Burn the Book, Bury the Scholar: Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage

[tactless_yet_lovable]

Burn the Book, Bury the Scholar: Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage/重生之将门毒后

Burn the Book, Bury the Scholar is how we extend the suffering of Canary Reports, because we’re masochists in multiple mediums (and languages, hollyberries) and we want to really share that fact with the world.

Premise: Shen Miao devoted herself to serving her husband on his climb to the Imperial throne, even going so far as to be a hostage in an enemy country. After her sacrifices have resulted in a peaceful reign, she finds out that her husband never loved her, her cousins conspired to sabotage her, and she’s been ordered to commit suicide as a joke of an empress. And her babies are dead. That also was a thing that happened. Swearing revenge, she dies, and wakes up in her 14 year old body, having remembered all of her past life. Some might keep their baggage in the past (life), but why do that when you can destroy the lives of those who wronged you?

Read: 180/231 Chapters

Completely Translated: No

What I Loved: The protagonist, Shen Miao, has a pretty strong bond with her parents and brother. She wants them to be safe, even as she pursues revenge. Their protection is very much a part of her revenge, and they reciprocate the warm sentiment. It’s nice to see a close knit family in a cnovel¹, even if her relationships with everybody else Shen² are decidedly murderous.

In direct contrast to the warm and fuzzy immediate family feelings, Shen Miao’s relationship with the male lead is more of a slow burn to amoral power coupledom. They’re working towards goals that occasionally intersect, and early on will form temporary alliances as a situation requires, but they have to grow to like each other. Once the male lead does, though, he’s a ridiculous murderbird and it’s great.

To quote the Da Jie of Disgrace To Scholars, “When Shen Miao slaps your face it stays slapped”. lazulisong nails it. If they can recover afterwards, they weren’t destroyed, they were merely inconvenienced for a while. Shen Miao goes for Revenge Gold, and anybody left breathing after her strike won’t be for long. Just long enough that the blood’s not obviously on her hands.

What I Disliked: This is pretty common in cnovels, but hoo boy that misogyny. Shen Miao and her inner circle are protected, but women marked for revenge suffer, and sexual violence is usually involved. It’s off-screen or implied, but still there. Also the idea that a woman’s Best By Date is 17 years old is a gross as fuck concept.

A large part of the original life’s plot is, Shen Miao was a gullible teenager who naively believed her family wouldn’t hurt her³, and had tacky taste in jewelry⁴ (which, don’t we all, at fourteen?). Hence how she was completely blindsided by the betrayal of her husband and cousins. Was she evil? No, not at all. She just really liked a guy and either by chance or manipulation got put into situations where she gained a reputation for shamelessness. By the time she reincarnates/gets reborn, that reputation has already been established. And Shen Miao can’t seem to shake it (she sure does weaponize it, though). People bring up her “poor” behavior in any new social situation in the novel. It just got a little obnoxious to read the fourth time that she walks into a gathering and a crowd 180s from “I heard she was a hussy” to “Oh, who is this cultured lady”. This is a pretty minor grievance, especially compared to the “oh my god misogyny” issue above, but whatever, it annoyed me.

Caveats/Considerations: This is very much a woman out for revenge through guile and strategy, and she’s playing the long game of maximum damage to her enemies and minimal threats to her people. So the plot is going to build slowly. Also, cannot stress this enough, MISOGYNY AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE TO WOMEN.

Would I Recommend: If you like time-travel fix-its, revenge epics, or amoral power couples, then yes, I would recommend it 100%. It took me a few chapters to get into the pace of the translation, but once I was in, I was in. I enjoyed it enough to make it my first Burn the Book, Bury the Scholar Literary Commentary, giving all of you the false impression that BtBBtS will be discussing quality het cnovels regularly. Spoilers, we aren’t. This will be mostly terrible Boys Love.

Rating: On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being So Much Quality, I give this an 8 for appealing to my id with a wronged lady out for revenge.

Common Tropes Observed: Transmigration/Reincarnation, Revenge, Power Couple (all played straight)

I won’t link to the (still in progress) translation of Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage, because we’re on uncertain footing regarding the legalities of fan translations of web novels, but if somebody were to google this mouthful of a title, I suspect you might find what you’re looking for.

