their love is also tested in quite a few other ways. For example, the FL's father doesn't think the ML deserves her (comes around eventually though), and with each level of the cultivation technique, the ML became uglier and uglier (in the demon world, the stronger a demon is, the more attractive they are) until he didn't even look human anymore. At the final level, he became a human child with no powers or memory of his past. Lived with the FL in the human world until he recovered and regained his cultivation. Arc 4: General x Soon-to-be Empress This one is set in ancient China. The FL is extremely arrogant, and the ML is cold. I don't have much to say about this arc since I'm not too fond of the ancient China genre, but it does also have a good plot with a plot twist at the end. Bonus Arc: Yandere The author had this as arc 5 before but due to the content, she was forced to remove it and replace it with a normal vampire arc. I read this yandere arc on another website before I read the vampire arc. This yandere arc is 11/10 f*cked up and not for everyone. While most (if not all) of the other stories/arcs are showcases of different kinds of love between different kinds of people, the yandere arc is a love story gone tragically wrong. I plan to translate it at the very end.
This confused me a lot too when I was reading the novel. You see, the FL in each arc is called [insert surname] Qingruo. But the MC/FL in almost every single novel (except one) by this author is called Qingruo too. Maybe the name Qingruo is special to the author, so she names all of her FLs/MCs Qingruo, or maybe the author's a narcissist and her own name is Qingruo. Who knows? But none of her other novels aren't pre-sequels or sequels or anything of each other. So that brings us to the question: Are all these Qingruos the same character? I think, no. None of the arcs in The Lover's Prattle are related to each other. The Qingruos in each arc don't really think or do anything that suggests they have memories of the previous arcs, and that's why I said the novel is like a compilation of short stories with different male and female leads in each one. I'm calling them arcs, but they're really standalone stories. So, the short answer to your question is: No, because there is no MC. When I say FL, I'm referring to the individual FL in the respective arc.
Please spoiler interesting arc 2, 3 and 4. I don't like arc 1, ml is so disgust, unclean and playboy plus I hate CEO.
Spoiler: Arc 4, General x Soon-to-be Empress So in this arc, the emperor is extremely young (for an emperor, i think it said he became the emperor when he was 8 or 9?) and only managed to get the throne thanks to the ML. Thus, he trusts the ML on everything. The emperor is practically a puppet and useless on his own because the ML is the one who does everything for him. The emperor's harem is even chosen by the ML, since the ML has a good eye for people. The FL is the person the ML chose to marry the emperor and become the empress. She's the sister of one of the ML's favorite subordinates. Anyway, since she's going to become the empress, she has to undergo a lot of etiquette training. They meet for the first time when the ML goes to check on her progress. But it turns out, she's totally shameless and rowdy with none of the manners an ancient Chinese woman should have at all. At first, the ML is disgusted and threatened to cut off her hand, but eventually he falls for her blunt and honest personality. She falls in love later. On the day of her wedding, he stops her sedan chair in the forest, tells them to wait there. Then he went and overthrew the throne. It was the ultimate betrayal for the emperor, and when asked "why" the ML answers something along the lines of "you don't deserve my loyalty and servitude." The emperor also asks, "You've always wanted to be the emperor, haven't you?" The ML answers, "I did, once." The emperor is kept alive so that he can decree the passing over of the throne. That way, it won't be considered "overthrowing the throne." All the officials gather, and the (now former) emperor announces the decree. But the plot twist: At the end of the decree, when he announces who the new emperor will be, the name is not the ML's. It's the FL's. Everyone is surprised, but the ML is not because he was the one who planned this. The FL will not be the empress. She'll be the emperor, and the ML will serve her (it is said that he would rather serve the woman he loves than anyone else). Why did he make her the emperor? Because he knows how extremely arrogant she is. If she had the choice, she wouldn't bow to anyone. So that's what he did. As the emperor, she wouldn't have to bow to anyone. I remember them having this conversation where the FL says: "The (old) emperor never even saw me, his bride, and now this. Guess I really have no choice but to be with you, huh?" ML answers: "Of course. Who else would be able to give you the power to look down on the entire world?"
