“The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System” is another one of my highlights although … I can’t exactly say why. Well, let’s take this one step at a time. 😉

The main story has been completely translated on cnoveluv and BC novels and the extras are currently still in translation over at BC novels. So you can start right in to see if you might like this as well. 😊

What is “The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System” about?

Shen Yuan has been following a stallion novel for a long time, bashing the author in the comment section. When the story is finally over … he transmigrates into the cannon fodder charater Shen Qingqiu. Now, his goal is to become the good Master for the protagonist that the original character should have been. Unfortunately … this plan backfires. Completely.

My opinion

This story is the typical ‘transmigrating to another world and trying to change your fate by hugging the protagonist’s thigh’ that is flying around a hundred times. In fact, when you start to read, you already know how this story will end. Somehow, I still love it to bits and was eagerly waiting for the next chapter to go up while the main story was running.

I think that much of the charm of this novel, at least to me, lies in Shen (Yuan’s) Qingqiu’s character. He has a humorous way of looking at the things that happen, especially the way the protagonist, Luo Binghe, behaves and slowly but surely diverges from the path originally described in the novel he read.
I also couldn’t get enough of the pretentious way Shen Yuan acts to imitate the way Shen Qingqiu was behaving before his transmigration. This got even more pronounced when I read the extras later on. – But I wouldn’t want to spoil your fun so I’ll stay silent about that. 😁

The one thing that is a bit of a let-down for me is the ML. Since the story is mostly written from Shen Qingqiu’s perspective, there isn’t much we get from Luo Binghe’s side of the story so he felt a bit … flat to me. I think I would have loved to read more about his side. Case in point: I did like the chapters with him the most that gave a direct comparison between the him after Shen Yuan’s transmigration and the him from the novel.

Strangely enough, while I couldn’t quite warm up to the ML, I did like several of the side characters a lot. They had backstories of their own, interactions with each other and the MC that revealed quite a bit of their personalities, and made an actual impact on the plot with their decisions.

The plot itself was mostly what can be expected of a standard transmigration story with a few differences here and there.

Overall …

I liked this novel but, as I said right in the beginning, I have no idea why exactly. Looking at the general idea and the plot, it’s pretty standard. I didn’t even like the ML too much since he seemed flat but, on the other hand, I did like the MC a lot and also loved the side characters very much. I guess this novel just managed to strike a sweet balance that let me overlook what I didn’t like too much so I could focus on the good things. So maybe just give this a try. From what I’ve seen, this novel seems to be quite well liked in the BL community.