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^{1. Daughters are, by default, expendable. They’re the ones who marry out of the family, with a sizeable dowry the family needs to provide, and also Confucius set women subservient to men (first their fathers, then their husbands, then their sons), and financially dependent on those men (shout out to Northern Wei and Tang dynasties for women owning property and therefore having a say in financial decisions). So the bond between Shen Miao and her family is particularly noteworthy. Her family goes out of their way to prioritize Shen Miao’s happiness and health.↩}

^{2. hollyberries raised my awareness on a nuance I had completely missed regarding family dynamics and politics. The Shen Family has three branches: the primary branch and two secondary branches. Shen Miao, her parents and her brother are the primary. Her father is the only son of her grandfather’s first wife. The two secondary branches are her paternal uncles, their wives, and their children. Her uncles are the sons of her grandfather’s second wife, who is still alive in novel. This distinction matters, because for all that they’re “family” to the outside world, there are lines drawn between “us” and “them”. Shen Miao 1.0 was ignorant of these lines, as were her parents. So they assumed a lot of good faith that was. not. there. Even if a full blood relation, in-fighting and power plays can still happen.↩}

^{3. See footnote one about why this is foolish of her. I love you, hollyberries.↩}

^{4. Knowledge dropped by hollyberries on that one. Shen Miao in her first life wore really tacky, gold-heavy jewelry that wasn’t excellent craftsmanship. She also paired the jewelry with gauche fabric. So Shen Miao 1.0 was dressing bougie as hell. And her dressing so nouveau riche was actually treated as an indictment of her character, because only peasants and merchants were so obvious in displaying any wealth. Nice piece of classicism, that. Shen Miao was wearing a lot of this because she deferred to the suggestions of her aunts and cousins, by the way. Even as her maids tried to gently hint “Don’t wear that, Lady, it’s tawdry as hell”, Shen Miao 1.0 would still trust her family, and that is some sabotage right there.↩}

Comments

[rheasilvia]

This sounds very interesting! I will definitely give this a try - thank you for testing the waters for us. :-) The misogyny and sexual violence does make me a bit wary, but even so, the lure of the slow-burning amoral power couple is strong...

[tactless_yet_lovable]

Thanks for the comment! Let me know what you think, if you end up giving it a shot :)

[kitsunec4]

Burn so slow. Shen Miao so unintentionally hilarious to me as she sets people up like dominos. Many have been the moments where I choked on my tea as I read.

I definitely winced a lot at the descriptions of Shen Miao 1.0’s clothing and jewelry decisions. Poor kiddo. Too kind and idiotically naive for the world. At least she got better?

[sengoddet]

Ah, I'm reading this one!!

There's also a bit of mention to bestiality but as I am reliant on the english translations there might be a few bolts of fabric up against that measured distance. I guess I'm dropping that also because it's like, a thing if we're doing warnings? Anyway! I find the ML's interactions with the MC rather captivating. They have a rather interesting relationship and it's so enjoyable when you marry the concepts of scheming shamelessness gone courting. #aesthetic

His obvious care and concern for her hits me deep in the feels because I'm a sucker for "give me a love like this" my heart flew to yours sort of ridiculous intensity. And the author did a great job with teasing their relationship, the build up was just too much to even. XJX just is really fun to read. The Power Couple level is like, life goals.

Favorite parts, obliquely so as not to spoiler:
-the indirect kiss
-Chapter 142
-the drunken wanting to see fireworks scene
-Chapter 174

I love the side characters here, they did get to have some of the spotlight!! Best thing: being that her family did not get all those injustices. Her parents are hella power army couple too and they did not deserve that other deal!! I did wish that she had cultivated a more meaningful relationship with Feng Anning though.

...I'm very curious to know what Boys Love title will be bequeathed with this crown because having devoured some of the classics I'm wishing to supplement the palate and/or sing of my love to the nine heavens.

Currently brimming overfull of:
Scum Villain System (of course, of course)
How to Die as Heavy as Mount Tai
Need to Propose to Seven Men, What to Do?

[tinny]

Spoilers, we aren’t. This will be mostly terrible Boys Love.

I am so here for that! Definitely looking forward to those!

[laleia]

I just came here to say that over a year after you posted this, I read this and it was an absolutely excellent read and I am very glad that this title remained in my subconscious to pop up when I needed something new to read, even though I did end up getting very little sleep two nights in a row because I was reading this.