In the
second volume, the reincarnated prince Jing Shao sets out to handle war campaigns
that almost cost him his life the first time round. And now the war has come years
earlier, so he can’t be sure it goes the way he remembers. But this time, he has
his gentleman wife, Mu Hanzhang, with him as a strategist, keeping their
marriage a secret from everyone.
From the
start, things go differently. Mu Hanzhang uncovers a large case of embezzlement
that had led to Jing Shao’s downfall in his first life. And Jing Shao is able
to recruit a warrior that almost singlehandedly turns some battles for him. The
war proceeds fast and the prince is victorious. But he can’t afford to give the
emperor a notion that he’ll use his success as an attempt to usurp the throne.
So it’s time to strategize with the knowledge he has from his first life. But Mu
Hanzhang is starting to become suspicious of his knowledge.
Jing Shao’s
generals are impressed with Mu Hanzhang, but they’re wondering why the prince
spends his nights at the strategist’s tent. There are some comedic moments as
the couple tries to keep their relationship secret and the generals try to
uncover things. There are plenty of bedroom moments for everyone to realise
what’s going on. There’s also a cute tiger cub Mu Hanzhang
adopts that adds to the sweetness, though they could treat him a bit better.
This was a
good volume. It’s fast-paced and well-written, and there’s plenty of action.
The battle scenes are especially good and not too drawn out. Jing Shao and Mu Hanzhang are very much in love, so the romance doesn’t bring tension
to the story. The volume ends at a tiny cliffhanger, but I doubt anything comes
of it either. Overall, despite all the wars, the stakes remain pretty low and
conflicts are handled fairly easily. A lovely low-angst read.
My first
review of the year is a Chinese historical danmei by a new author to me, Lv Ye Qian He, who is very popular in China according to the back copy introduction. And her work turned out to be delightful, so hopefully there will be more books by her translated to English.
Prince Cheng is the third prince, he and the second prince being by the
empress, with the first prince being by a maid and the fourth prince by the empress
consort. All this leads to a muddy succession and any one of them could become
the next emperor. As the empress is dead, the empress consort pulls the
strings. And she’s made it so that Prince Cheng has to marry a man to make him
ineligible to become the emperor. Having male wives for this reason is very typical in the book’s world.
Prince
Cheng rebels violently against this, treating his male wife badly and spending
most of his life fighting wars. But the scheming empress consort isn’t
satisfied and ten years later, Prince Cheng finds himself facing death, accused
of many crimes, some of which are made up. And the only person by his side is
his male wife, Mu Hanzhang. Moved by this loyalty by the very person who should
hate him, he wishes at his death to make amends to him.
Prince
Cheng is granted his wish and he finds himself returned to the morning after
his wedding night with Mu Hanzhang. It’s inauspicious, because his anger had
made him treat Mu Hanzhang very badly in bed and the wife is now very afraid of
him. But he sets out to make things better. Armed with the knowledge of how
things turned out, he teams with the second prince, who also had turned out to
be more loyal in his first life than he’d realised before death. Together they work to remove the people who schemed
against them, and to make sure Mu Hanzhang has a loving and supporting husband
by his side.
This was a very well written, mostly plot-driven opening to an interesting story. The tone
is fairly light, but not comical, and obstacles are relatively easily dealt
with, but not so easily that the reader would lose interest. Both main
characters are interesting and easy to root for.
There’s a
lot of palace intrigue and scheming, not only against Prince Cheng but Mu Hanzhang
too. The latter turns out to be a great asset to the prince, and little by
little, Prince Cheng’s need to make amends turns into love. Mu Hanzhang takes
more time to warm to him. But a war is inevitable. The volume ends as Prince
Cheng prepares to leave, maybe for years. I’ll definitely read more.
The Wizard is set in a nameless big city in
modern China. It begins with a prologue seven years before the main story.
Cheng Jinxi, 18, has confessed to killing his entire family and even though the
detective in charge of the investigation, Liang Yuanfeng, can’t find any
evidence of his involvement, the young man is taken to prison.
Readers learn already during the prologue,
that Cheng Jinxi did indeed kill his family, and how and why he did it. He can
hurt and kill people seemingly with his thought alone, which he demonstrates
the first day in the prison by killing some prisoners. The director of the
prison instantly realises that there’s nothing he can do to keep Cheng Jinxi
confined if he doesn’t choose to stay. Fortunately for him, the young man has
chosen to accept his punishment and stays, though with great liberties.
