baihe_media | Entries tagged with recs and reviews: novels

Across the Empire (纵横, pinyin: zongheng) is, by webnovel standards, an ancient relic. First published on JJWXC in 2005 (for reference, JJWXC itself was founded in 2003), it's one of the earliest court intrigue novels in the baihe genre. It was actually planned as a trilogy of novels chronicling the life and death of protagonist Lin Zong, but only the first volume was fully written. The author started the second volume, but discontinued it after eighteen chapters. In an addendum to the second volume, she provides an outline of how her planned story would have gone.

The protagonist Lin Zong is an interesting twist on the popular cross-dressing lead. She is, at the start of the novel, the only living child of Prince Chu, one of the emperor's brothers. We're told that, being a very sickly child, she was brought up as a boy in order to ensure her good health (this is a superstition/folk belief/tradition that's still extant in some communities; the idea seems to be that, if you raise a child as the 'opposite' gender, you confuse the malevolent forces responsible for their poor health).* So from a very young age, Lin Zong has been treated (and dresses as) a boy, and her father has even designated her his heir, but everyone knows that she was born a girl. This creates interesting tensions down the line.

*This was also the premise of the 2015 Taiwanese drama Bromance, the most accidentally(?) queer cross-dressing drama I've ever watched. Seriously, the protagonist is easily readable as non-binary up to the very last frame of the drama.

Prince Chu is one of those extremely competent, charismatic, loyalty-inspiring princes who are the bane of their emperor brothers' existences. The emperor therefore devises a loyalty test: he arranges for Lin Zong to be married to a high-ranking young noblewoman named Chu Yanran, to see how Prince Chu will respond. Prince Chu and Lin Zong don't really have a choice but to accept the match (the other option is to kick off and basically start a rebellion), and so we end up with the rather surreal scenario of a lesbian marriage sanctioned, nay compelled, by an otherwise institutionally homophobic state.

( some mild spoilers )

I read the Chinese original of both volumes here and here on JJWXC.

douqi

yuerstruly and I came up with this (extremely short, and not all danmei) list for fun. We were seriously hampered in this task by the fact that neither of us reads all that much danmei (and in fact, such danmei I've read consists mainly of the Erha and MDZS sex scenes, at the instigation of friends who wanted to know if they were sexy in the original). There's also the usual problem that there are no non-MTL translations for most of the baihe novels in the list. But ANYWAY.

If you liked Sha Po Lang, you might also like Minister Xie (谢相, pinyin: xie xiang) by Ruo Hua Ci Shu (若花辞树). In Minister Xie, teenage emperor Liu Zao tries to get to grips with ruling an empire while also doing her best to turn her prime minister Xie Yi (who is 14 years older than her, and also her sort-of aunt) into her wife. I have been reliably informed that she is even more Obsessed and Dramatique about the latter task than Changgeng is in relation to Gu Yun. Brief reviews are available here and here.
If you liked Erha, you might also like the first 40% of The Abandoned (弃仙, pinyin: qi xian) by Mu Feng Qing Nian (沐枫轻年). Featuring extreme xianxia shizunfuckery and multiple rebirths, the first chapter of The Abandoned alone has the protagonist masturbating to a painting of her shizun, a curse that's basically the xianxia version of sex pollen, multiple instances of hurt/comfort, stratospheric levels of unhealthy disciple/shizun co-dependence, a double rebirth, the protagonist allowing her shizun to stab her in the shoulder so that she could get close enough to kiss her shizun, and the protagonist stealing her shizun's jade pendant for use as a masturbation aid. I say the first 40% because the remainder of the novel is unfortunately a bit of a drag (though for all I know, the back half of Erha also overstays its welcome). Brief review here.
If you liked SVSSS, you might also like An Incantation for Subduing a Dragon/Dragon Subjugation Incantation (降龙诀, pinyin: xiang long jue) by Shi Wei Yue Shang (时微月上). Protagonist Luo Qingci transmigrates into a xianxia novel and into the body of female lead Ruan Li's evil, conniving shizun. Being genre savvy, Luo Qingci tries her best to avoid the character's canonical grisly fate, only to discover that her disciple might just be falling in love with her. Oh, and Ruan Li is also a dragon. Ongoing fan translation here.
If you liked Qiang Jin Jiu, you might also like At Her Mercy (我为鱼肉, pinyin: wo wei yurou) by Ning Yuan (宁远). Except that everyone in At Her Mercy is evil. An English-language translation of At Her Mercy has been licensed by Rosmei (under the title At the World's Mercy), though the publication date is not yet known.

