Retrospective: She is the Protagonist

Yu Ru Bing and Tang Han Qiu live rent-free in my head.

*this retrospective may contain minor spoilers*

Sitting at a Chinese word count of 760,345 and racking up nearly two million article points over its 210 chapter run, She is the Protagonist is baihe author Re Dao Hun Jue’s most popular work, and for good reason. I love this novel so much that when I found out it was only Re Dao Hun Jue’s published second novel, I was genuinely shocked.

Like many of its contemporaries, the novel draws on a plethora of Chinese web novel tropes to establish its story, but it’s in how it synthesizes these tropes that it stands out.

In a break with tradition, She is the Protagonist begins with our female lead, Tang Han Qiu, who has been unjustly cast as the vicious supporting female character in the novel’s fictional world, breaking free of an “invisible force” and jumping off a building, only to find herself reborn at an earlier point in the story’s timeline with full autonomy.

Following Tang Han Qiu’s rebirth, we are introduced to our main character, Yu Ru Bing, who has been transmigrated into the body of the fictional story’s female lead of the same name. She finds herself bound to the very same invisible force that Tang Han Qiu escaped (the “system”) and is assigned the task of returning Tang Han Qiu to her assigned role of “vicious supporting female character.”

Re Dao Hun Jue’s popularity (at least with me) is in how she fleshes out her somewhat “tropey” premises into narratives with real heart and substance. The main characters never exist solely for the sake of satisfying their relationship with each other, and the world also never exists solely for the sake of the main characters (even if they’re literally “the protagonist”).

After all, a central theme of her work is that “everyone has their own struggles, hopes, and dreams.”

Another aspect of Re Dao Hun Jue’s writing that I love to gush about is her emphasis on healthy romantic relationships. She’s expressed through her works that she isn’t a fan of tropes which rely on dubious consent or the use of force (unfortunately common in related media) and her pairings are usually just the most wholesome things ever. Like, it shouldn’t feel like a breath of fresh air, but it does. I could die for them.

In She is the Protagonist, Yu Ru Bing is always a delight to read, and her chemistry with Tang Han Qiu is as entertaining as it is charming. Early Her rebellious nature has her determined to defy the system by becoming Tang Han Qiu’s number one career fan^[1]. As a result, she spends much of the rest of the novel praising Tang Han Qiu to the moon to anyone and anything she can…that is, until she accidentally makes the transition from career fan to “wife fan.”

While Yu Ru Bing and Tang Han Qiu’s relationship is a slow burn, it never feels slow. The main characters are always deepening their understanding of each other that, by the time they confess, it’s long felt like they’ve become a “special existence” to the other person.

Without going into too much detail here, I think this is best exemplified by Re Dao Hun Jue’s brilliantly conceived and foreshadowed use of “candy.” I never thought the idea of candy would make me feel so many emotions, but Re Dao Hun Jue earns those emotions through her narrative.

Yu Ru Bing and Tang Han Qiu’s confession is also one of the most touching I’ve had the pleasure of reading. It’s quiet, personal, and so accurate to these two characters’ personalities.

How would I describe their confession in one sentence? Despite being unplanned, the car was always heading toward this destination.

Speaking of brilliant confessions, I have to mention my beloved secondary pairing. I won’t spoil the specific character details, because it came as a total surprise to me, but I adore them so much!! (Though in a very different way from Yu Ru Bing and Tang Han Qiu).

Although they finish their story much earlier than the protagonists, their happy ending is the cherry on top of this massive cake of a novel, and I can’t help but go back to reread those last few scenes every so often just to feel those happy butterflies flutter again in my chest.

In Re Dao Hun Jue’s universe, the lesbians always win in the end, and sometimes, that’s all you’re looking for.

There’s nothing worse than a great book with a terrible translation, but thankfully fan translator insidethemirror has translated all 210 chapters (bonuses included) of She is the Protagonist for English readers’ ease of access. Everyone should thank her for her dedication, and I also especially liked her extensive use of footnotes to explain Chinese culture, slang, and idioms which would otherwise fly over most people’s heads.

I’m hard-pressed to criticize anything about the novel, but if I had to give one tiny nitpick, I would say that the first few chapters are paced just a little too quickly for new readers. It feels like Re Dao Hun Jue is speeding through the introduction as fast as humanly possible, and I get the impression that both she and insidethemirror are still getting their boots on the ground when it comes to pacing and prose.

Because of this, I recommend that readers try to read the first ten chapters or so to get a feel for the novel. It’s worth it, I promise—if only to get on a ride that you’ll never get off from (or forget) for the next two hundred chapters.