u/DrCrappyPants

A cnovel that many of us have recommended in various discussions is “tyrannical wang’s, beloved wife.“ In this 633 chapter political palace intrigue novel, the reborn ML Hong Yuan (prince Jin Qinwang) has loved/been obsessed with/stalked the transmigrated from the modern era FL, Jing Wan, over 2 lifetimes.

In their first lifetime the FL has a brief fling and son with the ML during the period of infighting between princes who were struggling to claim the throne, and ML falls in love. The ML is the ultimate victor of that struggle, but feels he has lost it all due to the loss of the woman he loves - he had been planning on bringing the FL into the palace after he won, but finds that the FL had tragically died before he had enough power to protect her.

Reborn back to age 10, the ML begins amassing power and placing all his pawns in place in order to become emperor while at the same time he begins stalking the currently child-aged FL (she is actually a transmigrated adult from the modern era), who has no idea he even exists. The ML does knows the FL is actually a transmigrated adult in a child’s body as he had figured that out in his first lifetime when, due to his obsession with his dead first love (FL), he had used his power as emperor to learned absolutely every minute detail he could about the FL’s life.

The ML is a very intelligent, highly manipulative, volatile, violent (he’s known as the living Yama) yandere who was a tyrant emperor in his first life, and the only person he gives a f*ck about is the FL (and by extension he will only care about the people she cares about). The ML’s a complex character- he’s a red flag and crosses boundaries without waiting for consent, can’t stand having the FL’s attention on anyone but himself, but at the same time is highly protective of the FL and works to create a protective bubble around her and wants her talents to shine and be recognized by others (so when her brother, with her consent, takes credit for something she invents, the ML is upset and plans to eventually make sure she gets the actual credit).

Despite the fact that we have a red-flag yandere ML who is in obsessive love, the novel actually doesn’t focus on romance, but chronicles the politics behind the fight for the throne, interspersed with the ML’s maneuvering to win the heart and marriage of the FL. However, it’s clear that the ML is doing all this politicking so he can gain the power to prevent the tragic death the FL had in her first life.

Because this is an intrigue novel, there are tons of characters and events, and things don’t start coming together until halfway through the novel- which is why the translator actually includes a warning that I posted here about what kind of plot this novel has. The web of relationships, who is feuding with who, who is trading of favors with who, and who marries who among the nobility, all matters during the struggle for the throne. For example, readers might be confused as to why the novel starts off almost as a modern woman in ancient China slice of life plot until you realize later on that some of the seemingly harmless very tiny bit of modern knowledge the FL introduced, combined with her family’s alliances, and her marriage prospects, set her up for tragedy in her first life because of how it was used to provide a bit influence during the power struggle for the throne in that timeline.

I loved this novel, it’s well written, well translated and the translator includes relevant footnotes for terms, pictures of some of the things described in the novel (like furniture) and a timeline, as well as separate webpages for historical notes (including how manors in the era were structured) and the cast of characters (in TOC) so it makes it easier for the reader. But the novel has a super complex plot, tons of characters, and it’s not a light or fluffy summer read.

So “can’t be left behind” is a Dead Dove Do Not Eat danmei novel that’s a sick, twisted, heartbreaking love story that will test your bottom line again and again. It’s the story of two brothers who have been horrifically abused and used by their parents, and the brother’s insane obsessive love for each other. Both the MC and ML are black flags. The depicted relationship is sadistic, but as you learn about the childhood of both the MC and ML, the way they vent their emotions through rough sex becomes understandable.

This novel does require that the reader pay attention because the author sprinkles clues about the MC’s abusive past between his angry ravings about his life and brother and the descriptions of their sexual relationships, so they can be easy to miss, but are crucial to understanding the story. Particularly as the MC sounds insane at the beginning, but as the story progresses his inner monologue shows you just how hurt, wounded, and scared he actually is. This is one of the few novels I’ve read that manage to take someone with sick, insane ravings and then make you sympathetic to the MC by showing how this viewpoint, and the obsession with his brother, comes from having a horrific childhood filled with abuse and abandonment, and also showing how the MC actually tries to protect and take the hit for the only person who has given him love (and then we see the ML’s grief at finding out the ML hasn’t managed to protect his little brother). The thing is, these revelations are sprinkled among the other ravings of the MC, which is why the reader has to pay attention.

Both the MC and ML are suffering from abandonment issues and feel like they only have each other, but are fearful of losing each other while also wanting to monopolize each other. This story also has a surprisingly happy ending where the MC begins to heal a little (not a lot, but a little).

Again, this is dead dove do not eat, so pay close attention to the tags and take them as serious warnings about the content (so if you find broken-winged angel or my sweet bunny cage hard to handle, this is not for you).

Given the large number of sh*t brothers (and family members in general) populating cdramas, it's nice to see an overprotective brother. I particularly liked this guy because he was willing to strangle a Mafia Lord (our hero ML) and then dress down his sister for her horrible taste in men - first a Buddhist ex-husband fixated on his stepsister, and now "this guy" (Mafia Lord pretending to be a "male model")

Him losing it and telling the FL that she likes garbage men is cathartic - I want to yell that at FLs in abuse dramas as well.

YT: three years of marriage - he had never touched her. Only when she saw him pleasuring himself

Last cdrama post had a hidden yandere (https://www.reddit.com/r/MaleYandere/s/1UopCqD5Zb), but in the vertical Chinese drama “trapped by my obsessive husband’s love after amnesia” (YT title) our male yandere is unable to hide.

