"Flower-plucking Records": A Review I Never Quite Dared to Post-Talking Big About Immortal Road

Posted by: [Crab Slippers] 2005-9-13

First, let me criticize myself and cry "Shame on me!" ten times. I nearly missed a wonderful book. I did not first hear of Dust Along the Immortal Road yesterday; I had skimmed it back in March or April, though all I remembered afterward was the name Xing Yan. It was only yesterday that I truly began reading it. Broadband problems had kept me offline these past few days, so I was reading things I had previously downloaded in full. Although I had only four short volumes, they genuinely made me feel unable to put the book down.

I had read quite a few immortal-hero fantasies, including famous ones such as Piaomiao, Daoist Fate, Confucian Immortal, and Jade Dynasty. After finishing Piaomiao, I woke up the next morning and forgot what I had done the day before. After reading Daoist Fate, I could only say that Guiyu was an eccentric genius, although some readers said he was a cut-and-paste specialist rather than a novelist. I admired both Xiao Ding and his work, freely praised them to others, and was obsessed with the first half of Jade Dynasty-probably because there was something wrong with my moral outlook: I felt that even Zhang Xiaofan, burdened with such bitter suffering and deep hatred, had no real reason to become Ghost Li. At last I read Immortal Road. Thank goodness I read Immortal Road. How fortunate that I read Immortal Road. At last, here was an online writer whom I could consider alongside the word "novelist."

I was a rigid sort of person. Even when reading online fiction, I took it very seriously. However popular a novel built from heaps of plot events became, deep down I still thought it was nothing special. Then, with a particularly petty heart,