And now we come to the non-danmei though still danmei-adjacent comps:

If you liked Nirvana in Fire/The Langya List, you might also like At Her Mercy, except that as noted above, everyone in At Her Mercy is evil.
If you liked the Daomu Biji/The Lost Tomb series, you might also like Exploring an Empty Tomb (探虚陵, pinyin: tan xu ling) by Jun Sola (君sola) and Reading the Remnants (问棺, pinyin: wen guan) by Qi Xiao Huang Shu (七小皇叔). Obviously I don't know anything about the Daomu Biji series except that they're tomb-raiding novels, and both Exploring an Empty Tomb and Reading the Remnants are also tomb-raiding novels, so... close enough, I hope? Exploring an Empty Tomb is also literally millions of words long. A partial fan translation of Exploring an Empty Tomb is available here. A partial fan translation of Reading the Remnants is available here, and a fuller one here.

Comment with your own comps, if you have them! Also, feel free to post a danmei title, say what you liked about it and/or what its most notable qualities are, and people who read more baihe can hopefully find some comps for you!

aurumcalendula

I'm really enjoying Pale Mirror's translation of Seeking Immortality in Vain (枉求仙) by Jian Gen Qianbi (捡根铅笔)!

( Read more... )

aurumcalendula

Reading the Remnants (问棺) by Qi Xiao Huang Shu (七小皇叔), translated by Pale Mirror:

( some vague spoilers )

douqi

Having put this off for quite long enough, I thought I might as well review Ning Yuan's Something I Need to Tell You (有件事想告诉你, pinyin: you jian shi xiang gaosu ni) and Fateful Encounters (逢场入戏, pinyin: feng chang ru xi), especially since they're both set in the entertainment industry — a shared-universe entertainment industry, it turns out, as the main characters from the former novel make an appearance in the latter.

Chronologically, Something I Need to Tell You is the earlier book, as it started serialising in 2015. It's the story of Ye Xiaojun, an up-and-coming scriptwriter who refuses to compromise on her art, and Lu Jingsheng, the young and ambitious CEO of a media company. The two of them first meet under very unpromising circumstances. Ye Xiaojun has just caught her girlfriend, an actress named Gu Lan, cheating on her with a director. As she flees from the scene, overcome with emotion, she runs into Lu Jingsheng, who makes a snide remark. When Ye Xiaojun returns to work (the setup here is that she's the salaried employee of a media company, rather than being a freelancer), she learns that her company has been taken over by a new CEO — who is, of course, Lu Jingsheng. Ye Xiaojun finds Lu Jingsheng's mercenary, ruthlessly commercial approach completely unpalatable. To her shock, she subsequently receives a mysterious email telling her that she and Lu Jingsheng will soon become romantically involved. She continues to receive more emails from her mysterious correspondents (known only as 'bearxxx'), all predicting her future more or less accurately.

( possible spoilers for Something I Need to Tell You )

Fateful Encounters, first published in 2020, is a much more straightforward, sweeter, lighter story. The main characters are Chen Ge, an actress whose career has stalled after a promising debut, and Luo Jingyi, a top scriptwriter (Ning Yuan does love her scriptwriter characters). Chen Ge is a long-time admirer of Luo Jingyi, and her debut role was coincidentally in a film written by Luo Jingyi when the latter was much younger. The two of them are thrown together in a countryside-themed reality show being directed by one of Luo Jingyi's friends, and their relationship develops from there, with the twist that Luo Jingyi is appearing under an alias, so Chen Ge doesn't know her true identity at first.

Chen Ge is one of Ning Yuan's ingenues, which is to say she's sweet and earnest, but also determined and resilient, and actively kind to people (with a lot of ingenues, it seems the reader is expected simply to accept that they're good, kind people without the text ever showing us this) but not a pushover. Luo Jingyi has some of the characteristics of a classic jiejie (typically aloof, rich, generally composed, highly fashionable) but with quirks that make her much more human and fun, including a very sharp tongue that she has no compunctions about deploying, moments of extreme smugness (that are often punctured by subsequent events) and occasional entertaining bursts of temper. She also has misophobia, which had been an obstacle in getting into any sort of serious relationship (not that she was trying very hard to have one, or particularly desirous of having one) until she met Chen Ge, who cheerfully accommodates her without her even needing to say anything.

