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I looked at Cheng Heguang’s kit, on the one hand, it is much simpler than Liangyue’s, but on the other hand, it’s still very difficult to understand to me… Like, even in English, it’s not because I read a kit once that I know how to play the character, but it’s worse in Chinese. It’s not even a vocab problem, because I already knew most of the words in his kit, it’s just that I read everything and have no idea of what he does appart from buffing and dealing some damage? Maybe I’m just stupid ^^’

Someone borrowed one of my characters! It could be Getian P3, Charon P3, or Ezio P5. Maybe I should replace Getian with Liangyue P3, she has her euphoria, her skin and her Resonance is maxed too. With the release of Cheng Heguang, people might want to try her before deciding whether to pull on the true-limited rerun banner.

Cheng Heguang came home at soft pity! Now I need to read and study his kit in Chinese, build him (3/60/10 for now I think), and learn how to play him with Liangyue. Which reminds me that I still haven’t entirely studied Liangyue’s euphoria (her kit is such a pain to read TT). As for the voicelines, I’ll study them when the audio is available on the wiki, I don’t know exactly when they’re uploaded, but it might take two patches still.

I finished Getian’s anecdote, I loved it, though it left me melancholic. I understand now why he has his anecdote this patch, the story beautifully echoes the themes of the event story, but from a completely different perspective.

I’m not a fan of the new anecdote format though… it’s just reading, I Iiked the older one much more.

I opened Where Winds Meet for the first time in ages. I didn’t know what to do so I started chapter 2 of the main story, looks lime I’ll finally go to Kaifeng.
Chinese is so so so hard in this game. I’m proud of my progress, but every time I play WWM I feel like I never left the beginner level. As usual, so many menus and notifications I only half understand, I love how lively the world is and all the NPCs talking in the street, but I understand nothing of what they say. As for the main story, it’s okayish because a lot happens on screen, so even without understanding much of the dialogues, you can kind of follow. But it’s so overwhelming… I need a break.
Oh and I thought my guild would definitely have kicked me out, but I’m still there <3

I finished the first short story, カザリとヨーコ. I wasn’t expecting something so depressing to start the collection, but it was very good, and I loved the end very much. Very easy to read too. In the end, the character of the mother was an interesting one, but it’s not the focus of the story. I wish we knew more about her, and there are still some questions left unanswered.

My top 7 Xiao is now top 8! Someone, somewhere, has upgraded their Xiao’s artifacts ^^.
(I still have some dust left…)

I don’t pull all the true limited characters, but Paper Heron was a must pull! I never played the Star Impromptu team, so Impromptu is a new mechanic to me!

I’m starting ZOO1!

I listened to the first short story: 可爱的猿猴日记 by 乙一, and I was able to follow quite well! I don’t know why it felt so difficult the first time, maybe I was just not focused enough. Alright, so 杀死玛丽苏 is officially my current audiobook!

Linnea’s kit was not difficult to read at all. I learnt how to say “hit” (it’s for Lumi hitting with her hammer) and “million tones” lol.

One of the many audiobooks I started and gave up because it was too difficult is: 杀死玛丽苏, the Chinese translation of メアリー・スーを殺して by Otsuichi and other authors. My idea was to find this book in Japanese and read as my next Jp book, but I couldn’t find a digital version, and I don’t want to buy physical books if possible. So I gave up on the idea (but did by another Otsuichi book instead!). But I think I should try again with the audiobook. I could go slowly and repeat passages that I didn’t understand. I can also consult the book, because it’s available on Weixin Dushu alongside the audiobook. I’ll start again at the beginning.

I chose my next book in Japanese: ZOO1 by 乙一. I have never read this author before, so it’s a first!

