Non-BL Reading List (BG novels, Non-Romance)

084. Cannonfodder in the Era [ONGOING]

Translator: N/A

Title: 七零年代小炮灰 番茄菜菜

Chapters: 330 (ongoing)

Status: Read up to C330.

Tags: nation-building, business management, 70s

Synopsis:

When she crossed over, Ruan Wen became the 'belle' of the cotton factory in the 70s.

It was said that Ruan Wen had a good life, she seized a potential stock, an educated youth called  Xiao Wei. When Wei Xiangqian graduates from the University, Ruan Wen could go to the provincial capital to enjoy the blessing.

In fact, Ruan Wen knew that Wei Xiangqian would divorce her for work reasons before graduation and then marry his college English teacher. She would go to find her husband, find out the truth and become crazy since then coming to a tragic end.

But who made her this cannonfodder...?

Impressions: Hmm... well, its another 70s novel, but this one is a little bit different from the ones before. If the others just want to live a happy family life, be lovey dovey with ML and be wealthy. This time, the scale is much much larger...our MC wants to build the country.

So our MC is reborn as a little cannonfodder in a 70s novel. The heroine is a 'lucky' girl. The original saved her from drowning, as a result, the original's health became bad, she was unable to bear children, was tricked by an educated youth to marry him and support his studying. Later, he divorced her to marry a daughter of a cadre. The original stayed in the village and was raped by a gangster, she committed suicide, her aunt died of sadness and her cousin went crazy.

So when MC came over, the first thing she did was to NOT save the heroine. (Her cousin saved her though). She stays away from the heroine and the educated youth 'ex-husband' , but if they come to her for anything, she would always be hostile to them. The college entrance examination is resumed, MC and her cousin became college students. Cousin went to the Capital, MC came to the provincial capital to major in chemistry. She finds a good partner/right hand man(?) and they want to build a factory to make #spoiler(?) sanitary napkins.

Laters, the government policy change, state owned factories and research institutes were closing down since they don't receive government funding anymore. MC takes out her 'invention' , make the factories/research institute produce it so they can generate income to maintain their operation, the profits would become their budget for research. Laters, MC branched off to diapers, milk, ham, denim etc. Most of it are exported abroad, so she is also generating income for the country (thru tax). What else? She also reclaims the frontier, investing in seeds, machines etc to turn wasteland into farmland. So yeah, nation-building.

For the ML, they meet early. MC happens to save him when he was dying on the mountains. If there was no MC to pick him up there, ML would probably be just another cannonfodder in the novel, the kind that didn't even have a name or screentime. ML also happens to be close brothers with the heroine's Male Lead. Unfortunately, MC is also hostile to the novel's Male Lead (Well, they are hostile to each other). Anyways, they get together later, ML's career also has many twists and turns until he finally landed to teaching in MC's University. They get married later and had a daughter.

So far, MC is still building the nation, coming up with new businesses to make money to make the country richer. Many people even want her to go to politics. Of course, its not all good, there are political enemies, the heroine blackened and targeted her everywhere. There are shameless sister-in-laws, former officemates, widows of  ML's comrade who all want to leech off her cos she's rich. (Her million dollar deals with other countries are reported) so yeah, there will be disgusting people here and there~ (This is up to C330)

Hmm.. its okay. I didn't expect our MC's scale to be so big. She is practically shouldering the whole country's development. This is also why my tags have business management but no poor-to-rich cos most of MC's profit goes to supporting the research institutes in the country. MC is selfless but not a Saint (she helps people sometimes on a whim, but she can't tolerate 'useless' people who don't want to help themselves) I guess the proper term should be that MC is very...patriotic. This is okay but I guess, there are many more chapters to come cos MC's plan for a strong rich country is still quite far.

I like that MC is sharp, and its good for dealing with enemies, but MC is also sometimes too sharp that she makes enemies for herself. For example, with the ex-husband. From his POV, MC is inexplicably hostile to him, he can't figure out the reason that's why he also retaliates heavily to MC cos he felt like he hasn't done anything wrong to deserve such hatred. This also goes for the heroine which caused her to blacken. I guess it just felt out of place....? Cos MC is not the original, but she has so much hatred for the original's 'enemies'. I suppose her hatred would make more sense if this was a rebirth story (of the original) instead.

There's also the hate(?) for foreigners. MC is friendly to some, like with business partners. But she also tends to generalized sometimes. It's just weird that she speaks of racial discrimination to Asians/Chinese (that's why she wants a strong rich country) but doesn't think there's anything wrong with her own attitude/dislike for foreigners. 

Not a fave. I prefer sweet/fluffy, more family life/slice of life. (MC always rans out to do business so few family moments/romantic moments with ML). Might get back to this someday, but I won't regularly check for updates.

Nearest reco is a BL novel, Investment Life. It's also about changing the country's economy/making the country richer, but this one is purely through Investment, not inventions/businesses.