( possible spoilers for Fateful Encounters )

While Fateful Encounters was significantly less ambitious than Something I Need to Tell You, it was much better executed throughout. Lu Jingsheng makes a cameo appearance in Fateful Encounters as an investor in one of Luo Jingyi's films, and Ye Xiaojun also appears briefly at the end as 'legendary scriptwriter Ye Xiaojun' (whom Chen Ge also admires deeply, leading to a brief and entertaining fit of jealousy on Luo Jingyi's part).

I read the Chinese original of Something I Need to Tell You here on JJWXC. For Fateful Encounters, I read the uncensored simplified Chinese print edition. The web version of Fateful Encounters can be found here.

aurumcalendula

I just finished reading Lin King's translation of Taiwan Travelogue (台湾漫游录) by Yang Shuang-zi (楊双子)!

( some spoilers )

yuerstruly

From political intrigue to showbiz, from sci-fi to coming-of-age, Ning Yuan covers just about every subgenre of baihe novels you can find, and it’s no surprise that she’s brought a genre breakthrough with her latest completed novel, To Embers We Return, a historical cyberpunk novel. Wait, historical cyberpunk? How does that work? If you didn’t believe this could exist, well, Ning Yuan did it, and executed it well beyond my expectations, and perhaps surpassed all her readers’ expectations. To Embers We Return is an action-packed yet romantic novel at its core, and if you are interested in a cast of women attempting to navigate a society that welcomes and honors their feats with positions of power but challenges their core beliefs, then this novel is for you. There are also three side couples that play important roles, both their characters and relationships deeply intertwined with the plot. The plot pushes the romance, and the romance pushes the plot.

As I am somehow terrible with summaries (and making it sound better than an existing one for a beautiful translation), I will quote Douqi’s synopsis here:

When Shen Ni, the empire’s foremost machinist, returns home victorious from battle against their long-standing foe, the emperor showers her with rewards, including the hand in marriage of the woman she had loved in her youth — Bian Jin…Shen Ni takes on the onerous task of retrieving Bian Jin’s lost memories and repairing her much-battered cybernetic spine and neural core, but Bian Jin seems to be keeping something back. Can they trust each other? And can they trust the empire?

The novel’s beginning stage starts off mellow, with much of the setting being Chang’an, the empire’s capital. This is, however, nothing to worry about, as the exciting gradual worldbuilding in these chapters make up for what some people might classify as a slow start. This doesn’t mean the first volume isn’t action-packed! The Black Box virus that infiltrates the entire empire and lands beyond is a consistent threat within the city, even with its so-called fortified walls, so we get to see much of the main cast facing it head-on. The setup for the romance subplots take place here, and we get to see four different couples, all bitterly sweet, with different flavors of push-and-pull. The second volume, which takes place outside the city, rides on the setup of the primary conflict, which is the Black Box virus making rounds even in hard-to-detect corners of the world. It also further develops the romance, and every pair contributes to the overall plot.

Ning Yuan challenged herself with this novel, and though it sits at 832k words, it is in fact one of her shorter plot-heavy historical novels, with At Her Mercy sitting at 1.24 million words and The Cultivation of a Prime Minister sitting at 1.71 million words. It is also a much more digestable read, and keeps you hooked from the beginning. While I wouldn’t say Ning Yuan is particularly praised as a prose stylist, her writing gets the job done, and she hits all the emotional beats where you want them to be. She has mentioned that To Embers We Return was a challenge for her, as it’s something she has never tried before. I commend her for her efforts.

