Diary

I decided to finish the second chapter after all, it’s crazy how slowly I’m reading this. The last pages of this chapter were quite difficult to read…

There’s a long combat scene I found quite hard to understand in this chapter, I’m going to study it and add expressions to my flashcards!

I talked to the 烈不尽烈不尽liè bù jìnLie Bujin河山如故A man who knows about the Northern Yan Alliance treasure but doesn’t want to attack the stronghold up front and instead hopes to stir trouble to get his hands on the treasure.(liè bù jìn) and 烈不灭烈不灭liè bù mièLie Bumie河山如故Descendant of the Northern Yan Alliance who has been kidnapped by the Long Hu Zhai and tortured. He didn’t reveal anything about the treasure and keeps repeating the oath.(liè bù miè) again, so they really were brothers! Their father was a soldier of the 燕北盟Organisation燕北盟yàn běi méngNorthern Yan Alliance河山如故The Northern Yan Alliance once defending Qinghe against the Khitan Southern invasions, holding out against the Khitan cavalry for month in a fortified city (only ruins remain now, the 北盟遗址). Even though the fortress fell, the warriors of the Alliance managed to chase the Khitan army out of the Central Plains. Members of Alliance swore the Oath of Yanyun (燕云誓): 山河寸土，誓死不易, vowing to defend the land with their life.世界山河寸血，誓死不易。驱逐北虏，收复燕云。 · 945年 开运二年势力介绍世界 ›(yàn běi méng) and died during the battle. They both lament that the names of the fallen heroes are unknown, and I gave them the blood oath covenant I found in the secret chamber. The name of their father is there, but not the one they call Uncle Cui 崔叔, and that’s where the mystery of the missing name resurfaces.

His name is Cui Xiaojin. He is their father’s sworn brother and they are closer than family. He joined the Alliance together with their father but his whereabouts are unknown and he has been accused of desertion. If his name was on the list, this would have cleared him of these accusations, but his name is missing. Deserter or not, the Lie brothers want to find him and ask me to talk to him if I find him during my travels.

Revelations in this chapter were even more surprising than the previous one!!

I finished the third story, this one was my favourite so far, I loved that the mystery was in the fiction and the characters were trying to solve it by looking at the text.

The document found in the secret room states that 120 soldiers gathered to fight against the Khitans, but only 119 took the Oath. Isn’t it strange?

I finally continued Odette’s story and unlocked the agenda thing!

This echoes her story, when she was still a child and said:

我能做到。

and Rosalyne’s reply to it:

那就跟上来吧，让我们看看你多久会放弃。

After reading her story, I understand her determination better. It feels like a big responsibility to take care of her agenda, I hope I won’t mess up anything (but it’s Genshin, so nothing bad can happen I guess).

Will she really come to Snezhnaya? They do talk about real past events, so it feels like what they plan for the future could happen too, and with the traveler’s tales it’s easy to set up now.

This really was 惊人之语! Second volume has been breathtakingly suspenseful until now, and things are getting even more interesting! I also ended on a cliffhanger, but I won’t break the rule: one chapter per day!

I’m also really glad we finally got to see more of the braided girl, Sun Xiaohong .

Before their duel, Guo Songyang had said that being killed by someone as worthy as Li Xunhuan would be 死而无憾, and now facing Sun Xiaohong, the register has shifted to the drinking competition, but retained the same vocabulary, like choosing the place and time. I really love this passage!

Just read a few pages today, but it’s better than nothing. As in the first chapter, we’re spending a lot of time talking about characters that are not actual characters in the novel (they are talked about, but they don’t appear), and they’re also not clearly linked to what is at stake (though, this is the whole point, we don’t know what is at stake, nor how important these characters are in the big plot). So for now, I don’t find the beginning of this chapter all that engaging, and adding the language difficulty, I’ll probably take quite some time to read.

The second short story was so great, I loved it more than the first one. One reason is probably that I prefer character-driven stories rather than pure puzzles, and I really like the character of George. The mystery was very good too!

I just started the side quest 河山如故, it starts with a conversation with 烈不尽烈不尽liè bù jìnLie Bujin河山如故A man who knows about the Northern Yan Alliance treasure but doesn’t want to attack the stronghold up front and instead hopes to stir trouble to get his hands on the treasure.(liè bù jìn) who is looking for the treasure of the 燕北盟Organisation燕北盟yàn běi méngNorthern Yan Alliance河山如故The Northern Yan Alliance once defending Qinghe against the Khitan Southern invasions, holding out against the Khitan cavalry for month in a fortified city (only ruins remain now, the 北盟遗址). Even though the fortress fell, the warriors of the Alliance managed to chase the Khitan army out of the Central Plains. Members of Alliance swore the Oath of Yanyun (燕云誓): 山河寸土，誓死不易, vowing to defend the land with their life.世界山河寸血，誓死不易。驱逐北虏，收复燕云。 · 945年 开运二年势力介绍世界 ›(yàn běi méng). He says that the bandits from the 龙虎寨Organisation龙虎寨lóng hǔ zhàiDragon Tiger Stronghold河山如故A group of bandits settled in the Ruins of the old Northern Alliance stronghold. They chased Jin Chunniang and her son Jin Xiaobao, robbed the Tang family, and kidnapped a descendant of the Northern Yan Alliance to get their hands on a treasure that belonged to the Alliance.世界世界 ›(lóng hǔ zhài) have captured a descendant of the Alliance, and that person supposedly knows about the treasure.

