| Word | Hanja | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 의처증 | 疑妻症 | morbid jealousy; Othello syndrome; morbid suspicion of one's wife's infidelity |
| Word | Hanja | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 재래식 | 在來式 | conventional type, customary style, traditional |
As per tradition, my first Abyss clear was Xiao and Mizuki! Clearing with those two makes me so happy every single time 
First half:
Durin is back on NO for the clear… I’m so glad I pulled him for Xiao, because it’s so much easier to clear content that requires pyro.
And yes, I chose to play Xianyun instead of Nicole, but this Abyss is actually a good way to test the Durin-Nicole core for Xiao, maybe I’ll try later in the month if I feel like it.
Second half:
I didn’t think it would work because of the Suanni, but they did it!
Mu Jianyun and Zeng Rihua join the team on the crime scene, they go over possibilities without success until the discovery of clothes and a rope indicating that Eumenides went through the window. Liu Song just arrived (bringing Du Mingqiang with him) and doesn’t think someone could be able to reach the room from outside.
They also find white plastic foam with blood on it, and Luo Fei remembers seeing similar foam on the street.
A Hua wants to use Du Mingqiang to change public opinion on Eumenides, Du Mingqiang says that Lin Henggan and Meng Fangliang‘s death notice gave “association with gang” as reason, but Meng Fangliang already served a prison sentence for that, so he was legally punished, and Eumenides should not have a valide reason to target him.
Luo Fei accepts under the condition that he can reads Du Mingqiang’s article before it gets published.
There’s a drawer in Deng Hua’s desk that was closed, no one, including A Hua and Long Ge, has ever seen what was inside. Police opens it, it contains A Hua’s death notice to take effect in a few days. Reason is also association with gangs.
Chengyu visits Zheng Jiao for her birthday, he thinks that taking care of her is his responsibility.
Read chapter 19 today too!
Part of me wants to bring all my read books to this new website, but the task sounds daunting… I could start with Taiwanese and HK authors, because there’s not a lot of them and they are listed on Readmoo. For Japanese, most of the books I read are on my older website, so maybe there’s a way to fetch them from there? As for Korean, it’s all over the place or nowhere at all…
I won’t be doing full book pages, just write the name of the author and the title of the book somewhere so that stats like “number of books read by author” would be more accurate.
What I could also do is only add books for authors I’m currently reading. So if I start a book by an author I already read, then I could make a list of the already read books.
Or maybe I’ll get too lazy and drop the idea entirely.
I loved the second volume as much as the first one, it’s crazy to think that all the short stories of ZOO are, without exception, equally fascinating. My favourite ones were 血液を探せ！and 神の言葉, but I loved them all.
The last story was much shorter than I thought… and so strange too!
いっそのこと世界に自分しか存在しなければこのような苦しみは生まれなかっただろう。他人という存在が僕は恐ろしかった。人にこびへつらっている自分の汚い行動も原因はそこにあると思われた。嫌われるのも見下されるのも軽蔑されるのも耐えがたい苦痛であり、それらから逃げ出すために僕は醜い動物を心に飼っているのだ。他人というものが世界におらず、自分ひとりなら、どんなに気が楽になるだろう。
いや、自分の姿が他人の目に映ってしまうのがいけないのだ。だれかが僕を見て苦笑しあるいは失望するのがいけないのだ。それならば世界中のすべての人間から自分の姿を消すにはどうしたらよいのかを考える。
Finished chapter 18, this one was really great, I might just continue and read 19 today as well.
The police arrives at Longyu Group where Lin Henggan and Meng Fangliang have just been killed. It turns out that they had both received a death notice.
A Hua was in charge of their protection, he supervised the operations and worked with his men, and Lin Henggan’s men. Long ge is also someone close to Lin Henggan. A Hua didn’t ask for help from the police. When Luo Fei asks him why, he reminds him that Deng Hua was killed by the Captain of the Criminal Police.
There is a gap in the surveillance video footage, and a man is visible in the room, even waving at the camera.
After ruling out several possibilities, Luo Fei and the others still have no clue how Eumenides could have enter the room and kill the two men.
| Word | Reading | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 褒貶 | bāo biǎn | to appraise; to pass judgment on; praise and censure |
| 窺探 | kuī tàn | to pry into or spy on; to snoop; to peep; to get a glimpse of |
| Word | Reading | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 心腹 | xīn fù | trusted aide; confidant |
I wanted to try Lohen in the current Abyss so I did a run last minute! He is still half built (level 69, talents 6/6 and no Witch’s Homework yet).
