태양의주인

TAEYANGUIJUIN

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
Not Available
RELEASE
November 21, 2023
CHAPTERS
144

DESCRIPTION

Bayan is an outcast amongst the Siyo, a people who have healing powers. Considered worthless because she doesn’t have the ability to heal others, Bayan is sent to the court of Dhan, the Great Sun Emperor, who is cursed with unrelenting bloodlust and slaughters his concubines mercilessly. It seems that Bayan’s fate is sealed the moment she reaches the emperor’s palace and Dhan is fated to suffer from madness forever... But together, Bayan and Dhan just might be able to change each other’s destiny.

(Source: Lezhin US)

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Nayumi
50/100
It starts with a lot of potential and ends horribly.
If you've started reading the series and think it's not so bad, stop reading and remember it as you currently see it, because it's going to turn into a running red flag!
But what is it about anyway?
Bayan lives with her mother in a isolated village, but is cast out because, unlike the others, she has no healing powers. Without spoiling too much, some terrible things happen to her in the village and she also learns a dark secret. (TW: If you actually want to read the series, you should be able to handle sexual violence and assault). As if that weren't bad enough, she is chosen as a concubine for the cursed emperor after the previous concubines from her village returned only as corpses.
So Bayan's chances don't look very good. However, as you can see from the cover or the plot of any other romance series, Bayan finds a way into the emperor's heart and survives. They both quickly discover that they complement each other and fall in love. For the rest of the story, Bayan has to find her place at the emperor's court and confront her past.
I actually found the beginning very successful. Bayan is a tough woman who has suffered deep emotional wounds that she must first come to terms with. Nevertheless, she stands up for herself and is not easily impressed. She learns to read and write at court and ignores all the gifts with which the nobles try to flatter her.
Perhaps it is precisely this early fascination that made me read the series in its entirety, even though the later chapters resemble a car crash. You shouldn't read on, but you do anyway.
The horror emerges late in the series, although there are early indications of it, and it escalates continually.
The relationship between Bayan and the Emperor turns out to be extremely toxic in the course of The Elixir of the Sun and is a constant red flag. However, this does not bother either of the characters, nor is it dealt with sensibly in the series. The Emperor in particular stands out for his pathological jealousy. Want an example?
A general respects Bayan's wish to take revenge on her tormentors at a later date and spares them for the time being. When the whole drama reaches the Emperor, he demotes the general and even briefly considers worse measures, thereby explicitly going against the wishes of his beloved.
And just to clarify: 80-90% of the drama between Bayan and the Emperor is not romantic, but highly toxic, as are their declarations of not being able to live without each other. Both mean this statement quite seriously and literally, which shows a far too high level of dependence on each other than is healthy.
And that's despite the fact that, as I said, the series has some good ideas: Bayan is a strong woman who neither puts up with everything nor neglects her own goals. But she's also no Mary Sue, and her traumatic experiences in the village are portrayed and dealt with much better than the romance. In later chapters, Bayan also campaigns for women's rights and reforms at the imperial court. Unfortunately, these exceptional moments are overshadowed by the emperor and his mistress.
There are few leads who seem more unsympathetic, mentally unstable and dependent than him.

If you still plan to read this story: you should be a fan of dark romance, otherwise you'll just go mad.
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