My only gripe with this novel was the pacing—as I have mentioned earlier, the novel starts out on the mellower end, especially compared to the latter half of the plot development. This was, however, not a problem, compared to the last 7% of the main text, which felt somewhat rushed. I believe she stuck the landing, but the resolution was bordering deus ex machina. When I reached the ~500k mark, I thought that she wouldn’t be finishing the novel at less than one million words, and though the plot took a sharp swerve that allowed a sooner resolution, I think more could have been done. Taking this into account, I would probably rate this a 9.2/10. It’s above a 9 for me, but I’m not sure if it quite hit that 9.5 or 10 mark. Still, I would recommend this to anyone potentially interested in the plot or genre, and Ning Yuan as a writer makes many callbacks sprinkled throughout the text, which will leave you mindblown.

P.S. The aesthetics I imagine in my head are Xianzhou Luofu technology meets Court of Fontaine Underground area.

douqi

I don't usually seek out quick transmigration novels, as they ask a lot of the reader (investing in multiple fictional worlds in a row) without necessarily providing the scaffolding to make that investment worthwhile. I'm conscious that it's a sort of gap in my reading, given the popularity of quick transmigration narratives, so when I came across In Love with a Substitute (和替身谈恋爱, pinyin: he tishen tan lian'ai), I thought I would give it a go. There were several factors that led me in this direction: the suggestion of transmigration bureaucracy shenanigans, hints of an over-arching meta-plot, and the fact that I would only be asked to invest in four different worlds, which indicated to me at least an intention on the author's part to deal with each in some detail.

The novel begins promisingly enough, with our protagonist Jian Yixin. She is an agent from the 'substitutes' department of the Transmigration Bureau, and her job is to be transmigrated into various books to 'fix' plot holes and inappropriate outcomes. There is a suggestion that she ended up in this position because she was previously a 'proper' transmigrator who failed her mission, and now her memories of that former life have been wiped. Jian Yixin is sent into four different worlds, where she assumes the role of four different characters, all of whom are named Song Pianxian, who all function as 'substitutes' of some kind in the original narrative. The first world is a showbiz romance, and Jian Yixin takes on the role of a trained dancer who works as movie star Lin Qinglu's dance double. The second world is a historical/court intrigue one, where Jian Yixin takes on the role of a princess who has to disguise herself as her dead brother, the crown prince, in order to bring peace to the realm. Her first order of business is to marry her brother's betrothed, the noblewoman Feng Yuexian. The third world is a sort of CEO romance but set in the near future and in a queernorm society. Here Jian Yixin takes on the role of a seemingly penniless but hard-working young woman who has become the girlfriend of a wealthy young (male) CEO due to her resemblance to the CEO's first love, a formidable business executive named Nie Lingbo. The fourth world is a xianxia one, and the role Jian Yixin plays is that of a sentient magical marionette designed to protect her human mistress' life: if one of them dies, they both die. Her mistress here is a young, recently orphaned cultivator named Yu Yi. As is the case with most such stories, Lin Qinglu, Feng Yuxian, Nie Lingbo and Yu Yi turn out to be manifestations of the same woman, Jian Yixin's love interest. Her real name is Qing Lu, although we don't learn that till quite late into the novel.

( spoilers for the novel )

I read the Chinese original of the novel on JJWXC.

aurumcalendula

It's probably a bit premature to rec yet (Hei's English translation is up to chapter 66 of 197), but I'm enjoying Dragon Subjugation Incantation (降龙诀［穿书］) by Shi Wei Yue Shang (时微月上) so much!

( Read more... )

douqi

It took me three tries to get into this crime thriller, mainly due to work stress, not helped by the fact that I was simultaneously following the serialisation of To Embers We Return (焚情, pinyin: fen qing) by Ning Yuan (宁远) (which is so much more my thing). It was... fine, I guess? Maybe because I wasn't in the right frame of mind to engage with it, but I found both the plot and the romance (especially the romance) rather unsatisfying.

An Endless Story (有终, pinyin: you zhong) (fun fact: An Endless Story was the publisher's chosen English title for the print edition of the novel, but the literal translation of the Chinese title means 'there is an ending') features the central pairing of police captain Shen Zhuoyan and her 'shijie', data analyst Huang Zhen — so-called because Huang Zhen was a couple of years ahead of Shen Zhuoyan at the police academy. Shen Zhuoyan is the reserved one with the androgynous-to-masc presentation; she can often be warm in manner to subordinates, witnesses, members of the public, etc, but that's quite a surface thing and she never shares anything deep with them. Huang Zhen is the fashionable, femme bombshell, but also more than capable of handling herself in a physical altercation. It's clear from the beginning of the novel that they both know each other well and have a fraught relationship. Over the course of the book, it's revealed that this is linked back to an incident which took place when they were teenagers, and left its mark on them. The incident, it turns out, is also linked to the series of crimes which they solve in the novel.