Seven years later, Liang Yuanfeng, only 32,
is already burned out as a detective and on a forced leave to recuperate. Only
he and his boss know that it’s because Liang Yuanfeng has resorted to vigilant
justice. He’s kept in close touch with Cheng Jinxi, his only visitor in prison,
and learned what the younger man can do. So he’s asked him to kill some bad
people. He doesn’t regret his actions.
A great evil has taken over an apartment
building and people have started to kill each other. When the building takes a special
task force hostage and almost kills Liang Yuanfeng’s boss, Liang Yuanfeng is
asked to bring in Cheng Jinxi to solve the problem. Liang Yuanfeng manages to
negotiate a pardon for him, with himself as the younger man’s warder.
The two settle into the family home of
Cheng Jinxi’s sister whose death in the hands of their extended family
triggered him to killing everyone. Cheng family comes from a long line of
shamans with great powers that women possess. But the family didn’t know that
in their generation, it’s Cheng Jinxi who has the power, not his sister or
little niece. Cheng Jinxi gets the custody of his niece, now 12, and the three
become a small family.
It doesn’t take long for the two to become
romantically involved, although it’s fairly one-sided, as Cheng Jinxi can’t
really feel any emotions after everything he’s done. They spend their time
solving supernatural crimes, and trying to come to terms with things they’ve
both done. Atonement doesn’t seem possible, on top of which Cheng Jinxi has a
time-stamp on him. Because it turns out, he’s not the one who’s using the power;
it’s a demon to whom he’s promised himself as a sacrifice. And the demon is about
to collect.
This was a good but gloomy story, with some
tear-jerking moments. Liang Yuanfeng turned into a warm caretaker fairly easily
for a burned-out cop, but his character remains slightly superficial. Cheng Jinxi
has a deeper character and backstory, and he goes through a greater change. Theirs
is not a very good romance, but it’s sweet with some tender moments. The story heads
slowly but surely towards the impending doom and a happily ever after seems
impossible. It takes a great twist for the small family to end up in a good
place.
The writing stars as fairly good, but it
deteriorates towards the end, with lots of repetition and contradictions in
character actions. It didn’t really matter at that point, but it nevertheless
managed to lessen the impact of the emotional climax. This is a stand-alone
story, and the end is conclusive. While I liked it, it’s not among the great BL
stories that’ll linger in my mind.
I received a free copy from Edelweiss in
exchange for an honest review.
Riverbay Road Men's Dormitory by Fei Tian Ye Xiang
Riverbay Road Men's Dormitory is a
contemporary BL novel by Fei Tian Ye Xiang, the author of historical xianxia
BLs, of which I’ve started Dinghai Fusheng Records and Legend of Exorcism. It’s
set in a large Chinese city and focuses on lives of five men that come together
by chance.
Zhang Yuwen is a wealthy man in his late
twenties who for some reason that isn’t really understandable decides to
abandon a career on a rise as a film director and become an author, for which
it turns out he has no true skill. His publisher tells him directly that his
characters are not realistic.
He comes up with a brilliant idea. Since he
owns a large mansion where he lives alone, he decides to rent out four rooms
cheaply and observe his lodgers in order to learn about real people. He chooses
only gay men, being gay himself. He thinks he’s chosen them carefully, but he
mostly went with their looks. Turns out, all of them have something to hide.
The biggest lie is told by Zhang Yuwen
himself. He doesn’t want to disclose he’s rich, so he tells the house belongs
to someone else and he’s only a caretaker. He goes to great lengths to maintain
the lie.
Yan Jun is an office worker with a fairly
steady income. He tells Zhang Yuwen he occasionally needs to take care of his baby
niece, hiding the fact that that he’s her guardian and the child lives with him
permanently. Obviously, Zhang Yuwen soon finds out the truth.
Zheng Weize is the youngest of the lot at
22. He tells Zhang Yuwen he’s a college student, but he’s never attended and he
supports himself, unsuccessfully, with live streaming. He’s in constant need of
money and caring attention.
Chen Hong is 29 and moments away from
having to close his gym business, but he doesn’t disclose his financial
troubles. For him too, cheap housing comes as a saving. Last tenant is Chang
Jinxing, a photographer without a steady income. He’s the most handsome of the
lot and knows it himself. He pretends to be successful and educated and is neither.
Because of the lies, it takes a while for
the group to become comfortable with each other. But Chen Hong is good at forming
groups by activating them. He takes them laser tagging and hiking and very soon
they start to become a family. A family who needs love and sex and lusts after
each other and eventually falls for one or more of them.
