Roll that Review: Assassin Farmer

“Thank you!” Su Shuilian said quietly, as she lowered her head.

When he heard her words of gratitude, Lin Si Yao frowned and said to her, “You don’t have to thank me in the future.” Thanks are for strangers, and there was no need to thank him.

Hello again! It’s that time of the week! This time its Assassin Farmer! I haven’t yet looked at the MTL of this series so I only have read up to chapter 68. I haven’t read anything after this as that’s the latest update that I know of on Fleeting Phoenix Translations. It’s a lovely, lively story and even though I can’t agree that the characters are perfect, it’s still a bit heartwarming to read.

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Title: Assassin Farmer

Author: Xi Zhen

Series: Standalone

Rating: ★★★ (3 stars for length)

Su Shuilian was the first legitimate daughter of a renowned embroidery family, but she was murdered by her jealous family member. After death, Su Shuilian’s soul enters an unknown female body who lives in a dynasty she had never heard of.

While trapped in the wilderness with her wolf pup companions, Shuilian picks up an assassin who was betrayed by his organization and saves him from the brink of death.

After making it out of the dangerous forest, the two travel to a small town with little inhabitants. There, they find a location with a picturesque scenery and disguise themselves as a married couple to buy a house to settle down in.

She was a girl who was unfamiliar with this world, and he was an infamous assassin. Journey with them as they adapt to their new life…

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Assassin Farmer Positives:

 

Romance: The romance is sweet. After Lin Si Yao is picked up by Su Shuilian he is at first cold but slowly warms up to her, as she is a very bubbly and eager person. She acts kindly to him despite their first meeting, always making him think of how interesting and naive, yet adorable, she is. Their interactions together are sweet and pure, granted that Lin Si Yao is a bit possessive and a little controlling. He is fully devoted to her in any case, absolutely willing to lower himself to do whatever it is she needs when she needs it. He’s not afraid to show a weaker side to her, nor is he that off put by displaying his affection for her in the tasks that he does in the eyes of the public.

They live rather simply and nobly for what they have, with Lin Si Yao spoiling her whenever he gets the chance. He even remembers to spoil her dogs and his disciple (vaguely), just to please her, probably, but he ensures that she’s (almost) never upset.

Conversely, she still tries to help out with the chores, even when he tells her not to, and even embroiders him some nice stuff with the things that he brings back from hunting. I dunno, its sweet and innocent love, if not a bit possessive.

 

Descriptions: I’m not kidding on this one. There’s like more than a whole chapter alone just describing their new house and the furniture. Very descriptively. It’s even a tiny bit boring to me who even likes descriptions cuz… I mean… it’s nice but…

anyway, yeah, descriptions are great, love them. I can feel that the author tries the best with the descriptions and it makes me happy when they do. The locations the main character goes in to, even if described simply, are still enough to leave everything clear and understandable. Descriptions are king, without that, you won’t know where the character is and it makes the world seem more liveable. I appreciate any amount of descriptions so long as at least a little bit of plot gets ushered along with it…. not.. a stagnant chapter about furniture descriptions.. maybe one or two furniture pieces but a casual over gloss of furniture is ok too…

 

Cohesiveness: The story isn’t hard to grasp. It follows a simple, well-outlined path. There’s also rather frequent mentionings of time which assists you. A ten-day description here, a month there. It also doesn’t throw too many things at you at once. Yes, there’s the ever-looming curiosity of what will happen to Lin Si Yao and his previous employers (unless you’ve read ahead) and Su Shuilian’s identity in her ‘new‘ body, but other than that there are no curve balls and it’s a mostly singular story with only one thing going on at once, which is nice. As they say K.I.S.S – Keep It Simple Stupid.

 

Plot: Thus far, it’s an interesting and nice plot. Girl gets injured and enters a coma, girl wakes up in forest, girl meets orphaned wolves, girl manages to survive in woods for a few months alone with wolves, girl travels out and finds attacked/injured assassin (male), girl brings him back, the two start living together, man takes girl out of forest, they go to a couples event, they plan on getting a house, they confess, they get a house, man fixes house, they get married, girl gets a job. Pretty simple. I should find the MTL to continue reading. I wanna know more ^

Naturally, there’s more to the story than just that, like a competing character for the male lead, but she’s cannon fodder and unimportant. So she can burn.

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Assassin Farmer Negatives: I have more to say about some of this but I won’t…

Convenience: You better thank your lucky stars Lin Si Yao! If it wasn’t for Su Shuilian conveniently being near where you were stabbed, if it wasn’t convenient for her to have the sturdy mind and wherewithal to be able to not scream her head off, if it wasn’t convenient that the others left you for dead even though they were assassins, you’d most definitely be dead. I’m not gonna beat around the bush here, the fact that they happened to be in the same area is odd enough to me, I mean, if they are such good assassins, wouldn’t they have cornered him faster? Unless their home base is somewhere near such a dangerous mountain such as Dashi Mountain, how is it that you managed to get that far when you were basically severely handicapped?? It would be more believing to me if she had managed to meet him in a town because at least there it’d be more reasonable for her to find him somewhere, not in a big mountain forest with no life.