( Read more; major spoilers )

The novel has an interesting serialisation and publication history. It was initially serialised on the author's Weibo account (now deleted). Before the Weibo serialisation was complete, it was licensed for print publication, and the publisher promoted it quite heavily. The author then began to serialise it on JJWXC, and it now appears to be complete (even if it isn't marked 'complete'). I read the web version of the novel on JJWXC, and also read the print-only exclusive post-ending extra, which came as a little booklet with the mainland Chinese print edition of the novel.

douqi

I started reading this novel because, frankly, who can resist the premise of 'the protagonist transmigrates into a xuanhuan novel... and into the body of the villainess' pet alpaca'. It was a delightful experience, and I'd even go so far as to call the novel wholesome although parts of it are objectively harrowing. It does also vibe quite a bit more Young Adult (in the current Anglo publishing sense) than most baihe novels I've read so far (with the possible of exception Her Mountain, Her Sea (她的山, 她的海, pinyin: ta de shan, ta de hai), which is literally a high school novel), though the prose and plotting are more sophisticated than the recent YA fantasy books I've read, and even some of the marketed-as-adult recent fantasy releases I've encountered.

( Read more; some vague spoilers )

I read the uncensored print edition of the novel by morefate, which also has a bonus post-ending extra chapter. The web version of the novel can be found here on JJWXC.

douqi

I had a lot of fun with this contemporary (for a given value of contemporary; it's set and written in 2014) food-themed romance, which had great banter between the leads, excellent food writing, and some genuinely touching emotional moments, both romantic and otherwise. It's still one of Ning Yuan's more 'realist' novels, but is overall gentler, sweeter and smoother around the edges than her earlier The Path of Life (生命之路, pinyin: shengming zhi lu) (reviewed here ).

( read more; mild spoilers )

Anyway, this has now vaulted into first place in the list of the food-themed baihe novels I've read (not that many), followed in second place by A Taste of You (食局, pinyin: shi ju) by Si Bai Ba Shi Si (四百八十寺) and in a very distant last by Xiao Bao (晓暴)'s The Movie Star Puts On 1.5 Kilos a Week (影后一周胖三斤, pinyin: yinghou yi zhou pang san jin).

I read the Chinese original of the novel here on JJWXC, under the revised title Hunger (or Food; 食, pinyin: shi). Sex scenes have been excised from some of the chapters in the current JJWXC version of the novel, so I had to read them on one of the somewhat less offensive pirate sites, here. At the time of writing the novel, the author also posted an explicit sex scene (meant to fit in Chapter 64) to Lofter. The chapter has since been removed from Lofter, but I've managed to save a copy of it from elsewhere and uploaded it here (I really liked this sex scene, which was both very tender and felt very true to the characters).

douqi

I, Qinghuan ( 一世清欢, pinyin: yi shi qinghuan) was a novel I'd been planning to read for some time, as it's one of the best-known baihe shizun romances around. It was also a novel I'd been putting off reading for some time, as it's also one of the best-known baihe tragedies. While I'm glad to have finally read it, due to its place in the genre, I distinctly felt that it did not live up to the hype.

( Read more; spoilers )

To date, therefore, the best shizun romance I've read remains the first 40% of The Abandoned (弃仙, pinyin: qi xian) by Mu Feng Qing Nian (沐风轻年). The first chapter alone features: the protagonist masturbating to a painting of her shizun, sex pollen, mad levels of co-dependence, multiple instances of hurt/comfort, a double rebirth. Alas, it drops off a sheer cliff in the last 60%.

