Inviting the Wolf In—Safety for Women Living Alone

The most explosive content from the preview livestream was the plot where the new character, Ao Yin, breaks in through a window late at night as a werewolf into the home of a woman living alone. 'What's wrong with inviting the wolf in? Just peek your head in, and he'll open the door for you.' The PV footage includes scenes of climbing balconies at night, trespassing into bedrooms, and sharing the same bed. The character rummages through the house, peeking into every corner, completely exposing the private space of the woman living alone to the intruder's gaze. The 'China Women's News' commented: '"Inviting the wolf in" is originally a cautionary idiom, but in this plot, the werewolf character breaks into a private residence without permission, and the intruder transforms into the male protagonist creating a heart-pounding atmosphere. The dialogue even inverts cause and effect, suggesting that if one intrudes, the person living alone will willingly open the door. This is a dangerous logic that packages boundary-crossing peeping as romance and rationalizes the illegal act of trespassing. As an otome game that has long deeply cultivated the female emotional market and relies on female players for revenue, defining "inviting the wolf in" this way and trivializing women's safety is not only an offense to the vast majority of players but also blurs legal boundaries and trivializes and entertains the safety of women living alone. Women's safety when living alone is a widely concerned social issue. Games can fantasize and create fantasy characters, but they cannot deviate from public order and good morals, nor can they exchange women's personal safety for popularity.' What's even more incomprehensible is that 'Inviting the wolf in' not only appeared in the PV but was also made into a door hanger for the BW offline event. It's not hard to see that the creative logic behind this merchandise is a combination of the male lead's animal persona and homophonic puns (refer to comments if the character count is insufficient).