I’m going to DNF ゲームの世界に転生した俺が○○になるまで 1. Unfortunately, I’ve been in a reading slump/busy period, and I haven’t touched this book for maybe two weeks now. I think it’s a great book, but I didn’t vibe with the protagonist at all. Generally speaking, I can’t feel any attachment to any of the characters, but for カリヤ, I just don’t really like his general attitude.. I don’t know, it’s just a personal feeling. I like the world and it was very fun to read about the parallels between the world and the game, but it’s not enough to keep me in the book. If I hadn’t been in a reading slump lately, I probably would have pushed myself to finish it, but first, after a long break I really don’t feel like going back to it, and second, I’m pretty sure I won’t continue the series, so going through all the world building in the first volume to then stop feels a bit of a waste.

I finished the main story! It was difficult to follow in Chinese, especially all the taoist/spiritual things, I can’t say I understood everything. Overall, I’d say I understood maybe 75% of what was said? Whereas a typical Genshin story would be closer to 95%? I liked the story overall, but it’s not my favourite, I much preferred last year’s Chinese New Year’s story with Liangyue.

I understood almost everything that Reed said, and Huigu was also rather easy. Cheng Heguang and Li shoubei were okayish, though there was a lot of vocabulary related to official duties, rank, etc. And Cheng Heguang uses a lot of chengyu. Lusi Jian and Ren Xianren were by far the most difficult to understand. Lusi Jian uses a lot of classical expressions, her Chinese was the most challenging. And Ren Xianren was mostly talking about taoist stuff that I would have found difficult to entirely grasp in English too anyway.

I’m looking forward to Cheng Heguang’s banner! I’ll pull a copy for Liangyue, and then save to P5 Charon.

A prosecutor sees ghosts and is introduced to a mysterious law firm that opens at night ran by a lawyer who tries to bring justice to these lingering souls. The idea is that people who have been killed cannot find peace in the afterworld as long as their killer has not been prosecuted.
This adds a new layer to the case, because seeing a victim linger in our world when their case is solved, means it’s probably a wrongful conviction. I liked both the plot and the way supernatural elements were integrated into it.
At the same time, I don’t know what’s happening with Japanese novels, but since the beginning of the year, I’ve had a hard time feeling involved in the novels I’ve read in Japanese. I think the problem comes from me rather than the book, but I found that it lacked something to make it an exciting read. There’s no real investigation, and I felt disconnected from the case and the characters involved, it felt like someone was telling me the story, instead of me living the story through the novel?
Given the plot and the topics (I love legal thrillers, crime investigations and wrongful convictions is one of my favourite topics too), I should have loved this novel, but I didn’t… So I think it’s time for me to take a break in mystery novels in Japanese and try other genres.

When I read collections of short stories, I never expect to love every single story, but I did with this book! They were all very diverse in topic, but every time I felt immediately drawn into the story and involved in the character’s fate.
I’m amazed at how diverse the stories are, we have a character spying on phone communications in the military, a woman paying an actor to act as her father during a pre-marriage meeting with the other party, a zombie outbreak, an unscrupulous private detective, and even a legal battle to prove legitimate defence in a murder case.
As much as I loved each story, I did find that the end was often a bit underwhelming. The story often found a smooth resolution rather than having a more striking ending that would leave a strong impression or be more dramatic? Maybe that’s just my personal taste, I still think the collection is excellent and it belongs to my favourite books this month.

I loved the first volume of this series, FIX, so much, that I really didn’t think a second volume could be as good, but it was! The second volume is similar to the first one: we follow writers as they struggle with their writings, sometimes forcing a plot on their characters which had the consequence to turn an innocent into the culprit.
In the first volume, they were helped by a mysterious A-kui, but in this one, they are helped by someone else (often a friend). I personally found this even more interesting than A-kui’s contributions in the first volume, because it gave a whole new dimension to the stories. In the first volume, we were following the fiction written by the authors (which was always a good mystery in itself!), and how the author would fix their writing and find the right path (which sometimes involved finding the real culprit in their own work). But now, the relationship between the author and the other person helping them is also a topic in itself, and I really loved seeing how working on a fiction often made them closer.
The types of fiction present in the collection were also very diverse, from manga to video games, with each their own challenges.
I really wish both FIX and FIX2 were translated into English, they’re both unique collections!