First half:
I tried with Citlali, but it didn’t work, I was missing a few seconds on the third chamber. Changed to Kazuha and cleared everything with a lot of margin. Lohen’s damage was really low given his build. I was also not doing his combos really. But Durin’s damage is impressive. I never really played Durin dark form before, he was just a Xiao support. But with Lohen, I gave him his DPS set, and I’m really shocked by his numbers!
Second half:
The support team from Nod-Krai. It’s probably not optimal to make them all fight for hydro, but the team is mega strong still, and I find it fun to play.
I finished the short story 落ちる飛行機の中で, I loved it!
I’m tempted to read the last one too, because it’s very short, but I’ll keep it for tomorrow instead.
During a team reunion, Liu Song reports the latest developments with Du Mingqiang. Yin Jian says there’s no trace of Han Hao. He still hasn’t found Chen Tianqiao either but gives a report on his profile: he has constantly borrowed money without repaying, and is the instigator of a large scale fraud.
At Longyu Group, despite a tight surveillance supervised by A Hua, someone manages to access Lin Henggan and Meng Fangliang sleeping room.
Either I don’t understand what I’m reading, or there’s a problem with the book. Talking about Han Hao and Eumenides, the book says:
那个“很坏很坏的坏人”，自然就是Eumenides! 正是他害得韩灏身负血案，不得不抛妻弃子，亡命天涯。
What?! Han Hao shot his colleague by mistake, then decided to kill the witness to protect himself. When another witness resurfaced, Han Hao decided once again to protect his position, by killing him and killing the captain of the SWAT team Xiong Yuan too who was protecting the witness. So this guy not only killed a policeman by mistake, but then coldly murdered three other persons to protect himself! Then he also killed Deng Hua thinking it was Eumenides but oh well. Eumenides had nothing to do with the shooting of the colleague and the first murder, and even though he did stage the setup for the two following murders, Han Hao didn’t have to play along, he is the one who took the decision to kill Xiong Yuan to continue hiding his secret. I just don’t get it, why is the novel describing it as if Eumenides was responsible and Han Hao was a victim?
More generally, I find the whole Han Hao thing very strange, like the man killed innocent people to protect his position and privileges, what could be more despicable? Even Eumenides kills for justice. But even though they had knowledge of all this, Yin Jian and his colleagues were still very respectful towards Han Hao at the beginning of the novel. It also always seems like Liu Song is singled out as being strongly vindictive for personal reasons - he loved and admired Xiong Yuan - but his attitude should actually be the norm rather than the exception.
And since I started pointing out things that bother me, it’s the same with Ding Ke. The single one argument to prove how good a policeman he was is the 100% success rate, something repeated several times in the novel. But to me, this looks extremely bad: a 100% conviction rate screams wrongful convictions. And everyone sighing in admiration when just hearing his name is just cringe. And when the characters thought that Ding Ke quit the police because he couldn’t face a failure, they still admired him? What is there to admire when someone flees as soon as things don’t go their way? But worse, we later know that Ding Ke covered for Zhibang, and the novel makes it look like it was the right thing to do, and he resigned to what? maintain his integrity? Like, knowing he covered for his favourite student - and not a slight mistake, Zhibang did kill a man (although I’m sure, we’ll learn he had no choice or a good reason to act so), shows him under a very bad light, but it’s almost described as a noble sacrifice.
I finished chapter 16, and I was not convinced at all by the whole thing, especially Huang Jieyuan’s plan to catch the murderer of the 1/12 case. It also felt very repetitive, like for example, we already went through the whole description of the special performance given at Jieyuan’s bar, but we have to go through the same exact description a second time.
Some details were also strange and not convincing.
I also find that some things that I would consider flaws in the novel but that I accept because it doesn’t prevent me from enjoying it, are becoming more and more pronounced to the point when it’s becoming irritating. (Some generalisations about policemen, women, etc., a tendency to over explain things that were obvious in the first place, some sexist attributions of roles, like Mu Jianyun being here mostly to fill the “woman” role - she can’t bear gory descriptions and gets really unsettled by the performance - a strong tendency to idealise characters, they are all so clever, perfect, diligent, fighting for justice, etc., and maybe it’s a writing style, but constantly adding small commentaries, for example describing a scene and then adding an explanation or a generalisation as to what happened or why characters react as they did, often feels like the author thinks the reader is stupid.)
I’m still really enjoying the book!
