Mo Dao Zu Shi | 魔道祖师

I really do like how all of these scenarios are so realistic. A few missing brides and their attendants out of how many thousands don’t get snatched up by a ghost on their wedding day? Why should the bigshots in heaven do something? To them, those brides are tiny fish in a big sea. It takes a wealthy man’s daughter going missing for them to finally do something about it, which is, well. It’s how the world works. Those other brides’ families had to have been just as upset, it’s only that this family was able to raise a fuss large enough to attract attention. 

It’s so relatable, almost no matter what culture you come from, and it definitely makes sense for the time period. That’s how you make a reader feel connected to a fantasy world. I could go on, because that’s just how much I’ve been irked by other fantasies I’ve read in the past few years, but I’ll move on now. :p

We launch into some investigative work and wow, does MXTX like this sort of thing haha. MDZS is also basically a detective plotline. 

[“Your Highness the Crown Prince, how did you decide that the ghost is a bridegroom? That can’t be certain. No one has ever seen it before. How can you tell if it’s a man or a woman, if it’s old or young? Are you thinking of things too simply?”] The fact that Nan Feng thought of this is neat. Yup, assumptions are...well, everyone knows what they are.

[“Fu Yao, why are you rolling your eyes again?”] Xie Lian should probably stop asking this to save his breath.

[Don’t mention how their own mothers wouldn’t recognize them, there were some Heavenly Officials who couldn’t even recognize their own Godly statues.] Lol some more realism thrown in there. Makes sense. It gives the narrative a good excuse to be humorous which is honestly necessary for stories set in rather bleak times in human history. I’ve said this about MDZS before. The one thing I really liked about it is that Wei Wuxian’s narrative kept things light-hearted or at least had gallows humor, to contrast with the absolute angst-fest that was the events of that novel. Striking that balance between serious and humorous is important. To me, at least.

So, Fu Yao is super fastidious. One way to distinguish him from Nan Feng.

[Unfortunately, who would have thought that Fu Yao would choose to leisurely speak up now. “I know what you wanted to ask. You must have been wondering, out of so many believers who had come here today, why were there such a large amount women, right?”] He’s also a little shit, isn’t he lol.

[It was clear you could no longer count on him. Thus, Xie Lian had no alternatives other than doing something himself.] If you want a job done right, do it yourself! Xie Lian’s narrative is so frank it’s great.

It’s also interesting to note that even though he’s definitely matured since his early days of Bad Decision Making, it hasn’t entirely faded. Back then, even though people told him what the consequences of his actions were, we see he didn’t believe them and did it anyways. Now, even though he’s more mature, when he goes to help Little Ying he doesn’t really think of how she will react to seeing him half undressed lol.

When it comes to doing the right thing, he’ll do it without hesitation. But he doesn’t always think of the consequences, whether that’s because the possibility just never occurs to him or he doesn’t think things will turn out like that. It’s a character flaw, but for once this flaw doesn’t annoy me lol.

[The moment his voice faded, Nan Feng pointed at him before asking, “You… Did your wound open?”] So Fu Yao is the asshole, Nan Feng can indeed show concern for others (possibly those he is actually acquainted with only). But also, is it possible for a heavenly official to be wounded so badly and not be recovered from it? Maybe he thought it was a recent thing. Or maybe Xie Lian not having his powers has to do with it.

[They were the wounds he had accumulated as he rolled down from the Heavens.] Which begs the question...he fell from heaven a while ago, so are they still wounds? Scars? 

[A black collar encircled his snow-white neck.] More of these markings?

Alas, that shall be answered on another day, because that is the end of the chapter.