By Feng Ren Zuo Shu, Xiao Tong Kong (Velinxi), idledee and Gravity Dusty. Released in China on the Jinjiang Literature City website. Released in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment. Translated by Yu. Adapted by Aysha U. Farah.
This is, I believe, the first baihe novel to be published in North America. From what I can gather, it wasn’t the most popular to be found (those ended up with another publisher who has not yet released them), but it had a small but devoted following. I can see why: the two leads are excellent, and the reason to read this. Watching the push-pull between the fiery, emotional, vengeance-driven Fu Wanqing and the cool, icy, and very emotionally masked Yu Shengyan is like watching a long, drawn out dance, and while it may be frustrating given how long they take to admit feeling for each other out loud, I found their relationship very satisfying. I wish I could say the same thing about the book. This may just fall under “not my genre”, but I ended up lost and uncaring in this tale of various sects with an axe to grind and a treasure map that turns out to connect to a past rather than a future.
Fu Wanqing is the heir to the House of Valor, the strongest of the five families that stand on the side of “good” in their community. She’s met one day by Yu Shengyan, the high priestess of the demonic guild, whose skills with a sword are apparently legendary. Fu Wanqing wants to duel her. Yu Shengyan has no interest in dueling, as once her sword is removed from its scabbard it has to kill. She’s there for a rare medicine that can heal her underling, who was permanently crippled in a sword battle… by Fu Wanqing. Fu Wanqing, who is also immediately attracted to the other woman, makes a deal: Stay by her side for three months, and she’ll let Yu Shengyan have the medicine. Of course, it’s not just them: the rest of the plot goes on around them, as a statue with a map is stolen, and everyone wants it.
There are some other subplots in this that are vaguely interesting, particularly the other “yuri” one involving the heir of one of the families and their burgeoning crush on, frankly, a cipher. The biggest issue, though, is there are simply too many characters to keep track of, and most of them are quite unlikable. To a degree this includes the two leads at times – sometimes you want to smack Fu Wanqing for being a smug asshole, or Yu Shengyan for closing herself off. That said, the times I was most invested in the book was watching the two of them flirt off to the side while the rest of the plot exploded around them. Seeing various family faction scream at each other and fight while these two feed each other orange slices can be hilarious. The other annoying factor for me was the writing itself. Chapter breaks feel entirely arbitrary, which I should have expected from a webnovel but it’s still annoying. Sometimes the POV shifts without a marker to tell us it’s now someone else. Another edit would have been good.
If you like baihe, I’d get this. I’d like to see more from this genre, and hopefully better.