Read-in-Progress Wednesday

[geraineon]

This is your weekly read-in-progress post

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>

<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*

Comments

[halfcactus]

Cnovel-adjacent—I picked up Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders because it was on sale on the Switch store for $2 and am enjoying it so far! It's a point-and-click game so it's probably better on a computer (it's also on Steam). The intro case was very short and had an obvious murderer (I mean, the cover art alone is already a giveaway), but I'm pretty interested in seeing how it goes! The pixel art is really so charming and hits my costume drama buttons.

Screencaps

[aurumcalendula]

That looks cool!

[geraineon]

I think I might have this game somewhere on one of my game accounts...

How long is the game?

[halfcactus]

Less than 7 hours for me! I felt like I got my money's worth, at least.

[llonkrebboj]

Just binged 灭世boss们的软肋 | The Weakness of World-Ending Bosses in 24 hours on a /weekday/ 🥹 You'll never guess how it ends (it made me LOL while tearing up - and I couldn't help wondering if it was written in response to certain events in 2025).

Author was definitely having fun with the novel transmigration trope with an entire bureau dedicated to managing these dangerous activities, specialized teams and safety regulations. We follow them on one particular crisis through some absurd situations. At 93k, this a relatively short story, but the pacing is great and the writing of characters and Situations is so genre aware and charming. It felt like a much longer story. 🤣 I loved it!

[lessonsinescapology]

How does it end? You made me curious XD

[lessonsinescapology]

Reading "Yun Chu Ling" by Zhao Yun Zi because it will be made into a drama. It's an entertaining novel with good pacing but I'm not sure I buy the central premise it's based on: FL raises her husband's illegitimate children and the novel says they are all evil and ungrateful and kill her in the end because she is not their biological mother.

There are many issues that are questionable in this novel so bear that in mind if you read it.

[geraineon]

Hm, that is pretty hard to believe but if the novel can build it up enough, maybe? How old are these children? Did she raise them from birth or when they're older, and do they have relatives who might try to influence?

[lessonsinescapology]

5 children, a mix of boys and girls. I can buy that the eldest son is bad because his personality is cold and calculating but the rest could have been salvaged. She raised the youngest son from birth and even took him to a great physician but the reader is told he agrees to kill her later on without any reasons or foreshadowing.

I think what bothers me most is this emphasis that having a blood tie, her own biological children are found later and she loves them from first sight ala magical sensing that they're hers, is the only way to be loved or for a mother to guarantee that her children will be filial to her.

[larryhammer]

I returned to and read a handful of chapters of Taiyang Jun's The Dragon (it looks like the MC is finally starting to get a clue about not being such a brat) before getting distracted (I realized that Senescent Soul's Delve had 60 chapters posted since I last checked on it, and it turns out I don't remember nearly enough to continue onward, so I started over from the beginning). Oops.

[geraineon]

What is Delve about?

Has happened to me lots of times before too, so I try to read only completed novels.

[larryhammer]

I very, very rarely read unfinished books/translations/series/manga. It takes having a special quality to tempt me into it (:points at icon:).

[duckprintspress]

I finished the main story of Don't You Like Me and now I'm reading the extras.

[geraineon]

Any novels lined up for reading after Don't You Like Me?

[duckprintspress]

Yes, I've started The Beauty's Blade! and then I've got an English novel, and then I'll be reading Dawning by ICE.

I also have crossed the one-third point on 盗墓笔记。I'm getting faster at it!

[dayadhvam_triad]

Still reading 穿越成宋徽宗公主, which wrapped up its main storyline with the protag officially becoming empress regnant (YEAHHHH but after much pain struggle & death ;__;), and has now entered into the lengthy but less-stressful, less-character-death-heavy aftermath to tie up lots of loose subplots. Really enjoying a running gag ft. this one minister being described as a human LLM, who once prompted by the princess-turned-empress will crank out the means and language to address issues the court's trying to resolve; the "training" is especially effective when she brings out another minister's name who is LLM's good friend pseudo-morality pet and he instantly kicks into high gear to Solve^TM while keeping his friend out of the muck. honestly it's so much funnier than my description here orz

Other than that I've mainly been reading historical crack-premise RPF... XD;

[geraineon]

LLM and morality pet xD love that

What historical RPF have you been reading lately?