Finished it! Another book from my physical TBR read!

What a chapter! Both the discussion and the duel were so intense!

I just read 13 pages of the second part, and I feel exhausted… this book is really hard to read! The beginning of the chapter sets the character we are going to talk about as well as the economical context that forged her. I still haven’t finished this introductory part, which feels quite long (probably because it takes me so long to read each page…).

I initially wanted to progress a bit more in the second chapter, but I might not have the courage.

I met Xiao Pingan 小平安 and displayed my mastery of 无名剑法. This child sounds like a scam haha. Next skill to display was 积矩九剑, which I already learnt, but he said we’ll continue the next time we meet.

Some of what he said was much too difficult for me, but I guess it’s fine not to understand everything, studying this in detail would take too much time, like I think there are several quotations, for example, this comes from the Daodejing, but he mixes up the last part, which is quite funny, but completely out of reach for me, unless I look things up.

弄巧若拙 does not exist, Xiao Ping’an mixes up (I mean, purposely set a trap to test our knowledge of classical idioms) two different expressions:

This is actually quite funny, it’s so sad to think that I’m probably constantly missing puns and humour because my Chinese is not good enough… Anyway, the main point is that he has 绝学 juéxué, a peerless martial technique passed down through generations that would end with him because he cannot practice martial arts (at least, that’s what he says…)

I never completed this encounter in my first play, so I’m looking forward to see what’s next, and whether there really is a secret martial art to be learnt (I kind of doubt it though!).

I finished the first part, it’s difficult to read, but interesting. You can tell it’s not just about writing a book, and it feels like the narrator is hiding something. The first part was a conversation between the two protagonists, I wonder if this is going to be the structure for the whole book, or if it will change. It’s interesting to see who is actually pulling the strings, who is manipulating the other and who decides the direction the conversation takes.

Xunhuan’s attitude towards Shiyin is so annoying and frustrating to read.

Another confusing simplification. Traditional has 鵰 for “vulture”, but Simplified Chinese uses 雕 for both vulture and carving. The meaning of this expression is much more obvious in traditional. It’s like 神鵰俠侶 vs 神雕侠侣.

I love it when a bunch of new characters are introduced!

Oh no, the beginning was not easy to read… I even thought for a second of putting it aside and read something else instead.

But tackling difficult books is also a way to improve, and the beginning might be the most difficult part. I hope it gets easier… Anyway, only read a few pages, but I need a break already! Start is very engaging though, I like it.

Halfway through! I find this quite entertaining.

When I played the first time, I had no idea that 冯继升冯继升féng jì shēngFeng Jisheng第一章·神仙不渡A disciple of the Wenjin Pavilion (文津馆) who came to Qinghe on orders and who trained in archery under his senior martial brother Tian Ying. After Tian Ying departed, he spent over a decade developing the wondrous martial art technique known as Halting the Depths and Calming the Waters (停渊止水). He is loosely based on a real Song official who presented a fire arrow method 火箭法 to the Emperor, using gunpowder on the arrow.中国古代火箭baike.baidu.com↗(féng jì shēng) was 田英田英tián yīngTian Ying义士yì shìrighteous man第一章·神仙不渡A disciple or follower (门人) of Wei, described as an honorable and righteous man (义士). He obtained a certain item, risked his life to deliver a message, and ended up trapped in Southern Tang.(tián yīng)’s disciple. It’s fine to just play the dialogues, but reading everything does bring more lore and the experience is even more enjoyable. I think that’s how I’m going to play the game, slow and thorough, to make the most out of the story and the world building. I really hope that reading Gu Long and playing WWM will end up paying off in terms of vocabulary and simply being more confortable with classical-sounding Chinese.

I really like this expression! Valuing a worn-out broom because it your own.

I did Vesna’s anecdote, it was so funny! It’s cool that it’s a sequel to Vodyanitsa’s.

This passage was so funny, but so many new words too! I only knew 交头接耳. As often, the meaning is easy to guess, but I’m adding them to my flashcards.

I really love Han Lin-Tzu, this volume was so so great…

This new storyline is so so intriguing!

