Mistakenly Saving the Villain

by Feng Yu Nie

Synopsis:

A mission gone wrong and a villain in need of serious therapy await in this heart-rending drama—finally available in English!

When medical student Song Qingshi dies and wakes up in a historical fantasy novel, he’s tasked with rescuing the tragic protagonist from a life of misery. There’s just one problem—he has no idea who the protagonist is.

Instead of saving the hero, Song Qingshi accidentally rescues Yue Wuhuan, an enslaved man renowned for his striking beauty and trained in the art of seduction. Now determined to help his traumatized new patient heal, Song Qingshi offers everything he can: Medicine, therapy, emotional support, even a shared bed—strictly for his patient’s well-being, of course.

But Yue Wuhuan wants more than healing. He wants revenge. And most of all, he wants Song Qingshi all to himself.

As enemies close in—and even heaven itself turns against them—Song Qingshi isn’t trying to change the story. He’s just trying to save the one person who needs him most.

Volume one of Feng Yu Nie’s Mistakenly Saving the Villain sets up a pretty fun scenario: a young man (a former medical student) who has died of motor neurone disease ends up transmigrating into the world of a novel, tasked with saving the protagonist….

Problem is, he isn’t genre-savvy at all, and ends up saving a man intended to be a minor antagonist at most, who should have simply died earlier in the story. Without knowing that, and committed to “getting a good grade”, Song Qingshi settles into his new role, blending modern medicine with the cultivation world’s techniques to try to nurse Yue Wuhuan back to health.

The two of them get close as Song Qingshi tries to heal him, but it’s slow going because Yue Wuhuan has suffered a lot of trauma, and has both physical and psychological healing to do. Progress is hindered by Song Qingshi’s friend, An Long, who seems to have ulterior motives, and by the fact that Yue Wuhuan considers himself dirty and tainted from all that has happened to him, and holds back information from Song Qingshi in order to avoid frightening/upsetting him.

It’s fairly dark, due to the aforementioned trauma, and Yue Wuhuan isn’t a straightforwardly good guy: he can be, for Song Qingshi, and he was certainly deeply, deeply wronged… but he’s more than a little unhinged. Mind you, Song Qingshi matches that energy, going to absurd lengths to protect and defend Yue Wuhuan. I enjoy both of them greatly, despite Yue Wuhuan’s sometimes erratic behaviour.

Despite that dark background, it all goes past quite lightly because there’s a touch of humour to it through Song Qingshi’s misunderstandings. I found it a lot of fun to read, and because I happen to know a couple of spoilers due to people comparing it to the love story of Heaven Official’s Blessing, I’m very curious how that’s all going to connect up.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)