This novel is so underrated, like I know a lot of people have recommended it and read it, but it’s for some reason so under the radar?! So Nan Chan is written by Tang Jiu Qing, who’s the author of another cult favourite Qiang Jing Jiu, which I bought but haven’t read because #procrastination and #my-queue-list-is-too-long plus a dose of #oh-new-print-nice-freebies-lemme-go-read-and-check-if-can-get-this
Anyway! Tang Jiu Qing writes beautifully AND artistically. Like in terms of writing flair and making dialogue sound like melody, she’s the one to go to, and it’s just so romantic. It’s in-your-face romantic, I literally CANNOT.
The magical thing about Nan Chan is that the trajectory and ‘twist’ is pretty clear, but when it hits you nearer to the end, when they reveal the relationship, you’re like a little gobsmacked in the face. Tang Jiu Qing makes use of a lot of interweaving between present happenings and flashbacks to the past (about 40% of the book) to answer questions that are posed throughout the book in intervals. Incredibly well-paced, and it builds up for the last reveal, and gosh, once again, so romantic.
The novel starts with Jing Lin, titled Linsong-jun, facing off Jiu Tian Jing’s (equivalent to a godly realm) soldiers and some of the men he called brothers, as he kills their father, the father who reigns supreme in this realm and took all of them in when they were younger. Jing Lin, in almost catatonic, numb fury and devastation, kills him, and falls, supposedly to his death. From then on, Linsong-jun is known as a traitorous, merciless and ungrateful deity who dared to murder his kind and generous father in cold blood, turning also against his siblings.
Hundreds of years later, Jing Lin is a cold, aloof and unfeeling fallen deity who spends most of his time sleeping away, and despite being unconscious for days, months and even years on ends whenever he does fall asleep, he remains weak and ill after the injuries he suffered from that fateful day when he murdered his father. He has remained hidden and undisturbed for many years, asleep in a remote, god-forsaken location on top of a mountain, where he is accompanied only by a carp and puppet doll made out of stone. He does not remember how the fish came to be at his side, a demonic, young carp which feeds of his spiritual energy, only that it was there right by his side when he woke for the first time after falling.
The young demonic carp likes to spend its days living in Jing Lin’s sleeve, where it can nourish itself properly with Jing Lin’s energy. It feels an intrinsic pull to Jing Lin, as it wants to devour him for his power, and strangely enough, the carp wants Jing Lin’s attention. Wants him to look at it, wants him to spend time with it, but Jing Lin seems to be an unfeeling fallen deity who takes interest in literally nothing and sleeps most of his time away. The carp is also jealous of the stone puppet for being able to stick closer to Jing Lin.
By some stroke of luck, the carp is able to materialize in a human form early, and finally has limbs to use to cling onto Jing Lin. However, Jing Lin knows what kind of demon the carp is, and he’s unused to having any one by his side, and so leaves the carp at the bottom of the mountain, turning away even as the young boy-carp cries out for him. The carp is not about to be outdone, however, and manages to find his way back to Jing Lin’s makeshift home, and Jing Lin doesn’t have much energy to reject him again. He doesn’t seem to have much concern over his own life either, and has this if-you-can-eat-me-please-do kind of attitude.
As the carp, now called Cang Ji as named by Jing Lin, feeds on Jing Lin’s blood several times and manages to grow until he towers over Jing Lin in the span of a few months’ time, they are forced to leave the mountain in search for a bell that Jing Lin has lost, and along the way, as they solve mysteries and find out more about Jing Lin’s past, they eventually unravel the mystery behind the day Jing Lin murdered his father, and finds Jing Lin and Cang Ji’s missing memories of each other as well. They don’t have much time to waste, however, considering that Jing Lin’s siblings and other deities and officials are chasing after him and the supposedly evil carp demon he travels with.