The first story was very good, both the mystery and the solution, as well as the last twist.

I think that overall I’m not a huge fan of this kind of puzzle-solving mysteries, but this one was very good, and it works well as short story too.

I read Vodyanitsa character story 1, and it was so hard to read… lore heavy too, so I had to look up characters in the wiki, and ended up reading the story in English. Character stories are one of the most difficult things to read in game to me, but this one was particularly difficult. I hope the next episodes will be easier.

I can’t believe I really did finish it today! I found the story more engaging at some point, but the last two chapters confirmed that the book was not for me to begin with.

This volume is so great, even better than the first one! It was the perfect read to unwind today.

The event has ended… it was so great! I loved it! Gameplay is about close to zero, but it was fun to try to predict the outcome and watch the match. I also really liked the live aspect of it and the competition format.

The book is really fast-paced now.

Wow, this chapter was so depressing…

Beginning is really great! I’m also remembering things from the first volume while reading.

Just one unknown word!
It’s so cool to know they’re meeting again

So many twists in a single chapter!! It’s so suspenseful!

The last short story really took me by surprise. I was expecting the last chapter to explain the circumstances that led Cheng Chung-fan to quit the police, so I was happy to see that it was the case. However, Chung-fan is such a nice character, and the stories are all quite positive, so I thought that even if he went against the law, it would be for noble reasons like hiding evidence to save an innocent from being falsely accused or something like that. So i’m really shocked by the end.

I wonder if reading this story first would have affected the way I saw the character and all the other stories. And I think the answer is yes, a little. I think that I personally would have preferred the reverse reading experience: know Cheng Chung-fan’s past first, then read his recent adventures. It’s funny to think that this could have been possible given that the last story was published previously.

Anyway, I don’t know if there are other books with Cheng Chung-fan, I’ll have to check. I would be interested in reading more!

I finished chapter 2… I don’t like this novel at all, it feels like jumping from scene to scene, but it lacks an underlying thread or structure, something that would make the novel compelling. Everything feels very shallow to me.

I really like this event! I had some good bets, some bad ones too, but now that we’ve reached the quater-finals things get much more interesting since we already saw each team performance once, so betting is much more strategic now

I already got all the rewards which were easy to get, so it’s just for fun. I just need to remember to do it every day, thankfully my husband reminds me.

I feel like the snow and the overall atmosphere of Snezhnaya would give a completely different vibe to Xinyan’s rock. She’s herself contrasting the fire of her music (我的摇滚之火) with the world of ice and snow (冰天雪地) that is Snezhnaya, wondering what new melodies it will ignite (燃烧).

Started chapter 2, and yes I think it’s going to be a not for me kind of book… The direction it’s taking is not really what I was expecting when buying the book. It reads easily though and is entertaining, so I’ll continue, but I probably should not have picked this one.

I started the last chapter. I personally can’t understand Ching-ching’s decision.

I’m just 1/4 into the novel, that’s crazy. So many things have happened already!
This chapter was also very suspenseful, but how did A Fei learnt to imitate Plum Blossom Bandit’s signature strike so quick?

I think that overall, I like this one less than the last two books I read by this author.

I finished the second chapter of the Selenic Chronicles. Once a month I remember that I still haven’t finished those… I really like how many diverse activities there are, I just always forget to do them.

So now I finally have the card name

沁凉 qìnliáng must describe something refreshing like “soakingly” cool.

It took me a second to remember who 勒拉 is. It feels so long ago…
Also, I’m not quite sure I understand what a 原创互动解谜游戏装置 is supposed to be? Maybe it’s a reference to something I’m supposed to know from Natlan (a device?) but Natlan was when I first switched the game to Chinese and there’s a lot of things I didn’t understand and didn’t even try to.

Finished chapter 1 which was quite short.

The beginning was great and I like the plot, it sounds very intriguing. But I also feel like this is not a novel I’m going to really love. But it’s too early of course, just my initial feeling.

Halfway through!
This die or pass the curse on thing reminds me of It Follows directed by David Robert Mitchell. I really loved the idea of the film, I found it very unsettling.

This passage was so well written. The fact that we learn the latest developments through the storyteller instead of living them first-hand with Li Xunhuan’s point of view makes the reader even more eager and impatient to know what will happen next, like the audience listening to the story.

There’s a scene describing how people gather to listen to the storyteller:

听着这些江湖豪杰、武林奇侠的故事，不知不觉就会将自己和故事中的人物融为一体，心头的积郁也就在不知不觉中发泄了。

Isn’t that exactly why we read Gu Long?

I finished the fourth story! This one was quite nice and moving. I found the awkward position of Cheng Chung-fan very interesting, and I really loved the end, though Hu I-hsiu seems a bit too perfect to be true.