I just unlocked the 「特殊招募汁划」thing, I didn’t know it was there. I was afraid it would be another “unlock once a week” thing, but apparently the next stage resets in one day.
Cool to see a sneak peek of Vesna!
I really need to spend more time in game, there’s so many things I haven’t discovered yet!
I wanted to finish the WQ today, but ended up spending most of my time reading, and exploring the castle rather than doing the actual quest. I think I did all the puzzles in the castles, I loved them, I found them really entertaining and had a good time exploring.
I find the bell thing really cool too, it ended up really stressing me out in a good way. The day reset once while I was exploring the castle, I thought I had messed up, but nothing bad happens.
That’s the region I’ve explored the most so far. The map Huimou gives us was very useful, I wish it would be more accessible (maybe there’s an easier way to open it that I don’t know about).
I’ll hope I’ll have time to finish the quest tomorrow.
Chapter 7 was incredible!!!! I could not put it down! I didn’t plan on finishing the chapter today, but it was so suspenseful, this book is amazing!!
It has become so much easier to read too. Efforts are paying off. Studying passages in depth, adding words to the flashcards and making exercises based on the paragraphs I hadn’t understood when reading.
The end of あるフィルムの背景 was so abrupt… 絶対反対 was very short, and I just started うまい話.
Chapter 6 finished! And quasi halfway through!
I was certain that 百年の時効 by Miki Fushio would be my favourite book read in 2026, but if this novel continues like this, it’s going to be this one!
I now have a little more than 300 new words waiting in my flashcards, and a lot more coming. At 15 cards a day, it’s going to take me the whole month to go through them all. I’m also still adding words from the AQ.
I never really wanted to study books before, until now, Genshin has been my only source to learn Mandarin, but I love 山中邪神 so much, I’m really happy to study paragraphs from it and add vocabulary.
| Word | Reading | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 拔高 | bá gāo | to shoot up; to rise abruptly |
| 罡風 | gāng fēng | fierce wind generated by inner energy; astral wind |
| 五嶽倒蓋 | wǔ yuè dào gài | as if the Five Sacred Mountains were crashing down |
Chapter 5 finished today! 40% into the book, and now I start finding it easier. There are some recurring chengyu too that I just learnt in previous chapters, so that feels rewarding!
——已經沒有什麼可以失去的，心中只剩下復仇的念頭，復仇的火焰越是燃燒，李秀滿的心便如同灰燼般冰冷。
The second half of chapter 4 was quite hard to read, but I got there.
The plot is so good, I really wasn’t expecting so many people to die!
I’m thinking that one of my focus points or reading goals for 2027 could be to read more wuxia. The problem is that I like reading only one book per language at the same time, so if I’m stuck with a 1000 pages saga, it means I won’t be able to read crime fiction in Chinese for a while. I was thinking of allocating a new slot to wuxia, but this would mean having 4 books opened at the same time, it might be too much?
But then again, there’s no right or wrong way to do it. I like my three books at a time, because they’re clearly different from the language, even though they’re the same genre. Adding wuxia would be the same language, but another genre so it sounds fine. It could be something I could read more slowly over several months, or even a whole year for very long ones. At the same time, if it’s difficult to the point where I need to spend as much time on it that I’m currently spending on 山中邪神, it won’t merely be something I read on the side, but my main focus.
Another thing is that I’ll probably read wuxia novel in Simplified Chinese, while most of the crime fiction I read is from Taiwan (mainly) or Hong Kong (occasionally). To me the reading experience is different. I would say that reading in Simplified Chinese is similar to reading in Japanese to me (confortable, easy and I could read for hours) while reading in Traditional Chinese is more like Korean (it’s not necessarily more difficult - though sometimes it is - but I get tired faster and never feel like reading for long periods of time except if the book is exceptionally easy to read or engrossing).
It’s impossible for me to tell, while reading, whether an organisation is a pure invention of the author for this novel, exists in wuxia lore (with or without historical backup) or refers to a real historical organisation.
For example, the author talks about three sects in the same paragraph: 神轅門, 巨靈門 and 崆峒派 and apparently, Kongtong Sect is a real sect based in Kongtong mountains and is one of the Six Great Orthodox Sects in wuxia lore. Ju Ling Men is also frequently used in wuxia lore but has no historical base. And Shen Yuan Men is entirely invented by the author.
My knowledge of wuxia lore is basically equal to zero. The only novel I read didn’t feature a lot of all these notions. Though now, I do know a bit about the Tiandihui thanks to this novel.
It looks like reading wuxia gets more rewarding the more you read, as you know all these concepts and tropes. On the contrary, it also makes getting into the genre quite difficult. Like when you read that someone is from the 崆峒派, you should know they’re great martial artist, which of course, I didn’t.
My reading pace is very slows from struggling a lot with the vocabulary and having to check this kind of things.
I’ve been working on using the stylus of the BOOX to write characters. I’m confortable writing characters but there’s not a lot I know by heart. If I can look at a sentence then write it down it’s fine, but the numbers of characters I can write from memory is extremely small. I think it can help me memorising words, and I like writing anyway. Obviously I could write on paper, but I want to do flashcard type exercises with writing sentences and reschedule based on the number of characters I got wrong. I don’t know if it will work, but I want to try. So it’s easier to directly write in my app rather than on paper, so I can rate myself more easily.
Finished chapter 3. If I only read one chapter per day, it’s going to take me two weeks to finish. But I never feel like reading more. I’m 70 pages in the book, and the story is still not grabbing me. I don’t find the several murder plans/attempts dynamic very engaging and I’m afraid the book is going to become repetitive. I hope not, and I do find the characters interesting, and obviously we want to know more about the past too. Not a DNF, but also not a book I enjoy reading all that much.
I didn’t go very far in chapter 4, but overall I feel that my reading pace has increased for this novel, and it feels easier now. I’m also 1/4 into the book now. Feeling proud of myself! And the plot is so suspenseful: conspiracies, betrayal, fight for power, influence and money… I love it!
