Su Li was a heartless player in the gaming world but socially anxious in reality. Inside the game, she deceived her innocent Second Senior Sister—swindling her out of money, her body, and her heart—only to shatter her cultivation path by claiming she actually loved their Master all along.
Her true nature never changed; she seduced the Eldest Senior Sister, causing her to fall into the demonic path. Finally, after wringing every capture target dry, this villainous gamer turned her gaze toward her Master.
“Master~ just give in to your disciple~ “
A hard one to recommend. There are a lot of individual aspects that are quite good — our morally grey protagonist is pretty good, the scenes of her past ‘life’ were horrific in a really compelling way, the humour was decent, each of the love interests/opponents were very distinct from each other and complex, the plot was pretty consistent, it made pretty neat use of Avatars, the ending was solid & not disappointing — a lot of things going for it, but they don’t work together super well honestly.
Our protagonist isn’t terrible enough for us to cheer when she takes a loss (there are many of those), but isn’t a good enough person to celebrate the rare times she gets her way. And she doesn’t really lean into either path, no satisfying villainous schemes where she steals something or seduces someone, and no heroic moments or genuine charming into a relationship either. There is very little 爽 good-feel moments or easy successes in the novel, lots of flirting but few sex scenes that weren’t in peril or have some other crisis involved in them. It’s really long and it feels like our POV just bounces from one crisis to another without gaining anything or even having fun in the process. And she’s just not terrible enough to feel glee or shadenfreude when she does suffer!
However! However, however, however.
There is one kind of reader this book is *absolutely* made for. A reader looking for a good yuri harem novel, but is annoyed with cliche plots, doesn’t like it when all the love interests just fall over themselves super easily for the protagonist, likes it when the characters are interesting, have their own goals/complexes/issues, start off strong and intimidating and STAY powerful and independent to the end – who wants lots of flirting and a polyamorous ending *without* the annoying tropes or easy victories. If you’re that kind of reader, you want to see the relationships be earned, then this novel is absolutely for you!