I read the Chinese original of the novel here on JJWXC. Two post-ending exclusive extras were written for the mainland print edition of the novel, and I read those as well. The author has also published a modern-set sequel to the novel, which can be read here. A fan translation of the first two chapters of the sequel can be read here.

douqi

Kan Chang Ting Wan is an author I'd been thinking of reading for some time, but kept putting off due to how LONG her two best-known novels (both historicals) are. In the end, I decided to try the novella-length A Broken Bough (折枝, pinyin: zhezhi) as a taster of sorts. I was not quite expecting this to be the unholy love-child of The Collapsing Palace (宫倾, pinyin: gong qing) and Burn (烧, pinyin: shao), with the harem politics of the former and the latter's distinctive first-person voice and strategic use of limited point-of-view. It's worth mentioning though, that A Broken Bough ends on rather more positive note than the two novels I've compared it to here.

A Broken Bough is told from the first-person perspective of Changning, one of many princesses born to a promiscuous emperor. On the day of her birth, the peonies in the palace burst into full bloom, even though it was still winter. The soothsayers declared this to be a sign that the empire would one day have a female sovereign, ala Wu Zetian. To prevent this from coming to pass, Changning has basically been sidelined by her father since childhood. At the start of the story, she doesn't even have any reasonable marriage prospects, due to concerns that this would give her a route to power. Changning's main hope lies in making her younger brother emperor — but he's the sort of dreamy, literary type who would much rather spend time with his books and scrolls rather than scheming over the throne. Interestingly, Changning is expressly described as being plain, at least by the standards of palace women.

The turning point in Changning's life comes when her brother falls seriously ill just before he's due to marry the daughter of a respected, but non-corrupt and therefore somewhat impoverished official. The soothsayers suggest that, since the two siblings' fates might be linked, Changning should also be married, to bring her brother some good luck and positive energy. The emperor agrees to this. Unfortunately, all the noblemen of suitable age are already married, and all the noblemen of unsuitable age are children. So they hit upon a most preposterous plan: Changning should take a wife instead. The noble families are told to send unmarried daughters of a suitable age for Changning to look over: naturally, they send only the daughters born of concubines rather than principal wives, and nieces from cadet branches of the family. Changning ends up being chosen by, rather than actively choosing, the beautiful, sly, ambitious Cheng Qing. What ensues is the development of an obsessive, co-dependent relationship between two women who are also deeply mistrustful of each other, featuring (among other things), power games, apposite allusions to Yang Guifei, the use of a dizi as a sex toy, and aggressive sex in the antechamber of a monastery.

This largely worked for me, though I could perhaps have done more with some more backstory to explain the origin of Cheng Qing's obsession with Changning. The shorter length worked to the story's advantage, as it allowed the author to maintain the claustrophobic, unsettling mood quite effectively. I did initially find the prose style somewhat jarring — my impression of the author is that she's a something of a specialist in historicals, so I was expecting this to be told in a largely 'proper' historical style, but the first chapter was surprisingly modern-colloquial. The effect of this faded away as I read more of the book, though I'm not sure whether it was because most of the modern bits got smoothed out or because I'd got used to it, or some combination of both. I think the kind of people who call themselves 'toxic yuri enjoyers' would definitely like this.

I read the Chinese original of the novel here on JJWXC.

douqi

Having enjoyed Si Bai Ba Shi Si's food-themed contemporary novel A Taste of You (食局, pinyin: shi ju), I turned with some anticipation to this earlier novel of hers, Above the Fates (万丈红尘之轻, pinyin: wanzhang hongchen zhi qing) which was billed as a smart, corporate thriller with very intelligent leads. However, I found it a bit of a letdown, despite being overall relatively competently written, and with some interesting features which comes from the author being a first-generation immigrant from China to the US.

( Read more; spoilers, brief discussion of abortion and miscarriage )

In short, if you fancy trying your first Si Bai Ba Shi Si novel, go for A Taste of You. In that one, the POV character has a wry, funny narrative voice, you will read about a lot of delicious food written in interesting ways that tell you why a particular dish is tasty and/or meaningful (which is different from a lot of Western-published genre novels which people go 'omg all the food!' about, and which turn out on closer inspection merely to contain a list of foods served at feasts and so on), it's grounded in the big-city lesbian scene, and has actual real stakes. Also features Yorkshire, always a win in my book.