There’s definitely some plot work going on that makes it so easy for her. And, of course, I’m not just hating on this singular story alone for the nearly omnipotent lead who knows more than the main skills they are introduced with, but…. for someone who was raised only to embroider she sure is too knowledgeable. Unless she read the books religiously to remember it all by heart I wonder just how good her memory is to be able to survive on her own for about 3+ months with just 2 wolf pups in a forest… also it was just lovely she happened to transmigrate just as the 3 top dogs in the Dashi Mountain were fighting and died.

 

Easy: I love how simple slice of life stories are, but so far in the story, everything is too easy. The first 68 chapters are very easy. Yes, the female lead enters a coma while in her original body and suffers from a cliche misfortune. Yes, the male lead is attacked and nearly dies… But after that point, things are kinda hunky dory. Even when there are moments that are supposed to cause tension you don’t really feel the tension because its either resolved in a few chapters or it’s hinted that it will be solved fairly easily. I mean, the moments with the embroidery is especially easy. It tried to be more worrying but with Su Shuilians past experience it was made to be rather simple, especially with even a lesser skilled embroiderer helping her.

I suppose what I mean to say is that her troubles seem to be not as much of an actual problem. It did have my heart pumping a little at first but it quickly cooled down as I realized it would be far too simple of an issue for her to solve. Deadlines aren’t deadlines if you’re aware you can definitely get it done in time, even if you only manage to do it 1 day before the deadline, or the day of the deadline it’ll still get done.

 

Unrealistic expectations: Yes, I get it… its a romance, the male lead is completely devoted like a loyal dog. I can’t say I love how Lin Si Yao is as a character. He’s domineering to outsiders and unwilling to open up but really soft to her, that’s fine… if… he wasn’t highly possessive. He won’t let her cook, clean, or… anything really. He also gets jealous incredibly easy. The thing I hate the most about characters is usually when they are possessive unreasonably. He won’t let her do anything because he doesn’t want her to ruin her pretty hands but I’m sure that he can just…  I don’t know, go buy some hand cream or something for her hands and let her work with him to do stuff. She’s only allowed to do minimal stuff excluding Embroidery. Come on, good sir, open up your eyes. God, I hate possessive people. I mean that sounds a little bit hypocritical when I think about TMR‘s male lead but… at least he can be cute about it, he’s just a Tsundere anyway.

Su Shuilian is also a bit more hard-headed for someone who is sheltered. I’m sure that she was spoiled growing up even if all she was really allowed to do was embroidery. She didn’t really describe anything other than how she read a lot of books to pass the time, which gave her handy knowledge… but, if that’s the case then is her maturity taught from books? It seems a bit much to me. To me it’s odd that she shouldn’t have that strength, she can be intelligent but… if I saw someone who was going to be murdered, I would have at least let out a sound and would have probably ran from the scene. Too many guts, child. Of course, if she did then the story wouldn’t exist and it would have ended at chapter 5 or something. Her Naivete should win an award.

Don’t assassins have good skills? don’t they ensure they kill their target? Even if they are 99.9% sure their target is going to die they should make that effort for the 0.01% chance and make sure their target is dead. That’s just sloppy and preposterous for legitimate assassins. but whatever…. stupid assassins.

 

I’m just putting in this random bit here but, I personally find it hilarious that nearly every story with a Female Lead ends up with the female lead having her menstrual cycle. It’s almost like that’s the only way you can identify the character is a woman. Yeesh.

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Today’s recommendations! Recommend something if you want!

Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator – All Chu Lian had done was to read a book where the female lead had cheated on her wonderful husband. While wondering why, before she knew it, she was waking up in the body of that very same female lead!

Wait, did that mean the handsome husband from the book was hers now? Chu Lian decided to welcome him with open arms!

However, what she got wasn’t the kind husband she had been expecting. Instead, his personality seemed to have been completely flipped! He left her all alone on their wedding night… and just five days into their marriage, her dear husband abandoned his loving wife and left to enlist in the army!

Fine! Be that way! She could pass her days perfectly well somehow, even if she had to do it alone!

Chu Lian put her household in order, charmed the rest of her new family, and did a little business on the side. She even opened up some new trade routes! Her days passed peacefully and leisurely… Until her dear husband got into trouble at the frontline of the war.

Hmph, isn’t he crawling back to me for help in the end? Forget it, I’ll go save him myself!

I read to chapter 358 in just 2 days….. I just… I… couldn’t put it down. It’s honestly really good. I mean, I have never hated a character more, I’ve not cheered as much for a yandere character, and I haven’t felt as satisfied with a black belled female lead before. Also, everyone is a foodie. Everyone.

 

Happy Life – After being hit by a car, she suddenly found herself in the afterlife… or so she thought, but for some reason, she was reincarnated as a baby in another world?!

Lizbeth was raised by incredibly doting and beautiful parents, and using the knowledge from her former life she makes a goal to “have a moderately successful life” in this world.

However, her talent for magic is abnormal, and a prince, along with many other noble young men have either become infatuated with her, aim to kill her, or almost die… that isn’t “moderate” at all! But even so, she swears to obtain the happy life she envisioned, somehow!

I haven’t actually read this one yet, but thus far Irisu-san, who suggested a few light novels to me lately, hasn’t disappointed me yet. If you appreciate Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator or Perfect Fiance her suggestions are a big boon. –claps-

 

Also shout out to people who frequently like my posts and bother to read them! Thank you for your support! It means everything! I’ll try and not be as lazy or forgetful and actually finish writing before 2am Thursday mornings -SOB SOB-