Zhang Yuwen has forbidden them from hooking
up with one another. But that doesn’t stop emotions from forming. Most of them
fall for Zhang Yuwen or Chang Jinxing. Things change though, when a straight
guy the group meets in one of their outings, Huo Sichen, turns out to be gay and
he and Zhang Yuwen hook up. Drama starts to climax during a New Year’s stay at
a resort, but the book ends before we learn what comes of it.
This was a good start to a series. It’s
told from several points of view, so we get a good understanding of everyone. The
characters with their lies and needs were interesting and easy to root for,
even Chang Jinxing. I wanted all of them to find their love and each man seemed
to suit everyone else, one way or another. But I think the pairings that began
to form here are only the beginning, and everything will change several times
during the story.
Author’s views of relationships and sex, gay
and straight, were rather odd, based on stereotypes and stiff traditions. These
views were repeated and rehashed constantly throughout the story and they were
rather annoying, something that would get the story trashed by readers if it
was written by a western author. It lessened my enjoyment of the story a
little, but not so much that I would abandon it. I have to know what will
become of all characters and if they will find their happily ever afters.
Volume 3 of
Case File Compendium is about the aftermath of the sexual assault in the
previous volume. If the reader is hoping for soul-searching, deep conversations,
healing and understanding, they will be sorely disappointed.
He Yu
plunges deep into his psychopathy, living in a reality of his own, where his
actions aren’t his fault, and pushing himself in Xie Qingcheng’s company—and into
the older man’s bed. He’s still demanding answers for what took place when Xie Qingcheng
resigned as his doctor. The latter isn’t willing to tell him anything, and only
gives in to He Yu’s forceful demands to get rid of him faster.
Xie Qingcheng
wants nothing to do with He Yu. He’s deeply traumatised by what took place, and
he hates He Yu with passion. However, since he bottles everything in,
he simply goes on as if nothing has happened, his rage surfacing only on occasion
with He Yu. Reader feels both annoyance and sympathy for him, as it turns out
he’s coped with hardships this way all his life.
Life keeps
throwing the two together, and they end up on the set of a same movie
production. Things get so bad that the reader starts believing this will end
with either of them killing the other. But before their hatred peaks, a serial
killer shows up and the two are caught in his web.
This was a difficult,
heavy book. On one hand, I’m happy that the events of the previous book aren’t
glossed over here, but there was nothing light to give the reader even a
breather. Even the revelation of the source of He Yu’s madness didn’t ease
things, as it’s a tragic story too.
We mostly
follow He Yu as he descends into his madness. The brief lucid moments are
always followed by worse delusions and violence. And Xie Qingcheng’s suffering isn’t
any easier to witness. There aren’t even any side stories and plots that would
take attention away from the two even briefly. And just as the plot changes a new
gear, the book ends in a double cliffhanger, with Xie Qingcheng ready to reveal
one of his secrets, and the pair in a mortal peril.
Nevertheless, this was a good book. He Yu’s mental illness is believable and Xie Qingcheng’s suffering relatable. It’ll be an agony to wait
for the next book, but I’m invested in the story now. It’ll definitely need all
the remaining several volumes before any sort of HEA can be achieved.
In volume 2, He Yu, the
university student with a rare mental disorder, and Xie Qingcheng, a professor
of medicine and He Yu’s former doctor, continue their toxic relationship. And it
gets really bad here.
The
beginning is fine, and it seems the men will slowly but surely work through
their misunderstandings, hatreds, hurts and homophobia into a friendship of
sort. But then the shadowy criminal organisation on the background decides to
purge their ranks at the university campus, and the men get drawn in.
Xie Qingcheng
realises these are the people who killed his parents and he’ll stop at nothing
to find the truth. But the organisation isn’t willing to divulge it, and they
throw Xie Qingcheng under a social media bus. The video they surface makes He
Yu question everything that took place when Xie Qingcheng was his doctor and he
comes to a conclusion that the only person who he thought cared for him never
did.
It leads to
his mental disorder to flair up, and to a huge confrontation with Xie Qingcheng.
What follows is a graphic, very much non-consensual bedroom scene that destroys
what goodwill Xie Qingcheng might have built towards his former patient. He’s a
proud, unyielding man, and it’s difficult to see how their relationship could
recover from this.
This was a
good volume, but sad and uncomfortable. We learn more about He Yu’s childhood
and it makes one want to throttle everyone who was responsible for his wellbeing.