I read the Taiwanese print edition of the novel (traditional Chinese, uncensored). The web version of the novel can be found here on JJWXC.

douqi

headstone has posted a review of the first 49 chapters of An Incantation for Subduing a Dragon (降龙诀, pinyin: xiang long jue), which I know a couple of other comm members are also reading, check it out here!

halfcactus

Thoughts about She Belongs to Me, a modern-day arranged marriage novel about a piano tuner (Jiang Ci) and the CEO of a jewelry company (Lu Xingxue):

For the most part, I feel like this book could have been a lot shorter and more focused. It started out really cute! But the longer you go, the more you realize there aren't any follow-throughs for any of the character moments as soon as they're completed, which was frustrating for me.

I love that both of the leads are competent, successful in their respective fields, and emotionally intelligent—they belong in the "wholesome and mature" category of romance where episode after episode of conflict is resolved quickly by a power couple. Unfortunately, these episodes don't really build up to any discernible shape, only a series of starts and stops. Scenes are perfunctory, abruptly ended as soon as their purpose is served, and there's no sense of continuity or thematicness, and consequently, no chemistry and momentum. I felt like I was reading a series of OC snippets, where I was expected to already know and ship the leads; Jiang Ci is said to be a prodigious piano tuner whose hobby is scuba diving, but you don't really see any of this affect her worldview in any way. Everything felt so artificial, including the leads' past traumas.

The character I ended up loving the most was the morally dubious second lead, Wen Nian—Jiang Ci's childhood friend and Lu Xingxue's love rival—because the author actually made the effort to set up her place in the story and bring out her complexities. She even had a full arc! The rest of the side characters were just props that disappeared, which, again, was frustrating, because I was expecting some closure about Wan Wen (Lu Xingxue's friend and lawyer), Wang Yuanyuan (Lu Xingxue's cousin), and the stepsister who appeared a lot and whose name I have now forgotten. I did like how Jiang Ci comes out of the novel with a family that wanted her and openly acknowledged her place in it.

Overall, a 2/5 read for me. I wish they'd just cut out a lot of the middle bits, to be honest. And I wanted more of piano tuner!Jiang Ci! I feel like the point made at the beginning, where students sigh dreamily about the power and precision of Jiang Ci's wrists, should have come up again haha.

Anyway, I made a vocabulary log for this book. Text-only vocabulary list with accompanying journal doodles under the cut. :)

( Read more... )

Novel raws | JJWXC:
https://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=3531308

English fantranslation | Novel Updates:
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/she-belongs-to-me
Translation status: complete. Chapters 1-40 are edited machine translation, and Chapters 41–57 are (as far as I know) human translation.

Audio drama | Fanjiao:
https://s.rela.me/c/1SqTNu?album_id=387
(I subbed some clips here)

douqi

Promotional art for the audio drama adaptation of Divination

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.

douqi

The Favourite (宠爱, pinyin: chong'ai) is chronologically the last of Da Ying's three xuanhuan novels, which I've mentally classified as 'messy supernatural lesbians behaving very, very badly except for the protagonist, who behaves comparatively well'. The other two, which I've also read, are The Puppet Demon (傀儡妖, pinyin: kuilei yao) and Spring on the River (河上春, pinyin: he shang chun).

The Favourite begins on a ship floating on some unnamed part of some unnamed ocean, where our protagonist Qingchan lives with her two jiejie, Xisha and Duanmu (it becomes clear over the course of the novel that they're not blood-related), and their guardian Chen Niang. They survive, basically, on sex work: every month, Chen Niang steers the ship (can you steer a ship? I'm bad at nautical terms. ANYWAY) into a specific part of the ocean, and a few men board it with food and other necessaries, in exchange for sex with the two older girls. It's understood that Qingchan will also do the same work once she reaches the age of sixteen. On her birthday, however, a vast, luxuriously-appointed ship approaches them, and its owner demands Qingchan's company for the night in exchange for frankly ridiculous quantities of high-grade rice, fine fabrics and other provisions. A month later, the ship returns, and its owner, a woman whose name we later discover is Jiang Wuyou, high-handedly buys Qingchan's indenture from Chen Niang and whisks her away.

