REVIEW: My Husband and I Sleep in a Coffin, Vol. 1 (book) by Wu Shui Bu Du, illustrated by Oniku and Chikage, translated by Liting Xiao

My Husband and I Sleep in a Coffin is fantasy danmei (Chinese m/m) fiction. I bought my copy of this volume new.

This review includes spoilers. 

Review:

Wang Xiaomie is an ordinary gay nerd who's basically lived alone since he was very young. One day, he wakes up in a coffin, greeted by a handsome man named Wen Fengjin who keeps calling him "Mian Deng." Wen Fengjin insists that Wang Xiaomie is the reincarnation of his beloved Mian Deng, brought back into Mian Deng's preserved corpse after a thousand years of waiting.

Wen Fengjin tells Xiaomie all about how Mian Deng was his shixiong (older martial brother), and about how the two of them ended up coming across an elixir of immortality that attracted countless assassins. In the end, Mian Deng and Wen Fengjin were badly injured. They decided that one of them should eat the elixir and, after much argument, Mian Deng was chosen, only for him to trick Wen Fengjin and give it to him instead. This transformed Wen Fengjin into a corpse-like monster with no heartbeat, alone in the world without his Mian Deng, until the present day, when Wen Fengjin's efforts to bring him back finally worked. However, the process isn't entirely complete - Wang Xiaomie is essentially tied to the divine tree that brought Mian Deng's body back to life, and can't leave the area for long without becoming a true corpse again.

It's a lot to take in, and no matter how much Wang Xiaomie insists that he has no memories of life as Mian Deng, Wen Fengjin seems convinced that that's who he is. Wen Fengjin seems to be more than a little bit unstable, but he's also hot and willing to see to Xiaomie's every need as much as possible, so Xiaomie tries to accept the situation. The main drawbacks are the lack of internet and modern technology within the vast mausoleum Wen Fengjin constructed for Mian Deng and himself.

This book was a bit like if you took MXTX's Scum Villain's Self-Saving System and paired Shen Qingqiu up with the original violently murderous Luo Binghe. I honestly had no idea what to expect - for a while there, I thought the author might pair Wang Xiaomie off with someone else, probably the one grave robber, Zhen Bei. This seemed especially likely when it was revealed that Wen Fengjin was secretly doing things to Wang Xiaomie to make him less likely to go against Wen Fengjin's wishes. 

But no, it turned out that the author was actually serious about pairing up Wen Fengjin and Wang Xiaomie. Meanwhile, readers learned that, in addition to drugging Xiaomie, Wen Fengjin was also lying to him about their past and the state of their relationship, had engaged in necrophilia with Mian Deng's dead body, and had (maybe - the writing was vague enough that it was hard to tell) raped Mian Deng when he was still alive. You would think that, when Xiaomie himself found all of this out, he'd have noped out of there, but instead he just...accepted and forgave it all?

Wen Fengjin had some monstrous minions that were written about and generally treated as though they were creepy-cute pets, which worked only as long as you didn't think about it too hard and remember that they used to be Wen Fengjin's human followers. Taken moment to moment, there were some funny, nice interactions between Wen Fengjin and Wang Xiaomie, and there were several revelations throughout the story that surprised me and kept my attention. I was definitely never bored while reading this. But I was never personally able to get past everything Wen Fengjin had done (and was still doing) to Mian Deng/Wang Xiaomie.

Extras:

A couple full-color illustrations, black-and-white illustrations throughout, a character guide, and a glossary.