Chinese GL

In the same way that I over-engineer my overall TBR list (e.g. by requiring two pro-published books in English for every book in Chinese), I also over-engineer the 'baihe novels' section of that TBR list, by requiring myself to read a new-to-me author at least once in every three books. Divination (打卦, pinyin: dagua) was the one by the new-to-me author for the most recent cycle. The audio drama adaptation happened to come out just as I was compiling my TBR list, and I found both the poster (left) and the synopsis of the novel to be intriguing enough for me to put it on the list.

Divination is a contemporary supernatural thriller that also kind of falls into urban fantasy territory. The protagonist is Xun Ruosu, a professional clairvoyant, and the last scion of a long line of professional clairvoyants. Because they spend so much time peering at things which mortals are not designed to know about, members of the Xun family are all extraordinarily short-lived. They also all know exactly when they're going to die — including, of course, Xun Ruosu. The day before her death, she places herself in her coffin and arranges for the coffin to be brought to the Xun family's ancestral burial ground, giving instructions for the undertaker to return the following day (once she has properly expired) to fill in the grave. The hour of her death rolls round, but unexpectedly, Xun Ruosu doesn't die. Instead, an aggressively beautiful woman climbs out of one of the nearby graves and demands to know what's going on. Her name is Xue Tong and she's the King of the Tenth Court of Hell, whose task is to usher recalcitrant (sometimes downright malevolent) souls into the cycle of reincarnation.

We soon learn that Xun Ruosu is still alive because her ancestor Xun Jian placed a ward on Xue Tong that has the effect of binding Xue Tong's life to the life of the last living member of the Xun family: as long as Xue Tong lives, so does Xun Ruosu. The pair of them are swiftly thrown into an escalating series of adventures, each involving a lingering ghost or some other supernatural creature, which they have to guide back into the cycle of reincarnation. The two of them are a classic brains-and-brawn duo: Xun Ruosu favours creatively-crafted talismans and persuasion, while Xue Tong prefers beating her targets into submission. As the story progresses, the pair of them come to realise that the situations they're thrown into and the ghosts, other supernatural creatures and occasional human they meet are inextricably linked to their shared past.

( Read more; spoilers )

Having said that, I did enjoy Xun Ruosu and Xue Tong as a pairing a lot — they banter with and snipe at each other throughout the book in a very entertaining way, and they clearly grow to care for each other. Xun Ruosu is a refreshing take on the 'cool, inscrutable love interest', which tend to have dull-to-non-existent personalities. While Xun Ruosu is generally mild-mannered ('a nice girl', my aunts would agree), she has a wry sense of humour, and her comebacks often leave Xue Tong tongue-tied. When she first sees Xue Tong, for instance, Xun Ruosu's immediate response is to close her eyes (like a good little corpse), lie back in her coffin, and state calmly, 'If you have a fortune that needs telling, go find someone else. I'm enjoying my retirement.' Xue Tong is a good foil for her, being tempestuous, easily provoked, quite petty (but also capable of grand gestures of compassion and care), and also possessing a wicked (though less subtle) sense of humour of her own. The world-building was interesting, though I did feel that it could be better thought through and explained more clearly, especially the concepts and techniques that were directly relevant to the plot. Some of the 'solutions' to the various challenges they encountered seemed to come a bit out of nowhere, and would be more effective and have more weight if contextualised more clearly.

I read the Chinese original of the novel here on JJWXC. There is also a prequel extra, which can be found here. At some point between my starting the novel and finishing it, the author changed her name from Chui Feng Cheng Qu to You Jiao Yao Shui.