I've been trying for a while to write a proper recommendation post for No Pollution, No Public Harm, and it's been oddly hard, but man. I do need some of y'all to read this novel.
It's no Tai Sui, but No Pollution, No Public Harm is absolutely my second favorite of the Priest novels I've read. It's probably in my top three web novels period. It's way too good to have the absolute lack of fandom that it does. Let me try to sell y'all on this story.
NPNPH is a wuxia novel set in modern urban China. It centers on a once-great, now withering community of martial artists and the question of what place their traditions have in the modern world. It's a story about progress, generational conflict, and regret. It's also a fairly brilliant love story.
The protagonist of NPNPH is Yu Lanchuan, an incredibly straight-laced white collar workaholic who unexpectedly finds himself named the leader of his local "Martial Arts Alliance" after his late great uncle leaves him the position. Much of the plot of the novel hinges on Yu Lanchuan being forced to mediate progressively more and more complicated problems within his new community, struggling to live up to his role as "leader."
However, the real star of the novel is Yu Lanchuan's love interest and deuteragonist: Gan Qing.
Gan Qing is one of the most blorbo-shaped fictional women I've ever seen. She's Yu Lanchuan's neighbor, a poor woman working as an "astrologer" (conwoman) that sells charms in a small accessories shop. She also, through her own past, has a deep connection to the martial arts community and the mysteries that Yu Lanchuan begins to uncover.
No Pollution, No Public Harm is a story about the question of how to cope with regret. It's about how to move forward in life weighed down by the feeling you may have done wrong. And Gan Qing is one of the characters most wrapped up in that central question. She's funny. She's tortured. She's violent and downright terrifying when she needs to be. She self-sabotages. She yearns for happiness. She is, as all Priest love interests must be, incredibly annoying (affectionate).
I know m/f romances can be a relatively hard sell in my corner of tumblr, and I know wuxia/martial art stories aren't the most popular genre. Frankly, I didn't expect to get nearly as into this novel as I did myself! But No Pollution, No Public Harm is just very good at doing what it does. Though I'm sure familiarity with wuxia would only add to the experience, I'm a testament to the fact that it's not necessary to enjoy the story.
This isn't a perfect novel. It suffers from some of the same casual ableism, fatphobia, and police apologia that is unfortunately endemic to priest's work. It's not a spectacularly grand, sweeping story like some of my other personal favorite web novels. But it is an achingly personal story. It's a sometimes-melancholy meditation on how both people and communities can struggle to move forward when they're wrapped up in the pain of the past. It's a goofy romp about a straight-laced salaryman struggling to balance martial arts duels with his busy schedule of overtime. It's a 380k word reflection on whether it's possible to do real good in the world, or if simply not doing any active harm is the best "good" people can hope for. It's the only novel in the world to feature my beloved girl Gan Qing.
It's available in English in full on the website of Chai Translations, and I highly recommend it to all of you.