( some mid-book reveals; mention of rape, miscarriage/abortion, gore )

Despite the many plot holes, dropped plot threads, inconsistencies and not particularly effective romance, I did still enjoy this novel, in much the same way as I enjoyed the k-drama Boys Over Flowers. Structurally, it was a lot more coherent than Spring on the River, which was basically supernatural lesbians going round and round in never-ending emotional circles — at least things happened in the first half of The Favourite! I find I cut Da Ying a lot of slack, partly because I'm perennially entertained by the fact that she went from writing these books to writing She Belongs to Me (她属于我, pinyin: ta shuyu wo), a novel about two completely human women decorously resolving any relationship issues they might have through the Power of Communication, and partly because, as a very early writer (her three xuanhuan novels were first released in 2008, 2009 and 2013 respectively), it's interesting to see how she manages the affordances of both the platform and the genre (even if this is not an outright success), and to think about where her influences come from (I felt that both this novel and Spring on the River had shoujo reverse harem vibes, for instance).

I read the Chinese original of the novel through the uncensored Taiwanese print edition published by morefate. The web version of the novel has been locked in its entirety by JJWXC for content reasons.

douqi

Ravenous (护食, pinyin: hu shi), which I would classify as urban fantasy, was a perfect antidote to the disappointment that was The Wayward Disciple (孽徒, pinyin: nie tu), reviewed here. In her author's note to the final chapter of the main novel, Ning Yuan states that she had huge fun writing it, and I definitely believe her: it's a gloriously pulpy trope-laden adventure, with high drama, high stakes and heightened emotions.

The novel begins from the point of view of Lu Jin, a hard-working, up-and-coming actress who's just been nominated for a slate of prestigious best actress awards. At an awards show, she's politely fending off the attentions of the male actor sitting next to her when movie-star-turned-producer Zhao Ci marches up to them and sends the actor packing in short order. Lu Jin is surprised by this, because there's always been a sort of unspoken antipathy between herself and Zhao Ci — the two of them have always taken pains to avoid each other. Just as you think this is going to be a showbiz rivals-to-lovers story, however, things take a turn for the much weirder. Unseen by anyone else, Zhao Ci quietly snarls 'you're mine' to Lu Jin and bites her on the ear, leaving a mark that looks much more like a bite mark from a carnivorous animal than anything human teeth are capable of.

( some discussion of early-book reveals )

( discussion of mid-book reveals )

I read the Chinese original of the novel here on JJWXC. The title translation is the product of a joint brainstorming session between me,

x_los,

superborb and

momijizukamori (we spent at least 50% of the time groaning 'why is this so HARD' and at least another 40% looking up animal facts).

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douqi - Across the Empire (纵横) by Lin Cuo (林错): Review
douqi - If You Liked This Danmei, You Might Like That Baihe
aurumcalendula - Brief Rec: Seeking Immortality in Vain
aurumcalendula - A brief review of Reading the Remnants (问棺) by Qi Xiao Huang Shu (七小皇叔)
douqi - Two Ning Yuan Novels: Reviews
aurumcalendula - A brief review of Taiwan Travelogue (台湾漫游录) by Yang Shuang-zi (楊双子))
yuerstruly - Cyberpunk in the Tang Dynasty: A Review on To Embers We Return by Ning Yuan
douqi - In Love with a Substitute (和替身谈恋爱) by Xiao Tan Luan (小檀栾): Review
aurumcalendula - brief rec: Dragon Subjugation Incantation
douqi - An Endless Story (有终) by Xiao Xie Chun Feng (小谢春风)
douqi - The Little Alpaca (小羊驼) by Wu Liao Dao Di (无聊到底): Review
douqi - Hunger. Lust (食色) by Ning Yuan (宁远): Review
douqi - I, Qinghuan (一世清欢) by Wu Xin Tan Xiao (无心谈笑): Review
douqi - A Broken Bough (折枝) by Kan Chang Ting Wan (看长亭晚): Review
douqi - Above the Fates (万丈红尘之轻) by Si Bai Ba Shi Si (四百八十寺): Review
douqi - An Incantation for Subduing a Dragon (降龙诀) by Shi Wei Yue Shang (时微月上): Review, Chapter 1 to 49
halfcactus - 她属于我 She Belongs to Me by 妲婴 Da Ying: Review + Vocabulary List
douqi - Divination (打卦) by Chui Feng Cheng Qu (吹风成曲) / You Jiao Yao Shui (有觉要睡): Review
douqi - The Favourite (宠爱) by Da Ying (妲婴): Review
douqi - Ravenous (护食) by Ning Yuan (宁远): Review

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