Our FL attempts suicide to escape her yandere husband and his cage, but ends up with amnesia. Her husband attempts to take advantage of the memory loss and restart their relationship while hiding his twisted desires, but suffers from a mental illness that makes him so possessive/obsessive. What that illness actually is, idk because the, possibly AI, translator picked the name superhero syndrome, which is definitely not in the DSM or associated with any known ICD code.

Over time our male yandere’s mask slips and our amnesiac FL finds herself trapped once again in her obsessive husband’s paranoid world. The husband does attempt treatment for his mental illness, which in our fictional cdrama world is some kind of horribly painful aversion therapy that has long sessions and will possibly kill you if you stop halfway through the treatment process.

The internal monologue of our ML is all the unhinged yandereness that you could desire, so if you’re looking for a yandere who yanderes it up to the extreme, and a FL who resists him for three quarters of the drama before falling in love (or possibly getting Stockholm syndrome), this is for you.

Bonus - the YT video is tagged #purelove

I recommended this classic ancient China yandere novel in a thread the other day and it brought back the trauma of reading just how utterly obsessed the ML was with his adopted sister. The novel is actually pretty good, it’s a classic yandere novel for a reason but for me this scene was just…. I’ve never seen something like it before and never seen something demonstrating extreme obsession with absolutely everything about the FL like it again. This scene isn’t in the manhua, for obvious reasons.

So here are the excerpts and my reactions.

Compared to stories I had previously read like “my sweet bunny cage,” and “broken winged angel” the scene depicted is very very tame, but it was the unexpected choice of subject matter that had me going “WTF did I just read!”

I put the nsfw tag not because I think the subject matter is nsfw, but because I think it’s so unexpected.

YT title: the moment her childhood sweetheart broke his promise, the prince acted

“the moment her childhood sweetheart broke his promise, the prince acted” is a Chinese vertical drama in the trope of - FL was supposed to choose to marry 1 of 3 childhood sweethearts, but the 3 guys fall in love with a green tea bitch. Why 3 childhood sweethearts? I don’t know, but that’s the usual number in this particular scenario. In this trope, the 3 guys continuously punish the FL for slighting their new love interest, and FL eventually escapes by marrying a powerful ML who is devoted to her.

This particular version featured an unexpected, very manipulative, male yandere - through the first two-thirds of the movie the ML, the crown prince is presented as a sweet, amicable guy, and that’s the facade he keeps up when facing the FL (though the 3 ex-boyfriends are warned to watch out for him because he’s not as easygoing as he seems). Then, after the wedding, the viewer finds out that the ML is a calm, manipulator who is obsessed with the FL and is never going to let the FL leave him. The ML is revealed to be the one who bought the green tea from a brothel and set up the scenario so that the 3 childhood sweethearts would abandon the FL. The crown prince/ML is also vengeful, and punishes those who hurt the FL - I found the way he calmly stabs the green tea as punishment for going too far and hurting the FL kinda scary if you think about it.

I hadn’t seen this twist of the yandere ML engineering the breakup before in this trope, and I particularly liked the actors performance because he made going from being an easygoing supportive guy to scarily calm, obsessed, vengeful mastermind believable.

I actually would like to see more calm, hidden, manipulative male yanderes. While this ML isn’t a green tea, I think it would also be nice to see more green tea male yanderes as well (but green tea MLs in general, ones that are fully green tea and not pretending for a couple of scenes, seem to be rarer). These kinds of yanderes are nice contrasts to the usual in your face spouting obsessive lines ones.

After reading this post asking for stories about MCs who recognize the abuse and fight it (https://www.reddit.com/r/MaleYandere/s/Nyk9mqo0iH) I thought about this cdrama “escape his love” (YT title) which tells the story of a physically abusive CEO and his wife who desperately wants to leave him.

Title: wild at heart

YT: a cold younger CEO dotes on her obsessively - unable to control his burning desire

In the Chinese vertical drama "Wild at Heart" we have a younger ML chasing and protecting his older brother's fiancee - a "sister" who grew up in his family and was the only person who showed him kindness as a child.

The ML is manipulative af and willing to go to extremes to get his "sister's" attention -- even running his car into a wall to get her to come see him in the hospital (his smile after running his car into the wall was creepy).

The leads have chemistry and the actor playing the ML does a good job of conveying the ML's obsession, seduction, desire to devour the FL (I tried to capture some stills of the way he looks at the FL while swimming), and his ability to disregard his own life in pursuit of the FL.

It's a darker story of corporate intrigue and family greed, and this cdrama is actually well made, well shot, and has one of the more original plots for these kinds of things.

An over-the-top vertical cdrama that pokes fun at tropes in the genre is "my friend and I married a rich uncle & nephew - when we left they went crazy to win us back" (FL: wang ge ge, ML: wang hou zhen, 2nd FL: cui liang, 2nd ML: wu zhu xi)

In the story to BFFs have transmigrated into a book as cannon fodder girlfriends/spouses and briefly escape the first and second male leads before being caught and dragged back home.

The comedy is delightful and the acting of the leads makes the movie charming and not campy.

It pokes fun at a lot of tropes (like the overbearing CEO, or regretful male lead who only realizes he loves his spouse after she's left).

One of the tropes they make fun of is the yandere ML, who in the scene I posted has just produced handcuffs out of what seems like nowhere in order to cuff himself to the FL. This causes the FL (who has just been released from handcuffs moments ago) to ask how many sets of handcuffs he actually has.