[silverblade219]

Reading more of Peerless, now up to volume 5. I am really impressed by this series, the dynamic between the two main characters is great. (Though one minor thing - I don't really like the gu/illusion aspect of this current case). The storyline between Cui Buqu and Qiao Xian was great also, and Feng Xiao's interactions with his subordinates are always fun.

[duckprintspress]

there were def some parts of the last book that had me a little ? but not enough to detract from my overall enjoyment, so I'll be curious what you think when you finish!

[silverblade219]

I really liked it! I still thought the gu plotline was odd, but (spoilers?)*I don't think Xiao Lu would have overextended himself at that specific moment without it, and I really enjoyed the last confrontation between him and Cui Buqu. I also thought that the plotline with the second Duchess Yuwen was foreshadowed well enough, but didn't get as much page time in comparison.

I also loved the hilarity of Feng Xiao deciding to cut off all his hair and how his disguises always work til the moment he opens his mouth to talk. For Cui Buqu, I thought it was significant that even though he got a cure to extend his life, his chronic illness was not cured*

I really liked how the both the main story line and the romance thread got resolved also! I am really curious about how Feng Xiao and Cui Buqu respond to the Sui Dynasty eventual decline, though the extras don't go that far to showcase that (unlike Thousand Autumns' extras, which covered a larger time frame)

As a small tangent, the glossaries have been reduced for the more recent titles, but I liked how Thousand Autumns marked which characters were historical and which were fictional - unfortunate that was not included for the Peerless one.

I hope more Meng Xi Shi novels get licensed eventually also.

[geraineon]

+1 I wish more MXS novels get licensed (while also crossing my fingers that the novels get quality translation)

[duckprintspress]

Same, I keep begging for 14th Year of Chenghua.

[duckprintspress]

Yeah, I've been a little sad with how they've cut back the back-matter. I imagine it's a cost-saving measure, sigh.

I'm already forgetting details, cause it's been about six months since I finished reading Peerless, but I also really liked that confrontation, but overall wished that some of the other plotlines had gotten a bit more breathing room at the end. I especially wished we'd gotten a bit more Cui Buqu's subordinate who was driven off? I'm blanking on her name. And her relationship with Feng Xiao's subordinate. That felt like it kinda got dropped.

I read up a bit on the history of that dynasty and yeah, I wondered that too! Like, it's all so short-lived, they fight so hard and to know this is basically the only dynastic generation when they're in power... it's a little sad. But I'm sure Cui Buqu and Feng Xiao would figure something out - maybe take long-deserved vacations, lol.

And yeah it meant so much to me that there was no magical perfect cure.

[silverblade219]

Yeah, I was hoping for more focus / resolution for the other plotlines, but as with Thousand Autumns I wonder if that ambiguity is somewhat intentional on MXS part. It would have been nice to have more extras though; last night I came across this mention of a new extra in 2025, do you know if that is the bonus story that is in the English edition or if it is something else?

Qiao Xian was great and I was hoping her storyline would get picked up again, but glad at the brief cameo in the extra that showed that she eventually gets back her original role at Cui Buqu's side. The relationship with Pei Jingzhe (Feng Xiao's subordinate) and her seemed more one sided on his part, though the last scenes between them seemed to make it more of a potential going forward. Speaking of Feng Xiao's subordinates, I loved that he quietly added *Qin Miaoyu* to his department also.

Regarding the shortness of the dynasty, I feel like that came up indirectly a few times in an interesting way also in the arguments between the pavilion leaders and Cui Buqu. The Pavilion leaders seemed to be on the side of based on divination, since it won't last long we should replace it already; while Cui Buqu and Feng Xiao are more on the side of it might be short lived but it is still important that it exists. The moments of doubt and guilt that the Emperor has adds more nuisance than his scenes in Thousand Autumns also.

Now I really wonder what a vacation for Cui Buqu and Feng Xiao will end up looking like lol.

[duckprintspress]

I think they'll find a new place to happily squabble and scheme, even when "on vacation," and I love that for them.