That he’s as functional as he is, is a miracle. The way he chooses to act out
his pain isn’t acceptable, but it’s in line with his character and the men’s angry
relationship and powerplays, and it fits the tone of the book insofar as such actions can, leaving the reader both sad and angry. That being said,
if such scenes make you uncomfortable, you can skip it. The aftermath is
understandable even without reading it.
The
background story with the organisation is a bit over the top and sort of unnecessary,
even if their actions push the men around. And there was a revelation about it that
I didn’t see coming. The cast of characters was smaller than in the first
volume, keeping things simpler, the plot was more straightforward and advanced
in a fast pace, and the ending wasn’t a cliffhanger, though it didn’t conclude
anything either. And I absolutely have to find out how anything can be salvaged
between the men after this volume.
The story of Shen Qiao, the good Daoist cultivator, and Yan Wushi, the leader of the
demonic cultivating sect, has reached the second to last volume. After the excitement
at the end of the last volume, the start of this one is fairly calm. Shen Qiao
takes Yuwen Song, the last heir of the previous emperor, to safety with the Bixia
Sect. Life for them would be serene even, if Yan Wushi didn’t insist on
accompanying them.
Yan Wushi
has had a great change of mind—or heart—since the previous book. All of a
sudden, Shen Qiao is the most wonderful and perfect person in the world for him,
and he’s determined to make the younger man his in a very forceful way. Shen
Qiao is equally determined not to believe a word that comes out of Yan Wushi’s
mouth, and he most definitely won’t open his heart after the way Yan Wushi
broke it earlier by betraying him.
The
political turmoil catches with them when they attend the Sword Trial Conference
where the rankings of the cultivation world are determined with several battle scenes. An old grandmaster,
long believed dead, shows up. And he’s someone even Yan Wushi isn’t willing to
face. So he whisks Shen Qiao away, and the pair head to save another contender
to the throne. The book ends in the middle of a scene again, before that
storyline finds conclusion.
This was
the most romance filled book so far, if one can call it such. At least for the
first time, it dominated the narrative, and we get Yan Wushi’s point of view of
things. But it’s difficult to see how everything could be solved between the
men in the last book that’s left, the misunderstandings and mistrust are so
strong. But I’m definitely eager to find out.
Case File Compendium is a long-awaited official translation of the Chinese webnovel Bing An
Ben by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou, a prolific author of historical danmei fantasies.
Unlike their other series, this book has a contemporary Chinese setting and
doesn’t have fantasy elements.
He Yu is a 19-year-old
university student in the imaginary city of Huzhou (basically Shanghai.) He’s
recently returned from living several years abroad, and wants to reconnect with
the girl he’s loved for a long time, Xie Xue. She’s teaching screenwriting at
the university, so that’s what he’ll study too. She’s several years older than
him though, and only sees him as a childhood friend.
Xie
Quingcheng is 32, a former doctor and current professor of medicine at a nearby
university. He’s Xie Xue’s brother, and He Yu’s former doctor. He Yu suffers
from an extremely rare (and imaginary) condition that’ll eventually drive him
insane, if he doesn’t learn to control his emotions. And love, especially unrequited,
isn’t good for him.
The premise
of the three being connected throws the men constantly together. They don’t
like each other much, and don’t really understand each other either, even
though Xie Quingcheng is the only person who truly knows what He Yu is like and
what is required of him so that he can remain sane. Both are extremely homophobic
too, so even friendship under the guise of looking after a former patient isn’t
likely. The first volume only sets the stage for their
relationship.
Mostly, the book is a bit of a mess. A lot of things happen, a background
conspiracy emerges, people come and go, and random stories pop up that have
nothing to do with the characters or the plot. It takes a long time for the
basic story to form and the reader to get the hang of the two men, especially
since—in the manner of webnovels—their characters and backstories keep changing
to fit the plot.
It’s amazing how much Xie Quingcheng has done for a relatively
young man (though He Yu keeps calling him middle-aged), and how sane He Yu is
for a psychopath. They’re fairly likeable characters nonetheless, and oddly
well-suited for one another for such different people. The age gap is pronounced,
but I didn’t find it problematic.
Contemporary
China is an interesting setting. It remains kind of vague though, and I kept
wishing there would be more of it. It’s mostly about the divide between the rich
and poor, and traditional, patriarchal society and modern values—or the lack of
them.
Despite the slow start, the story becomes fairly compelling towards the end, lifting it from a three-star book to a four-star one. The first
volume ends at a small cliffhanger that comes out of the blue. However, since
it is about the background plot, it’s not terribly
annoying. The game between the two men has only started, and I’m interested in
reading where it’ll lead.
