1970s: The Vicious Ex-Wife Brought Her Child to the Army and Became Popular - Reviews

I am not okay. I am genuinely not okay after the egg scene. Let me set this up for you. Tuantuan — this sweet, sensible little boy who has probably been the only parent to his sister since they arrived — peels an egg and offers it to the father he barely knows. And Xie Zhengnian, this man who has been cold and distant the entire time, does the most devastating thing: he offers the egg BACK to Dou Dou, as if Tuantuan's gesture doesn't matter, as if his love is interchangeable. And then Qin Nian — sharp, perceptive Qin Nian — stops him. "That's Tuantuan's gift to you. You can't turn your son's devotion into a gesture for someone else — that would hurt him." I literally had to put the book down. Because this is about so much more than an egg. This is about a child offering his love to a stranger and being almost told it doesn't count. This is about a father who doesn't yet understand that love isn't a resource to be divided equally — it's personal, it's specific, it belongs to the person who gave it. And the way Xie Zhengnian handles it after that? He doesn't make a scene. He doesn't argue. He just silently turns away, peels another egg, and gives one to each child. But the damage of that first moment — the near-rejection of Tuantuan's offering — lingers. It's the kind of small, quiet wound that families carry. What makes it even more heartbreaking is the context. These children have never had a proper family. Their mother was disguised, their father was injured and absent, and they've been surviving on each other. Tuantuan peeling that egg wasn't just a gesture — it was him trying to build a bridge to a father he'd only heard about. And for a second, it looked like that bridge might collapse. "The simple joy of being together as a family filled the air with warmth." Yes. But it's a warmth earned through almost-misses and near-wounds, and that makes it so much more precious.

Okay first of all can we just take a moment to appreciate how completely Qin Nian destroyed Fang Yanli in this chapter? Like, slap the kid, make the wife fall face-first in dirt, threaten to involve the police and their husbands' careers — this woman is not playing around. And the best part? She does it all while staying calm and collected. No screaming match, no losing her temper. Just cold, calculated dominance. But what really got me is the contrast with how Xie Zhengnian remembers her. His own words: "the same woman who had once taken on three armed robbers alone—yet when he'd bullied her twice, she had cried so pitifully she fainted." This is the same person? The one who protected him on the train, who saved Jin Zhu's life, who forced the Commander's daughter to apologize in public — this is the woman he thought was a weeping pushover? And his reaction isn't even anger or guilt. It's this dawning realization that maybe, just maybe, "she really loved him?" Bro. You just figured this out after SEVEN YEARS?! Also Lin Guodong drinking the sugar water and being like "why does your wife's taste so good" had me wheezing. The domestic sweetness is so unintentional it hurts. Xie Zhengnian sitting there watching his friend drink his wife's sugar water with "silent agony" — this man is so far gone already and he doesn't even know it yet.

Let me just say — the pacing in these chapters is absolutely ruthless in the best way. We go from a violent confrontation with the neighbors, to a quiet family moment in the courtyard, to Xie Zhengnian's hospital awakening, to Qin Nian's secret space, to the kids getting dressed up — and it all flows naturally. No dragging, no rushing. The author knows exactly when to speed up and when to slow down. The fight scene hits fast and hard. Fang Yanli charging, Qin Nian sidestepping, the wife face-planting — it's over in a few paragraphs and that's perfect. You don't need more. Then it pivots to the kids' emotional breakdown, which slows everything down intentionally. You're supposed to sit with that. Let it land. And then — bam — the hospital scene with Xie Zhengnian and Lin Guodong. Comedy relief, but also character development. The sugar water subplot is genius pacing because it does three things at once: it's funny, it shows Xie's growing attachment, and it gives us information about Qin Nian's past without any exposition dumps. The transition from the compound's gossip to Qin Nian's peaceful sleep is subtle but effective. "Qin Nian had no idea that while she and her little ones slept soundly, their names had already become the hottest topic of pillow talk" — this line bridges two scenes that could have felt disconnected. The next morning, the decoration scene, the kids cleaning the courtyard, Tuantuan dropping a brick on his foot — it all builds toward this moment of normalcy that feels earned after the previous night's chaos. My only complaint? I want more of the space scenes. The Treasure Pavilion, the herbs, the one-click water and fertilizer — it's such a unique element and I could read about it all day. But I get it, the author is keeping it grounded.

The pacing in these chapters is absolutely filthy in the best way. Let me walk you through how the author controls the rhythm. It starts with something almost comedic — the gossiping soldiers, Wang Shouyi's colorblind accusation, the whole "dark and ugly wife" rumor being spectacularly debunked in real time. This is light, almost breezy. You're smiling at the young soldiers dropping their bags. Then — and I'm not exaggerating — the very next scene transitions to the hospital, and the mood shifts like a door closing. The children freezing at the ward door. "It is said the closer you get to home, the more hesitant you feel." That line is a PACE BREAK. It's the author taking a breath and saying: stop. This matters. The next moment, Qin Nian is walking into a room full of strangers and performing confidence she may not feel. The doctors are charmed. Xie Zhengnian is stone-cold. The tension is thick enough to cut. Then — and this is where the pacing gets really clever — the author sends the children out to play. Why? Because the adult conversation that's about to happen needs space. It needs the audience to be removed. And Qin Nian's internal monologue here is pure dread: "His gaze fell on her..." The chapter ends on an almost-cliffhanger note, with her nerves tightening and him about to speak. What I love is how the author uses the children as pacing devices. Their presence creates warmth, then their absence creates tension. When they're eating breakfast together, the scene is tender. When they leave to play, the scene becomes charged with unspoken words. The author knows exactly when to bring them back in and when to let them go. And that ending — "I have something I want to tell you" — is a classic structural pivot. The reader is now desperate to know what that something is. The pacing has built from comedy to tenderness to dread to anticipation in the span of a few pages. I immediately reached for the next chapter.