Spoiler: (Bonus) Yandere Arc PROCEED WITH CAUTION The ML is a famous photographer, and all of his photos are of different body parts. He seems extremely gentle and warm, but in his large basement, he keeps four girls locked up. One of them is the FL, who he'd recently kidnapped. The underlying theme of the arc is "lust and sex." The ML finds the world filthy because of how humans are consumed by their lust. The other three girls are named Number 1, Number 2, and Number 3. The ML would put one of the girls in a room with a guy and photograph them as they have sex, but he doesn't photograph the private parts or the act itself. Just individual body parts. He was about to leave the basement one day when he saw the FL's eyes, which were almost completely full of despair if not for the hint of hope in them. He takes her to a small room and tries to photograph her eyes, but by then the hope had vanished, and no matter how he coaxed her, the hope never returned. Later on, he makes her watch Number 2 have sex with some guy and tells her to watch carefully and learn. The FL starts retching and almost faints. When the ML returns to the basement again, he puts her in a room with a guy, but she reacts hysterically and the deed doesn't happen. The ML takes her to a punishment room, hangs her up by her hands, and hits her with a large wooden bat while taking pictures of her eyes. The ML is an actual psychopath, honestly. When he returns to his room to look at how the pictures turned out, he's absolutely obsessed with the emotion he sees in her eyes. The despair and the devastating hatred. He grabs a knife and his camera and goes back to the punishment room. The FL had collapsed and is unconscious on the floor. He shakes her awake, madly, and tells her to stab him. His camera is ready to capture the emotion her eyes when she stabs the man (him) she hates so much. She stabs him and faints, but the ML manages to capture several images of her eyes before she did. She wakes up in the hospital with the ML and a nurse beside her. The ML had fabricated a story about how he saw her almost getting sexually assaulted in the streets and saved her but got a knife wound from the perpetrator. The FL insists that she wants to call the police and report the ML, but nobody believes her. The ML takes her home and every day, he would take care of her and feed her a little too much medicine. Eventually, her mental state crumbles, and she becomes an empty shell. However, the ML sees this version of her as being pure. He's obsessed, and he falls in love. Later on, someone acquainted to him (has a background in the military and law-force) realizes that the ML is actually the victim of a past rape case that was so horrible that the case was concealed from the public. The perpetrator would take pictures of the child ML after abusing him. One of the pictures showed the ML completely naked, except his private area was completely bloody and ruined. Every officer in charge of that case immediately shot up in the ranks (because everyone was supportive and sympathetic to the child ML), and they didn't help the ML at all because of their greed. Anyway, back to the present. The ML is sent to jail and tells the acquaintance to take care of the FL. He doesn't go crazy or anything. The FL gets put in rehab, but she eventually dies. They told the ML and he requests to see her. Granted. Then the acquaintance receives a call from one of his subordinates. "He's... he's eating the body." They quickly rush over. The ML is covered in blood, and the acquaintance doesn't dare look at the corpse in his arms. They have a chat, almost as though they were old buddies. It's almost eerie. The acquaintance jokingly says, "Your that part can't be used, so you can't do that with her." Implying that the ML shouldn't try to have sex with the corpse. The ML responds by saying, "No, but I've kissed every inch of her body, and now, she's inside of me."
Goddamn! This was some messed up shit! It's sad what happened to him but to project that onto others is some next lvl shit. I definitely won't be reading this arc.
Yep. And in the end: Spoiler He held her corpse and sung to her. "It's hard to forget that time I first saw you. Your charming eyes. In my mind, your figure will never fade. I was afraid I would fall in love with you. But I am already incapable of love. Baby, blame me. I didn't know how to love you, and yet I wanted to completely possess you."
Well wtf! This is why I don't like yanderes. They're creepy as fuck and are only one creepy look or action away from being a serial killer. Tsunderes for life!
... thanks for the spoiler... not sure what I should say about this... but the spoiler for arc 1 and the historical ones sound amazing <3 thank you for your hard work, vin