She Is The Protagonist - Baihe Review

TL;DR - I love this sweet, soft story and I think you might too ❤️.

I just finished my second read of this webnovel and given that the human translation is now complete I feel safe in shouting about it and recommending it to you all :). Also, this is the first review that I've written so please judge gently orz.

If you like sweet, slow-burn, fake-dating, gentle, low-drama, long-form, entertainment circle, kuudere x genki, devoted lovers, transmigration baihe webnovels then you've probably already read this. If not, then you should correct your oversight immediately!

If you haven't already fallen into that incredibly specific niche allow me to be your guide :).

Overview

Tang Han Qiu is lucky in birth but not in love. She is the youngest daughter of the wealthy Tang business clan. She is a cool and picturesque beauty fit for display in a national museum. She is intelligent and studious, managing to get her degree from a prestigious foreign Ivy League university before coming home to take her place at the head of a new entertainment agency business within the Tang Group conglomerate. Unfortunately she is controlled by the system and forced to play the role of the "vicious female supporting character" in this world. She must pursue the "male lead" even though he doesn't love her and ends up suffering a terrible fate.

Or she was...

Yu Ru Bing is a soft and sweet girl with a terrible family situation who is a talented performer. She is the "female lead" of this world, meaning she ends up with the male lead even though she has to fight it out with Tang Han Qiu and a host of other women to be with him. She manages to become a successful actress even though her career is hindered due to the scandals and conflict caused by the romance plot in her life.

Or she did...

Until one day Tang Han Qiu reached her limit and in the moment where she might have killed Yu Ru Bing she was able to break the system's grasp and throw herself from the top of a skyscraper.

Strangely this didn't cause her to die, instead she was reborn years earlier with knowledge of the future and her freedom from the system. She had become a BUG in the system.

In order to correct this BUG, a host was brought in to take the role of Yu Ru Bing and fix the system. Unfortunately for the system this host was a rebellious troll who wanted nothing to do with forcing the now free Tang Han Qiu back into line.

This is the story of their love as they build their lives as a young executive and performer while battling the system for a chance at a future together.

Scoring

* While the 😈 score may only be 5/10 it's a very sweet and lovely 5/10 and has one of the best abstract love scenes (maybe the single best?) that I've ever read. Check the spoilers section for more :).

Spoiler-Free Thoughts

YuTang! Sweet and Sour Fish! The Face God and the Troll Idol!

If you're looking for drama and angst this really isn't going to deliver. Of the 200+ chapters I'd say that drama really only happens in maybe 10 of them, and even then it's nothing that ever gets too heavy for too long.

This story makes me happy and gives me comfort. The plot is okay, but it really just exists to serve the characters and the cute fluffy interactions they have with each other.

From the start, we get to see the quick with and ridiculous banter of Yu Ru Bing meshing perfectly with the chill tolerance of Tang Han Qiu. It doesn't end up feeling static or boring though as they develop their careers, work through their personal problems, and slowly build their relationship.

The secondary cast of characters is also excellent. The author does a good job giving them personality and progression of their own without taking too much time away from our leading ladies. There's a wide variety of characters introduced, but not so many that you can't keep track of them. Some of these secondary characters even get their own chance at love :).

Another thing I really enjoyed was the culture. While Chinese webnovels are obviously all Chinese, this one felt especially nice and domestic. There's something very distinctive about the references (well documented), speech patterns, and other small cultural quirks that really charms me. It could be that I'm biased by having a goddess for a wife who happens to be from China, but reading the same sorts of comments that I hear around the table at family dinners makes me happy.

If I had to pick one thing to gripe about it would have to be the pacing. While the first 3/4 of the story is generally well paced the last quarter gets a bit slow. The chapters themselves are still entertaining and by the time I made it that far into the story I was too hooked on the characters to be too bothered by it. Still, it wouldn't be fair to completely ignore this.