The very next second after Nian Shilan died miserably in the Cold Palace, her brother Nian Gengyao pulled her out of the underworld through a back door and into the modern world. They even got a two-person transmigration package!
Nian Gengyao won the judge’s favor with a little gift, squeezed himself into the body of Fan Shengying, Fan Shengmei’s gambling-addict brother, and arranged for his sister to become Fan Shengmei, an HR manager at a foreign company. He had just one goal: This time, your brother’s got you!
And so everything took a sudden turn. Nian Shilan, now Fan Shengmei, used her harem tactics to put office green tea in her place, used her HR access to expose colleagues who faked overtime, and used her alluring eyes to seal recruitment deals. With her shrewdness, she protected her subordinates and became a ruthless seductress of the Shanghai workplace. She even had Meng Yichen so enchanted that he told Xu Qin “we’re not right for each other” that very night, unable to think of anything but her seductive charm. Meanwhile, Nian Gengyao, now Fan Shengying, went from a layabout who forced his sister to pay off his debts to a doting brother overnight. He worked construction by day to pay off his gambling debts, studied agricultural policy at night, then returned to Anhui to start an orchard and a farmhouse restaurant. He even joined the civil service exam hopefuls, turning the “brother-dependent sister” script into “big brother provides for the whole family.” Their mother was so shocked she exclaimed, “How did my son become such a workaholic?”
Only Emperor Xuan Ye was left utterly confused. Transmigrated into the CEO Xuan Chen, he wanted to rekindle their romance, but she turned down his investment offer. He watched her go grocery shopping with Meng Yichen, all sweet smiles and romance, and in the end could only donate money to a traditional culture foundation. Sighing over an interview with Fan Shengmei in a magazine, he lamented, “In the end, I couldn’t warm your cold heart.”
The whole character design is very strange. I feel that the setting of Nian Shilan is entirely for the brother-sister line. The heroine is still Fan Shengmei, and her past life experience only appears when needed. The two brothers and sisters were so adaptable after traveling through time that they completely accepted themselves as brothers and sisters of the Fan family and gave up the subjectivity of the Nian brothers and sisters. Meng Yanchen's love was sudden and there was no opportunity. The heroine also decided to fulfill her predecessor's wish because she had a crush on Meng You after meeting her once. Also, how does the heroine know that Xuan Ye is the emperor? And the emperor is not named by this name neither in the original book nor in the TV series. Xuan Ye is Kangxi...