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

145. Doomsday Stewed Salted Fish

Translator: Say Hello MTL

Chapters: 68 + 5 Extras

Tags: apocalypse, cultivator MC, transmigration, team, alchemist MC

Synopsis:

As a low-leveled alchemist with white skin and good looks, Gu Fan is greedy for life and fears death. She only wants to earn some small money.

Transmigrating to Earth where monsters are everywhere, Gu Fan quickly went to the human base and continued to sell medicine for a living.

Her medicines are high quality and inexpensive, and all major forces want to pull her in to join the group.

Gu Fan was somewhat worried and didn't know which one to pick.

Lu Ya: Pack up your things and follow me to City C tomorrow.

Gu Fan: Can I not go?

Lu Ya: No.

After so many times, the entire Jiangnan base understood that Gu Fan was the woman of Young Marshal Lu Ya. Love is hard to part with; you take it wherever you go.

Gu Fan: No, no, no, he just wants my medicine!

Stationed on the front line of the battlefield, S-class Young Marshal & greedy for money and afraid of death, Aunt Salted Fish.

Impressions: Done bingereading this~ Quite nice. I like it.

So our MC is an outer disciple of a destroyed Sect in the cultivation world. She is timid/cautious and prefers to study alchemy. Even after a hundred years, she is still in the Qi Refining Stage. Then she crossed over to an apocalypse world. It's not zombies, but monsters/mutant beasts. Humans live in the Base and then there are beasts freely roaming outside. MC has always liked to live...steadily. She plans to sell pills to earn contribution points and then live quietly and safely inside the Base. However, she's arrested for being suspected of selling fake medicine XD

Fortunately, she became friends with a mercenary guy whose cousin is high level in military. Unfortunately, her peculiarity is also noticed by said cousin (our ML). In order to prove herself useful, she sells him some 'beast avoidance' pills, ML is convinced that MC has good skills and want to recruit her to help the Base. Since he knows that MC won't accept coercion by force, he uses some routines/schemes to try to make her change her mind, but our MC is firm... she wants to save her small life first, and once she has her own self-protection ability and is sure she won't be kidnapped/forced to do something against her will, then she will help. The premise is that she is willing and not being forced/schemed at by someone to do it. ML accepts her perspective and then just proposes some exchange/transaction with her. They even faked being a couple. Rare chocolates for MC (and ML's 'backing') in exchange of blocking his peach blossoms for him.

Then the beast tide came, the Base was destroyed and the population shrunk from tens of millions to a mere 500,000. MC is of course, part of the 'protected'/weak party (her Qi Refining Period = C-Rank) but she gave some lifesaving pills to ML before going to the shelter. After the beast tide, the high ranking families all know that MC can refine those kind of pills and some of them wants her to work for them. Now, ML let MC escape with his cousin's mercenary team (MC's first friend) so as not be involved in the power shuffle that's going to happen.

While wandering outside, MC and team encounters many dangers and her cultivation also advanced. Laters, they met up with ML again when the Base personnel was on a mission outside, and ML took initiative to lure away two S-Rank monsters when they encountered danger. After MC built the Foundation, she went looking for the MIA ML (he never came back) and found him in a cave, he was blinded and injured. MC cured him and they also became a couple btw and they went back to the Base where MC shows off her strength and promised to make pills for them as long as they leave her alone.

Laters, her cultivation advanced again due to her and ML's "dual cultivation' and she is able to open a storage ring she got from a...dead Foundation Building disciple. She gets a pill to increase strength and extend lifespan and gave it to ML and her mercenary team, then they clean up all the monster beasts in the world after many many years. THEN.... #spoiler ML 'wakes up' his memories from the cultivation world. He is actually from the same cultivation world as MC and undergoing a 'tribulation' where he has to save humanity or else, he'll die(?). Now that humanity is saved, he can go back to the cultivation world. They explain these to their friends and then they both leave.

In the cultivation world, MC doesn't really know how to get along with ML since their cultivation is so far apart. His personality is also so different from ML before unlocking his memories. Cultivator ML is more...frivolous. Still, he slowly soften MC's attitude and he remembers everything that happened between them. Laters, he brought MC to his Sect then performed a 'sacrificial' dual cultivation so MC's cultivation soared while his fell so now they have the same cultivation level. Also, while 'digesting' ML's cultivation, MC was in a coma for three years and she was also pregnant so now the kid  is 3 y/o. Ending is MC & ML planning to roam the cultivation world together 

Hmm... I like MC's attitude. She is very single-minded about things. For example, her principle is that she is not unwilling to help, but preserving her life is more important for her. You can't really blame her since she is not really that 'attached' to the Base. She is unable to understand why humans are persisting to provoke the monsters when they could simply peacefully live inside the Base (cause Sect disciples stay in the Sect all year round unless they go out for 'experience), but she is willing to listen to their reason. She also won't bend to pressure, like when the medic team started isolating her for being 'ungrateful' when she didn't rush to the frontlines. In fact, this small moves of ML to 'coerce' MC into joining the military really lowered my initial impression of him. Instead of timid, I think MC should be called cautious instead.

Regarding ML, hmm... like I said, I have a bad first impression, with him using MC as bait or framing MC to join the medic team and then the intrigue that happened there later. Romance is really more like a subplot, it's very...light, like they have moments... but it's not the main focus. Still, ML is a sweet character...and his sweetness is all on these unexpected times like #SPOILER When other high-ranking families wanted to force MC to serve the military, ML let her escape, even though at first, he also wanted MC to join the military (how times have changed~) and when MC got that special pill... ML told her that #SPOILER #SPOILER, she can save it for her next...boyfriend so that her future boyfriend can have high level abilities. There is inferiority, but ML is more...wistful/dejected that MC and his path are too different.  But when MC showed the slightest softening in attitude, he immediately gained the courage to pursue her. I do prefer apocalypse version of ML over cultivator ML XD

Another thing I liked about this is that when MC didn't immediately accept ML after he unlocked his memories. She even cried when she thought that 'apocalypse/serious' ML disappeared when ML woke up. ML just managed to convince her later that the two of them are really the same person. There's also her awareness of their disparity in cultivation level, but when she had the chance to advance, her immediate thought was to be stronger so she can stand side by side with him~~~

Overall, I like this very much. I like MC's personality and ML's unexpected sweetness. MC's teammates are good people~~~ Read this for cultivator MC in an beast tide apocalypse world~~

Nearest reco: Apocalypse Lord, the female lead MC there is also very pragmatic, the romance is more of a subplot.