I'm back... but the journey wore me out a little, so let me catch my breath and rest, and see whether I have the energy to start writing again tomorrow. Happy New Year, everyone! :)
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"Wandering Youth"
by Qiu Y aner
If there is one work on Chinese literature websites that does not rely on murder, violence, or erotica to catch the eye, that reaches into the ordinary yet genuine dreams of our everyday lives, and that comes closest to the spirit of literature, then the first to surface in my mind is Dust Along the Immortal Road.
Works that call themselves cultivation novels yet scarcely deserve the name are everywhere. In many so-called cultivation novels, the world of cultivators is darker than the human world, cultivators are more brutal than mortals, and their desire to rise in rank and make a fortune is stronger than that of ordinary people. In these works, lives are trampled like grass without a qualm, and a single slap invariably has to destroy a mountaintop. Truly, the author is without compassion, treating all things as straw dogs. How can such works possess even a breath of the immortal?
Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with depicting violence. The bloody scenes in the Nobel laureate's The Flanders Road are shocking to behold. Literature, after all, ultimately springs from reality, and as long as darkness remains around us, we cannot condemn a novel for containing the shadow of violence. But should we depict violence to catch readers' eyes, or should we depict it with profound compassion? Sadly, many authors choose the former.
Returning to Dust Along the Immortal Road, it opens with the humorous banter between Zhang Xingyan and the Daoist Qin Song, then portrays Xing Yan's hazy feelings for Xiao Mei,