A love story where Cang Ji and Jing Lin, no matter who they are and all the suffering they had to go through to be together not once but twice - not even death and amnesia can keep them apart ;-;
Novel (Online) | Novel (Translations) | Audio Drama
1. 净霖 Jing Lin (On the right) - Comes off as a cold, unfeeling and merciless deity who has no other special emotions such as joy or fondness for anything. Heavily injured and has spend the last five hundred years or so in mostly slumber, and is accompanied in seclusion only by a stone puppet and his demon carp. He knows that he is Linsong-jun and is well aware that he had to kill his father for a reason that is not revealed in the beginning, and is very cognisant of the fact that he deliberately and willingly stood against his adoptive brothers/siblings, and killed his father by his very own hands.
Has gaps in his memories, and ends up having to travel with human-form demonic carp, who he names Cang Ji, seeing it grow from a young child to a teenager and then to a full adult in the span of a few months after feeding it his blood and spiritual energy along with it. This is because he has lost a magic bell and they have to retrieve it for the rest of Jing Lin’s powers, but the magic bell seems to have a mind of its own, as it deliberately leads both on a wild goose chase via different cases.
Cang Ji begins flirting with him right away, first unaware that he’s flirting (on both their ends) as Cang Ji thinks he’s just naturally feeling possessive because he wants to devour Jing Lin for more power, while Jing Lin also relegates Cang Ji’s closeness and possessiveness to the demonic carp wanting to eat him. He’s not afraid of death and seems to be waiting for something worthwhile to kill him even, although he’s not actively seeking death.
He’s become a person who goes with the flow no matter what the situation is, and is under heavy disguise, so much so that his own siblings can’t recognize him even in person initially. His severe injuries means that his ability to win battles has been impaired, and he and a still growing Cang Ji have to weather several battles and blows on their journey as they meet uninvited old friends and foes along the way. As they travel together, Jing Lin gets this strange feeling that he and Cang Ji might not be strangers after all, and that this demonic carp was placed right next to him for a reason.
As his younger self more than a thousand years ago, he was a righteous, upright and incredibly blunt young deity, who was most favoured by his father amongst his siblings. Due to his skill in battles, everyone feared him, and his siblings were jealous of him. He was a little gullible (with the right company) and also got embarrassed easily.
2. 苍霁 Cang Ji (On the left) - Actually a fierce af dragon who’s lord of the skies/heavens but starts off as a demonic carp in the beginning of the novel, having to survive on Jing Lin’s spiritual energy. He craves Jing Lin’s attention even as a young demonic carp, and is always jealous of the stone puppet for having a body that can come into contact with Jing Lin. He’s bullied by a magic young phoenix who is jealous of much Jing Ling treasures the carp, dumping it into a river where river monsters waiting to eat it lay, and because of that incident, Cang Ji is frightened/startled straight into his human form, which startles Jing Lin as well, as he cannot remember the last time he had company.
Jing Lin abandons him, but Cang Ji is a stubborn, childish, possessive mofo who likes Jing Lin a lot, finds his way back to him, and ends up travelling with Jing Lin to find the magic bell. Along the way, deities they meet seem to suggest that Cang Ji is no demonic carp, that with his scales and appetite (as dragons are known for eating everything and gaining more power), it looks like he’s more of a dragon than anything else. It takes a few cases and a memory trip as sponsored by the magic bell to remember who he was in his past life and who Jing Lin is to him, although before this, he manages to find his way to Jing Lin’s bed after relentless flirting XD
Even in this life, after so many years have passed and without his memories, his body and soul still craves Jing Lin, his 心肝宝贝 (darling baobei) - he mistakes his love for Jing Lin, engraved deep into his bones, as the urge to devour Jing Lin as a natural demonic urge to eat powerful things and attain greater power ;-;
Other Things I Like in the Novel:
[Spoilers under the cut - I don’t know how to do this section without major spoilers cries SO PLEASE AVOID IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS]
areudirty
andulkaphoto
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
kaledo-art
blakekathryn
prguitarman
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
kianamaiart
titsay
baratheonpilled
