Author: Short Methods (with feedback and replies from a reader and Guan Pingchao; note: chapter eighteen will be made freely available at around six this evening)
This is a good book.
Why? Because of the author's painstaking craftsmanship with words, because his heart always beats in time with Zhang Xingyan's, and because of his love for classical Chinese culture. Prose this fresh as pine and bamboo, this delicate as a clear spring, is something I rarely encounter online. The little touches of childlike humor that shine through make it all the more endearing.
The characterization in this book has almost no equal among webnovels. Whether it is Zhang Xingyan, at once clever and foolish, Ju Ying, who retains her innocence despite living deep within the palace, or even Lady Rui, who entrusted herself to the wrong man, and Chen Kui, fierce in appearance but timid within... each is a living, breathing "person." Far too many webnovels today fail to achieve even this most basic requirement. That is not merely a problem with authors; it is also a problem with readers. After immersing themselves in momentary thrills, readers may find themselves emptier than before. For that reason, I want to applaud this book.
But it is my way to look for flaws. Though I cannot seem to get my own novel right (I have written only twenty or thirty thousand characters so far, yet revised it four or five times), isn't it delightful to talk about someone else's? (Laughs.) Let me try picking bones out of an egg!
This book's greatest problem is its lack of a clear main thread that ties everything together. Take Zhu Xian, for example. I quickly recognized its central conflict-the struggle between the immortal path and the demonic path. In this book, however, Mr. Zhang still