Halfway through! I wanted to read chapter 3 today too, but it’s very long, and I’m very tired.
The story is really surprising, every time I think I know in which direction it’s going to go, it ends up being completely different.
I love it very much, could easily be my favourite read of July.
There’s a couple of Korean releases I’m looking forward to: Hope (movie) and the East Palace (series). Hope is a theatre release and the East Palace is on Netflix.
I feel like I’ll love Hope, but I’m not sure about the East Palace. I’ll definitely be giving it a try!
I caught up on birthday mails! I remember saying I would not let them pile up and study them on their release day, but I’m unable to keep small resolutions like this haha. 
The second chapter was so engrossing! Now positions and motives are clear, I’m really looking forward to see how the plot will unfold!
我认为，人的一生应当有两次出生—一自然的出生与灵魂的出生。在世界赋予的生命和你自己选择的生命之间，应该有一种自我认知的仪式。有意识地选择自己的生命与意义，而不是无意识任凭因偶然性而诞生的生命在这个世界随波逐流⋯ 这即是认识到自己『灵魂』的过程。
— Alain
The patch has been live for two weeks now, and I still have to do the third chapter of the event and finish the management game, which could take me one more week.
So it means I’ll only have the second half of the patch to do the WQ and explore the new region (still haven’t touched any of those).
I made a lot of progress on the management game, I really like it!
It feels so strange to see Columbina with eyes opened for so long!
I played through chapter 2 today! Not my favourite part of the event… I liked Sandrone at the beginning of the AQ, or in pair with Columbina, but I kind of get easily bored when we’re alone with her…
因为过程中所获得的东西会留下，它们是独一无二且无可替代的
— Lumine
Wow, this novel is so great! I really enjoy reading it 
Overall I really liked this series!
All the actors were excellent, and the characters personalities were complex enough to make them feel like real persons rather than drama tropes.
I also really loved how the series handled flashbacks and how it constantly tricked the spectator by hiding information that were revealed later on, giving a completely new interpretation to what happened.
There are one or two things I didn’t like as much, like the two chases scenes felt a bit off in style compared to the rest of the series, and some characters’ positions shifted a bit abruptly in the second half, but these are minor details.
| Word | Reading | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 閉路電視 | bì lù diàn shì | closed-circuit television |
I finished the first chapter, and I loved it!
I don’t know in which direction it will go, but it’s very good so far.
追蹤手帶: Electronic Tracking Wristbands
Used in Hong Kong during covid to enforce mandatory home quarantine for person who tested positive, close contacts to covid patients and people arriving from overseas. It’s connected to an app and can detect when the person is living their quarantine place, alerting the authorities.
People arriving to Hong Kong had to wear it.
There’s a newspaper excerpt right at the beginning that looks like it’s a picture pasted in the text, it’s hardly readable on e-reader. I had to take a picture of the page, so that I could zoom in on the picture to read the text.
It’s so annoying when this kind of things are not optimised for digital reading…
